Aid to poor families being slashed

CBPP - Cash assistance benefits for the nation’s poorest families with children fell again in purchasing power this year and are now at least 20 percent below their 1996 levels in 35 states plus the District of Columbia, after adjusting for inflation.  For 99 percent of recipients nationally, the purchasing power of their benefits is below the level in 1996, when the welfare reform law created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. States should halt the erosion of TANF benefits and begin restoring the purchasing power lost over the past 20 years.