How States Spend TANF Funds
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant provides $16.5 billion annually in federal funding to states. States may use TANF funds (as well as their own maintenance of effort funds) for a broad set of programs that seek to reduce poverty, improve child welfare, provide employment training, and address the specific needs of their communities.
States reported using TANF funds across several spending categories:
- Assistance spending--which includes cash payments to needy families
- Non-assistance spending--which includes other benefits and services, such as employment training
- Categories containing both assistance and non-assistance spending--which includes child care
- Transfers to other block grants--which includes transfers to the Child Care and Development Fund or Social Services Block Grant
- Program management--which includes administrative costs
About this interactive:
The graphic below shows trends in TANF spending in the United States (overall) from FY 2015-2022. You can filter this graphic by selecting a spending category: assistance, non-assistance, or transfers to other block grants.
Use the States index below to see TANF spending by state, and the Categories index to see TANF spending by category.
How TANF Dollars Were Spent in United States (overall), FYs 2015-2022
Note: Total state TANF spending includes both expenditures and transfers for federal TANF funds and expenditures of state maintenance of effort funds, as reported by states in Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Form ACF-196R. While TANF’s authorizing legislation provides states $16.5 billion in fixed federal TANF funding, state spending may vary from year to year as states spend different amounts of maintenance of effort funds, receive and spend federal Contingency Funds, and spend unspent federal funds carried over from previous years or retain these funds for future use.
For more information and definitions of the spending categories for the United States (overall), click here.
Categories Index
Assistance Authorized Solely Under Prior Law
Work, Education, and Training Activities
Categories Containing Both Assistance and Non-assistance Spending
Total Transfers to Block Grants
Transfers to Child Care and Development Fund
Transfers to Social Services Block Grant