The program that most closely aligns with the conventional notion of “welfare” in the sense of providing cash income to low-income families – is the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. These programs are not drivers of increased government spending (see chart). Spending on cash and near-cash transfer programs to low-income families comprises less than 5 percent of the federal budget.Since welfare reform in the mid-1990s, federal transfer programs provide very little aid by way of cash assistance to non-working adults. How much does the federal government spend on welfare assistance to low-income individuals? What are the existing eligibility criteria to qualify for these programs? And, what evidence is there for negative employment impacts of these programs? Yet social insurance programs are a much larger share of the federal budget and have been seeing steady increases in the populations they serve, potentially having negative impacts on employment. At the same time, social insurance programs including Disability Insurance have been relatively at the margin of reform debates. However, especially since the changes brought in by welfare reform in the mid-1990s, federal transfer programs provide very little aid by way of cash assistance to non-working adults. Critics have pointed at traditional transfer programs such as the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. One notion that has surfaced in the surrounding political discourse is that the federal government ought to spend less on welfare assistance to low-income individuals to both reduce government spending and to promote economic self-sufficiency. As the Trump administration has been preparing a federal budget and Congress has been talking about tax reform, there has been much attention to the federal budget and federal government spending priorities.
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