Cash assistance programs like TANF get a bad rap, but they’re keeping families housed and fed while parents get back on their feet. The work requirements aren’t as scary as they sound either.
Ugh. The paperwork alone could destroy a functional adult brain… and mine wasn’t at full charge to begin with. Trying to fill out a compliance form in a food pantry bathroom stall while my toddler cried — I mean, I wish that was a joke. But that’s how it started for me in Arizona; my caseworker had 126 files open and suggested I use the senior mobile medical van just to get my TB test faster. The irony of waiting behind a 74-year-old with two canes just to pass a job compliance check wasn’t lost on me. 🙂
State lines = different game boards
Nobody tells you TANF is like playing Monopoly except every state argues over whose rules actually win. You moved from Texas to Arkansas thinking it’d simplify things? HA. Good luck finding out that work exemption definitions differ by 14 different qualifiers. Meanwhile your SNAP EBT card might still function even though your TANF appointment got rescheduled five times already…
In Mississippi, the max monthly cash allotment for a family of three is $170. Yep. $170. And yet in Vermont it’s over $500. What the hell is that?! I thought federal programs were united. Turns out TANF is like a confederate hoodie — technically under one roof, but everyone’s doing their own weird thing beneath it.
Advice I got from someone with 10 jobs
Pulled a quote from Regina, a social worker in Birmingham—she’s the one who noticed my son licking a metal bench while I was zoning out filling job logs:
“Most of these parents work more in five months than anybody in Congress has in five years. But only one gets audited for hours.”
She’s got this burned-out cadence but also this fight? Like she ain’t leaving until she finds who made the rule that toilet-cleaning jobs don’t count toward work activity. ಠ_ಠ
Cool, cool, but where’s the logic in work requirements?
I was told I could satisfy requirements by volunteering at a church thrift shop. Did that. Supervisor didn’t submit the hours. Disqualified in under 36 hours.
Next time, I clocked 23 hours at a local shelter just doing intake forms. Still didn’t count because “the organization wasn’t pre-approved.”?? How do I know that?! Do I have some secret imaginary database access???
Fast forward three months: I realized the mobile medical van’s project manager was a registered workforce partner. So I started helping them hand out sterile wound dressings to older folks and bam — finally, someone signed off my hours. Did I even make sense?
The job logs are a terrifying bricolage of nonsense
Listen — I once stapled a leaf to a job log because the wind blew it onto the sheet while I was sitting outside the library printing a resume that I NEVER submitted. The appointment I was supposed to attend got canceled due to a virus exposure, but since the system didn’t acknowledge that notice in time, I got flagged as noncompliant. That Monday, I cried into my expired cereal.
Some states like California have relaxed work rules during declared disasters. But Michigan? Nah. It tightened requirements in 2023. I know because I failed three recert interviews and had my case closed automatically. And good luck reaching a caseworker when their office has five people serving 12 counties… godspeed. Or whatever fake patience you’ve got left ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Work” means whatever someone says it means today
- Volunteering counts — unless it doesn’t.
- School counts — but only if “approved.”
- GED prep? Not enough hours unless you “combine it” with other activities.
Like I’m cooking up some bureaucratic gumbo just to stay compliant.
The counterintuitive thing? I had the EASIEST time staying compliant after I stopped over-planning. When I just started showing up wherever free snacks were being served and asking “hey y’all need help?”, I had more verified hours than when I spent weeks organizing interviews at three different marshmallow-packing facilities. Wild.
The tears came after the dentist said no
Second month in, my kid needed a root canal. Medicaid covered most of it but the appointment clashed with a job interview I’d spent a pile of coins just trying to get to. Obviously I chose his mouth over possible employment. That made me noncompliant. Got sanctioned that month. No money, no ride, ended up trading laundry detergent for gas at the bus station. WHO EVEN DOES THAT?! I do. I did.
Okay, pause. Here’s something I wrote on a sticky note and still keep: “Just because the system is broken doesn’t mean you’re broken.” I forget who said it. Maybe a woman in line at the county office. Maybe I made it up. Doesn’t matter.
NUMBERS?!?! Seriously here’s a number
According to NPR, only 21 out of every 100 families in poverty receive TANF assistance. That’s 21 out of 100. Where are the other 79 families? Lost in a folder? On a waiting list? Some days I feel like number 80.
Conversations on the curb matter more than staff trainings
Idaho’s caseworker once offered me a 6-minute consult from her car outside a Dairy Queen. She had three counties to cover that day. Who expects one human to service all of that?! Her advice was gold, though: find a partner org that files work logs *for* you. I found one in Coeur d’Alene—saved me ever submitting anything again. Worked for four solid months until… they lost funding. SNAP!
Random thoughts I never had before TANF
- If I carry my toddler during job search hours, does that qualify as “dual-tasking” employable skills?
- Why is the only printer at the library out of toner on re-cert week?!?
- Is asking “Are you hiring?” at Planet Fitness considered outreach if you’re also picking up your cousin from Zumba?
Honestly… nothing trains you better for these rules than living them repeatedly and screwing up massively. I’ve violated criteria I didn’t know existed. I had “compliance restoration workshops.” That’s a real phrase. Should be a punk band name.
So you adapt. I once used a senior mobile van’s Wi-Fi to submit a job log while standing in line for food bank cheese. I call that multitasking. Some official tried to call it “resource strain.” Blow it out your forms, sir.
Major contradiction of the month
I got a congratulatory call from a workforce office *the same week* I got disqualified from TANF. Because I “met objectives.” Which one of you clowns forgot to sync systems?! I mean… are the computers beefing? Is there a grudge match between Excel spreadsheets? Make it make sense 😀
Sometimes you’re just exhausted from being told you’re not trying
What do you even do when every single week involves proving you’re poor enough, desperate enough, and obedient enough to be trusted with $324 a month? You track job contacts like a spy, you scour Craigslist, you pretend you’re not crying in the bathroom behind the career center when the bus leaves you and your kid again. Then you get up and try again. Because TANF’s worth it when it works.
I still think about Regina’s quote while scrubbing expired produce stickers off my kid’s toy cars. Who invented this kind of suffering?
TANF work requirements are what they are – you can complain about them or you can figure out how to meet them. Your choice.
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