Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. This law, commonly called TANF, was historic because through it, for the first time in modern history, a social-welfare program was reformed so that it would actually help recipients move up the economic ladder. 

Its goal was not only to provide fiscal assistance, but to help people find jobs and gain skills to increase their long-term employability. Within 10 years of reform, TANF helped more than 2.7 million families move into jobs and toward self-sufficiency. No other social welfare reform has seen this kind of success. 

Over the years, however, the original work requirement embedded in TANF has been eroded. States have found loopholes and claim credit for placing people in jobs when all they have really done is game the system. 

Furthermore, the Obama administration sought to, in effect, eliminate the work requirement by allowing states a waiver if they had an “alternative” plan to promote work and job preparation. By using multiple loopholes, states have artificially inflated their work rates, which explains recent gains in this measurement. 

In the typical state, nearly half of the work-eligible TANF caseload is completely idle. Another 39 percent is employed; however, this employment is generally not the result of positive efforts by state welfare agencies to reduce dependence and promote work. Instead, most states have simply expanded program eligibility to allow families with part-time or low-wage employment to receive partial TANF benefits. In most cases, the state welfare agency has done little or nothing to prompt this employment. 

States have proven adept at creating statistical gimmicks to create the false impression that they are aggressively promoting work. For example, in 2015, California created a new policy offering a token TANF payment of $10 per month to 175,000 low-income families, nearly all of which were already employed. The addition of these token payment families to the California TANF rolls caused the state's TANF “work participation rate” to nearly double between 2014 and 2015. 

The surge in “work” in California was so large that it raised the national work-participation figures for 2015. An estimated 11 more states also use token payment schemes to game the system and manipulate their apparent TANF work rates. If the misleading data from these states are removed, the actual national TANF work-participation rate in 2015 falls from 48 percent to around 29 percent. 

It is time to right this ship and correct its course. Any TANF reauthorization should close the loopholes in the work requirement, rescind the Obama-era anti-work provisions, and put stronger work requirements in place, requiring nearly all able-bodied adults to perform at least some kind of work or job-preparation activity. 

Further, the example of the TANF work requirement should be expanded and replicated throughout the federal welfare system, which now extends to over 80 other means-tested programs. Their goals should not simply be to provide some kind of temporary aid, such as food stamps, but rather to help individuals and families move toward economic freedom and employment.