Illinois's TANF Caseload Remains Among Lowest in Nation

The National Conference on State Legislatures (NCSL) recently put Illinois on its “TANF watch list” because Illinois is one of only two states to have increased their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) caseload over the past year. The NCSL’s designation became a political issue at a recent Illinois Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the pending request of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) for a supplemental appropriation to cover, in part, costs arising from the unanticipated growth in the TANF caseload. The Blagojevich administration was criticized for increasing welfare dependency when welfare use is falling virtually everywhere else.

The NCSL had reported in the March 9, 2005 issue of Welfare Caseload Watch that Illinois’s TANF caseload grew by 10.8 percent between January 2004 and January 2005. During this time the number of families on TANF increased by just over 4,000 families, from 38,300 to 42,429 families.

While the NCSL report highlights the recent growth in the Illinois TANF caseload, the report also contains historical data and analysis that put Illinois’s modest recent TANF caseload growth in context. Over the past ten years, Illinois has reduced its TANF caseload by 82.4 percent, from a 1994 average of 241,339 families to 42,429 families in January 2005. Thus the past year’s increase of 4,000 families represents only 2 percent of the past decade’s decrease in the TANF caseload of 200,000 families.

Moreover, Illinois ranks third in the nation in TANF caseload reduction since 1994, even with the past year’s modest increase. Illinois has reduced its TANF caseload far more than comparable states. Among Midwestern states, while Illinois has reduced its TANF caseload by 82 percent since 1994, Indiana has reduced its caseload by 37 percent, Missouri by 49 percent, Michigan by 64 percent, and Wisconsin by 72 percent. Among states of comparable sizes, while Illinois has reduced its TANF caseload by 82 percent since 1994, Pennsylvania has reduced its caseload by 52 percent, Ohio and Texas by 66 percent, and Florida by 73 percent. The NCSL and others compare 1994 caseloads with current caseloads because state TANF block grants are based on 1994 spending levels.

Illinois’s modest caseload growth over the past year is comparable to increases in other states during the worst of the national recession in 2001–2002, when Illinois’s caseload was still falling. According to the NCSL, Illinois is in the middle of the pack when its current TANF caseload is compared with the month when its caseload was at a historic low.

The policies that produced historic TANF caseload reductions remain in effect. There have been no program changes that would account for the recent caseload growth. The only program change of consequence—removal of the family cap on children born after January 1, 2004—accounts for no more than 15 percent of the added TANF funds requested as part of the supplemental appropriation, according to IDHS.

The past year’s modest and historically insignificant increase in the TANF caseload is the product of real, dire need in Illinois, where 373,000 more people live in poverty than in 2000, an increase of 31 percent.

Illinois’s TANF program continues to serve a smaller percentage of the poor than the TANF programs in other Midwestern states. Although Illinois has the highest poverty rate in the Midwest, it has the lowest percentage of poor families that receive TANF. Just 18 percent of Illinois families in poverty receive TANF, compared with Wisconsin with 27 percent, Michigan with 43 percent, Missouri with 46 percent, and Indiana with 60 percent.

As a temporary measure IDHS recently transferred $9.8 million from the child care budget to cover TANF shortfalls. IDHS should uphold its commitment to restore these funds to the child care program. There is no longer a direct correlation between spending on the TANF and child care programs. According to the Illinois Families Study, TANF recipients are as likely as working poor, non-TANF families to receive child care assistance so that they can work or participate in required work-related activities. This is to be expected since the number of families that are in poverty and are neither working nor on welfare has more than doubled in recent years.

Welfare and child care advocacy organizations are calling for increased TANF funding to meet the recent growth in need and for restoration of the funds temporarily transferred from the child care program. These organizations include Action for Children, Chicago Jobs Council, Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Voices for Illinois Children, and Work, Welfare, and Families.

For more information, contact Dan Lesser at 312.368.2005.