Systemic Reform

TANF is Still a Lifeline

TANF is the District’s only cash-based assistance program. It serves as a vital lifeline for families with little or no income, helping to pay for rent, utilities, diapers, clothes, transportation, and other essentials. Having available cash provides power, flexibility, and greater stability, especially during uncertain economic times.

Last year, Mayor Bowser proposed significant cuts to TANF. These changes include ending cost-of-living adjustments, reinstituting time limits, and increasing sanctions for not meeting work readiness requirements.

The Council rejected these changes for FY26, but the proposed FY27 budget puts the cuts in effect — directly harming 15,000 children in the District.

The FY27 Budget Support Act of 2026 (FY27 BSA) also proposes a change in policy. Prior Budget Support Act language imagined a step down for families who were receiving TANF for 60 months or more. Under that plan, families would never fully lose their benefits – they would just be significantly reduced. For example, a family of three in FY29 TANF could be cut to $151. However,the FY27 BSA removes the step down and instead proposes that all families on TANF for 60 months or more will have their benefits reduced to $0.

Action is needed to reverse these harmful policies and protect DC children and families from being driven further into poverty. We ask the Council to minimally restore TANF funding to FY26 funding levels and to reverse the FY27 & FY28 policy decisions that reduce access to critical cash supports during a time of significant change across other benefit programs.

Resources

One-Pagers:

Working Group Response Report: The TANF Reductions in FY27 and FY28 Are Not Informed, Do Not Account for Current Realities in the District, and Will Ultimately Harm Thousands of Children (April 2026)

Focus Group Report: Punitive TANF Policies Will Push DC Families with Children Deeper Into Hardship (DC Fiscal Policy Institute, April 2026)

Article: Mayor’s budget proposes even harsher cuts to TANF than those going into effect this October (Street Sense Media, April 2026)

Op-Ed: DC Must Restore TANF to Pull Children Out of Poverty (The 51st, February 2026)

Presentation: Recent TANF Cuts will Throw More DC Children into Poverty (February 2026)

Letter: Sign-On Letter from over 100 Organizations, Local Elected Officials, and Community Advocates (January 2026)

Policy Paper: TANF is a Lifeline for DC Families with Children (United Planning Organization, November 2025)

Report from 2016 TANF Working Group: Recommendations for Development of a TANF Hardship Extension Policy for Washington, DC

The TANF is Still a Lifeline Coalition

The TANF is Still a Lifeline Coalition works to support families with children by fighting to preserve and bolster DC’s TANF program. TANF is a cash assistance program that helps families pay for rent and utilities, clothes, school supplies and other essentials for parents in poverty-wage and unstable jobs, when the economy is weak and jobs are scarce, and when parents face barriers to working consistently.

A decade ago, community members and advocates worked to stop harmful time limits on cash assistance that would have increased child poverty without improving employment outcomes and helped usher in a range of family-supporting reforms. Now, we are working to reverse policies adopted in 2025 – renewed time limits, loss of annual inflation adjustments to benefits, and increased penalties on families failing to meet program rules – that threaten to push 15,000 children deeper into poverty. If these cuts are implemented, it will increase family homelessness, child hunger, and school absenteeism, among other harms, for thousands of Black and brown children.

If you are interested in joining the TANF is Still a Lifeline Coalition, contact Leah Castelaz at LCastelaz@childrenslawcenter.org and Maria Manansala at mmanansala@dcfpi.org.