570,000 Ohio children live in poverty - and the TANF Budget is insufficient to meet their needs

According to the State Budget Matters edition on The TANF Budget by the Center for Community Solutions:

• The federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is the largest source of funding for states for programs that help low-income families.  Ohio uses TANF funds primarily for cash assistance, county allocations, and early child care and education.

• For many years, Ohio did not spend all of its federal TANF block grant. This created a surplus balance, but those funds were spent down in the last biennium. The federal TANF grant has been flat-funded for over a decade.

• The TANF program was created during an economic boom and did not anticipate the challenges caused by a long and deep recession. The number of families receiving cash assistance has increased sharply since the start of the recession, and TANF funding is stretched too thin to meet all of their basic needs.

• Due to the use of one-time funds in the current biennium, expected FY 2012-2013 funding is insufficient to support current spending. State policymakers not only face the challenge of closing a structural deficit of $8 billion in Ohio’s General Revenue Fund, but they must close a shortfall in Ohio’s largest discretionary social service program as well. 

• Their decisions will impact Ohio's children. The TANF program provides critical support for low-income families – and especially for children. 

• The 2009 American Community Survey shows that 21 percent of Ohio’s children live in poverty, compared with 18 percent in 2007. There are about 570,000 children in Ohio living below the federal poverty line, an increase of almost 75,000 children compared with just two years before.