TANF funding - call for proposals -3/00

Wed Mar 1 16:59:41 EST 2000

from: Smart Marriages

These are clips from an a call for proposals to use TANF welfare reform 
money.  I you are interested I'll send you the full report.  However,
I thought many of you might be interested in how this works. 

>   Approximately $2,250,000 is to be available . . .for fiscal year 2000, and 
> approximately $1 million in subsequent fiscal years.... estimate that this 
level of funding will support 
> between 8 and 12 ASPE awards with total budgets ranging from $75,000 to 
> $150,000 for most short-term policy analyses (to be completed within 
> about 12 months of award) and between 5 and 8 ACF awards with total 
> budgets from $75,000 to $500,000 for either short-term or longer-term 
> projects. These figures are provided as guidance but do not constitute 
> minimum or maximum limits. We expect that ASPE will fund primarily 
> short-term projects and ACF will fund either type. If additional 
> funding becomes available in fiscal years 2000 or 2001, a greater 
> number of projects may be funded.

Background
> 
>     The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity 
> Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) brought about fundamental changes 
> in our nation's income support program for needy families and children. 
> Welfare reform was expected to alter behavior in regard to work, 
> marriage, fertility and program participation under the Temporary 
> Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) block grant program. Under TANF, 
> states were given considerable flexibility to design and implement 
> their support programs for needy families with children. PRWORA 
> authorized TANF through 2002.
>     Between January 1993 and June 1999, the number of people receiving 
> cash assistance under the prior Aid to Families with Dependent Children 
> (AFDC) program or the new TANF program fell from 14.1 million to under 
> 7 million recipients, a reduction of 51 percent. This decline has 
> occurred partly in response to the strong economy, the Administration's 
> granting of Federal waivers to support welfare reform initiatives in 43 
> States prior to passage of PRWORA, and the state implementation of 
> provisions of the PRWORA itself. In response to the need for government 
> officials and others to better understand the policy and programmatic 
> changes that have been made, the effects on families and children, and 
> the implications for other organizations and programs, DHHS and others 
> have sponsored and carried out a broad array of welfare reform research 
> and evaluations.
>     Studies in progress address a broad set of questions and have and 
> will continue to produce valuable information. However, while we are 
> learning a good deal in some areas there is MORE WE NEED TO KNOW.

One area for analysis: 

  8. The potential importance of marriage and family structure with 
> respect to family well-being. To what extent does marriage improve the 
> economic well-being of low-income families? How do the economic 
> benefits of marriage differ by demographic characteristics including 
> socioeconomic status and ethnicity? Among the low-income population, 
> how does the economic well-being of married families compare to that of 
> families entering other unions such as cohabitation, and what might be 
> the reason for those differences? To what extent do the relative 
> benefits depend on the sequencing of events such as pregnancy, birth, 
> cohabitation, marriage, and union dissolution? In addition to potential 
> economic benefits, does marriage among the low-income population also 
> have positive impacts on adult and child behaviors, as compared to 
> behaviors among single parent or cohabiting families? To what extent 
> are outcomes among married individuals representative of the potential 
> benefits to marriage among nonmarried individuals, and how can these 
> outcomes be modeled in a way that better controls the selective factors 
> affecting people's decisions to marry or not.

Part III. Abstract Application Guidelines and Evaluation Criteria
> 
>     As noted previously, ASPE and ACF are engaging in a two-part 
> process. Applicants must first submit an abstract as described in the 
> application section below. 
>     Abstracts must be received in the following format:
> 
> 12 point font size;
> Single spaced;
> 1 inch top, bottom, left, and right margins
> 
>     The deadline for receipt of abstracts is March 29, 2000. An 
> abstract will be considered as having met the deadline if it is either 
> received at, or hand-delivered to, the mailing address on or before 
> March 29, 2000, or postmarked before midnight three days prior to March 
> 29, 2000 and received in time to be considered during the competitive 
> review process (within two weeks of the deadline).

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Diane Sollee, Director
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www.smartmarriages.com
202-362-3332  (FAX 202-362-0973)   Email: cmfce at smartmarriages.com 