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Reach Up Annual Report 2018 16 TANF Work Participation Rates Federal Fiscal Year 2017

All Families Two-Parent Families 1st quarter 48.3% 58.3% 2nd quarter 47.4% 56.0% 3rd quarter 48.3% 61.9% 4th quarter 32.5% 50.1% Average7 44.1% 56.6%

Caseload Reduction Credit (CRC)

All Families Two-Parent Families Rate submitted to ACF8 26.0% 41.4%

Applying the CRC to the participation rates results in a 70.1% all families rate and a 98.0% two-parent families rate. Vermont is on-track to meet the 2017 Work Participation Rate for both All-Families and Two-Parent rates.

Vermont has struggled to meet the federal Work Participation rate, though in the last two years has succeeded in doing so. This is due in a large part to the Reach Ahead program. All families on Reach Ahead are meeting the work requirement, and this contributes to almost 80% of the Work Participation Rate.

The Work Participation Rate is not reflective of the work case managers are doing to help families move towards self-sufficiency. A large part of this path involves addressing multiple and complex barriers to employment, which are not recognized by the federal government in Work Participation Rates. For example, the federal requirements around activities that may be included in the Work Participation Rate do not include education in most circumstances. They also do not include addressing other major barriers to participation such as lack of childcare, transportation, or housing. However, the Economic Services Division continues to examine ways to address the Work Participation Rate challenge.

Section 7

Basic Needs, Housing Allowances, and Maximum Grants

Basic Needs and Housing Allowances The department calculates a basic needs standard that includes certain requirements considered essential to all individuals. These needs include food, shelter, clothing, fuel, utilities, personal incidentals, core services, and special needs. This standard of combined basic needs increases according to household size from $475 per month for a household of one, to $1,769 per month for a household of eight. Each year the department reports the current basic needs standard and budget that is then adjusted to reflect an annual cost-of-living increase. DCF makes the annual cost-of-living increase calculation by running the basic needs standard and housing allowance through a computer program that recalculates them based

7 The Work Participation Rates are submitted quarterly to ACF; however the final calculations have not been finalized and released. 8 The caseload reduction rates are the rates submitted to ACF in December 2016. Vermont is waiting for confirmation of the caseload reduction rates.