Topic: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

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Tax VOX
New online tool to help families maximize tax, transfer benefits

State taxes and transfers can be an important, albeit complicated form of assistance for low-income families. A new interactive calculator aims to help guide families through the process, including the options when family income increases.
Kinship care beats foster care for raising kids – support needed

An estimated 2.7 million children are being cared for by extended family such as grandparents and other relatives, who are likely to be poor, elderly and unemployed, according to a new Annie E. Casey Foundation report that urges new support and resources for them.
Payroll tax 101: What the changes mean for you

The House and Senate passed a payroll tax cut extension for 160 million Americans Friday. Among other provisions, the bill adjusts downward the duration of unemployment benefits.
Congress: Don't squander America's big investment opportunity

Earning a college education benefits families and the economy for generations. Unfortunately, students from low-income homes are earning degrees at the lowest rate in three decades. Washington needs to cash in their economic potential by helping them save for college.
Tax VOX
What tax credits can do for low-income families

Although tax credits encourage work and subsidize low wages for families with children, they do little for low-income childless families.
On the Economy
Welfare to work doesn't work – without work

Welfare to work reformis 15 years old. It doesn't work well in a poor economy.
Government shutdown 101: What does it mean for welfare and food stamps?

For many social-welfare programs, money is distributed from the federal government quarterly or monthly, so there will be little impact unless the shutdown drags on for weeks.
Private sector adds jobs. You helped. Really!

Through September, taxpayer-funded jobs programs put 240,000 Americans back to work, often in the private sector. With unemployment stuck at 9.6 percent, should Congress subsidize more private-sector jobs?
US adds 3.8 million more to ranks of the poor as poverty rate jumps

US poverty rate hit 14.3 percent last year, up from 13.2 percent in 2008. The jump bring the number of the poor to its highest level since 1959, five years before the Johnson-era War on Poverty.
The New Economy
Unemployment benefits: Why Obama keeps pushing to extend them

Jobless Americans were eligible for up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits until early June. President Obama urged Congress to keep them at that record level through November.