Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Data Innovation Project

The TANF Data Innovation (TDI) project supported innovation and efficiency within the TANF program through enhanced use of administrative data from TANF and related human services programs. OPRE’s Division of Data and Improvement oversaw this project with support from the Division of Economic Independence and ACF’s Office of Family Assistance (OFA). 

Launched in 2017, TDI was led by MDRC in partnership with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, the Coleridge Initiative, and Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. The project’s aim was to provide timely, actionable, and relevant technical assistance to federal, state, and local TANF agencies on a variety of issues related to TANF data.

The TDI project included the following key tasks:

• Assessment of the needs of states and territories regarding the collection, sharing, and use of TANF data;
• Support to states and localities through the TANF Data Collaborative, including wide-ranging training and technical assistance for states and localities on a variety of topics related to TANF data use;
• Federal capacity building through support to OFA on data-related tasks.

In 2019, TDI was expanded to include the TANF Employment Project (TEP). TEP represented ACF’s continued investment in using existing agency data to understand and manage the TANF program.

TEP supported:

• the transformation of state-reported TANF data into a longitudinal format;
• expanded matching of TANF data with wage and unemployment insurance information from the National Directory of New Hires; and
• hosting the resulting data sets in a secure cloud environment to allow collaborative analysis between TDI researchers and ACF staff.

In 2022, ACF funded a two-year TDI Dissemination Supplement, designed to make toolkits and lessons learned from the project available to states, federal agencies, and external researchers.

Materials based on this contract’s activities include:

Materials from the 2019 TDI Needs Assessment

• Unpacking Data Use in State TANF Agencies (2021)
• Exemplary Data Use by State TANF Agencies: Beyond Routine Reports and Analyses (2022)
• Information collection for the TDI Needs Assessment was reviewed and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under OMB #0970-0522. Related materials are available at the TANF Data Innovation Needs Assessment  page on RegInfo.gov.

Toolkits for planning data sharing, TANF data linkage, and analysis capacity

• Expanding TANF Program Insights: A Toolkit for State and Local Agencies on How to Access, Link, and Analyze Unemployment Insurance Wage Data (2022)
• Strengthening Analytics in Government Agencies: A Toolkit for Sustainable Data Use (2023)
• The Five Phases of Successful Data Analytics: TANF Data Collaborative Pilot Resources Toolkit (2024)

Products about the TANF Data Collaborative

• Increasing Data Analytics Capacity in State TANF Agencies: The TANF Data Collaborative Approach (2022)
• TANF Data Collaborative Pilot Profiles: A Collection of Data Analytics Projects from State and County TANF Agencies (2023)
• Video: Improving Outcomes for Families through Better Use of Data: The TANF Data Collaborative (2023)
• Building and Sustaining Data Analytics Capacity: The TANF Data Collaborative Pilot Initiative Final Report (2024)

Products about the TANF Employment Project

• Transforming Administrative Data into a Resource for Evidence Building (2024)

Point(s) of contact: Nicole Deterding and Siri Warkentien (TDI Dissemination Supplement)