New Findings Show Direct Link between Loss of TANF Benefits and Children Suffering

Significant findings that document a relationship between loss of TANF benefits and children suffering from ill health and inadequate food in their homes have just been published by a group of medical researchers. Pediatricians and other researchers conducted a six-city study of the impact of TANF sanctions on the health of infants and toddlers (under age 3) and found that children in families that lost benefits because of non-compliance with TANF rules were more likely to have been hospitalized and to go without food compared with families that did not lose benefits. The findings have been published in the July 2002 edition of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (http://dcc2.bumc.bu.edu/csnappublic/Welfaresanctions.htm)

The policy implications of these findings are directly related to TANF decisions now before Congress. The final TANF bill should:

• reject mandating full family sanctions.
• retain the Senate Finance Committee work hours; increasing the hours of work required beyond the Finance Committee's 30 per week will push more troubled families into non-compliance and loss of benefits. As a result, their children will suffer.
• provide for assessments of family need by qualified individuals—identifying problems like disability or substance abuse that if untreated make families unable to comply with TANF rules and thus more likely to be sanctioned.
• count the services that help to overcome such problems towards the work requirement; include such services in individualized plans aimed at helping families to be work-ready, and don't penalize families when needed services are not available.
• increase the incentives for states to raise family incomes through such strategies as wage subsidies, since these researchers found that lost TANF benefits, even in families with earnings, were associated with lack of food and child hospital admissions.

Project name: Children's Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program: C - SNAP. Sites: Baltimore, Boston, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Washington, DC.