Social Safety Net

The cost of raising a family in America is high and continues to rise, with inflation rising by 23 percent between 2020 and 2025. For working families, some of the largest nondiscretionary expenses continue to be health care and child care.

IntroductionMeans-tested benefits are designed to support basic needs such as food, health insurance, and child care for households with low incomes. When considering whether to take a new job opportunity that will increase their income, recipients of these benefits may be forced to consider trade-offs. For example:

This project explored how workers with low incomes who receive federal benefits weigh factors including marginal tax rates, benefit loss, ease of resuming benefits once lost, and job instability when deciding whether to accept an earnings increase.

Infographic: Earnings, Benefit Loss, and Job Instability: What Do People Receiving TANF Consider When Offered a Higher-Paying Job?Related Products:

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been working with researchers, human services agency leaders, and persons with lived experience to visualize, describe, and document models of prevention within human services.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been working with researchers, human services agency leaders, and persons with lived experience to visualize, describe, and document models of prevention within human services.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been working with researchers, human services agency leaders, and persons with lived experience to visualize, describe, and document models of primary prevention within human services.

The Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-432) requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare an annual report to Congress on indicators and predictors of “welfare dependence.” That Act requires the report to include three programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (which replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)

As part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, Congress provided HHS with funding for the Children’s Interagency Coordinating Council (CICC). The CICC is charged with fostering greater coordination and transparency on child policy across federal agencies and examining a broad array of cross-cutting issues affecting child poverty and child well-being.

This project developed a calculator to help people anticipate how a change in earnings from employment would affect their net income, and in so doing, provide public benefit recipients with their estimated effective marginal tax rate on new earnings. Key Points: