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Reach Up Annual Report 2018 15 o 33% showed improvement in family interactions and well-being – parenting, support from and safety amount family and friends • The number of children in subsidized childcare increased for every “Stars” rating category. Most notably, the number of children in five-star facilities increased from 3% to 25%, 12 months after starting Reach Up. o 62% of children were in a 2 star or above childcare setting 12 months after starting, compared to only 13% of the same cohort 6 months prior to starting Reach Up.

The housing report studied the housing status of families receiving Reach Up for two years, thus during the period of 2013 – 2014. Highlights include: • 24% of families used ESD’s Emergency Assistance program (EA) the year before or during the two years in the Reach Up program • The percentage of families who lacked independent housing dropped from 37% when entering the program, to 13% after two years in the program • 51% of families experienced an improvement in their housing situation after participating in the program for one to two years

Section 6

Work Participation Rates and the Caseload Reduction Credit

States must submit data on all TANF recipients quarterly to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The work requirement for each family varies from 20 – 40 hours, depending on the age of the youngest child and whether it is a two-parent or single- parent family. Participants must fulfill those hours by taking part in federally approved “countable” activities. Those activities include paid employment, community service, limited hours of job search and readiness, and in a few cases, job training and education.6 ACF computes each state’s monthly work participation rate for two categories: all families, and families with two parents in the Reach Up assistance group. The rates are averaged over 12 months to calculate the state’s overall work participation rate for the federal fiscal year. States are required to meet a 50% all-family rate and a 90% two-parent family rate.

Section 407(b)(3) of the Social Security Act, as amended by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA), provides for an adjustment to a state’s fiscal year work participation rate based on declines in the state’s caseload during the prior Federal Fiscal Year (FFY). This adjustment to the work participation rate is called the state’s caseload reduction credit (CRC). The CRC gives states credit based on the actual reduction in the caseload between the statutory base year and the comparison year. The DRA changed the base year of the calculation from 1995 to 2005.

The chart below illustrates Vermont’s estimated participation rates as calculated, but not yet finalized, by the ACF.

6 Further federal limitations on hours of participation and the age of participants in certain activities exist.