Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters – Part 265

OMB #XXXX-XXXX expires XX/XX/XXXX

Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report Instructions

PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT OF 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) STATEMENT OF PUBLIC BURDEN: Through this information collection, ACF is gathering information to assess and evaluate whether a State TANF program meets statutorily required participation rates. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 64 hours per grantee per year, including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and reviewing the collection of information. This is a mandatory collection of information (42 U.S.C. § 611). An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB # is xxxx-xxxx and the expiration date is XX/XX/XXXX. If you have any comments on this collection of information, please contact the Office of Family Assistance by email at [email protected].

The TANF Work Outcomes Measures interim final rule includes three new reporting requirements:

• Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report

• Secondary School Diploma or its Recognized Equivalent Attainment Rate

• Supplemental Work Outcomes Report

General Instructions

This document includes instructions for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report. For the Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report, states submit Social Security Numbers (SSNs) of all work-eligible individuals who exit TANF in a given quarter. ACF will then match those SSNs with quarterly wage records in the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH). ACF will use these matched results to calculate outcomes measures required by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA, Public Law 118-5):

1. Employment Rate – 2nd Quarter After Exit

2. Employment Retention Rate – 4th Quarter After Exit

3. Median Earnings – 2nd Quarter After Exit

Each state must file the report within 45 days following the end of the quarter. Any state that does not have an Unemployment Insurance program and thus is currently unable to submit quarterly wage data to the NDNH is still required to submit the Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report so that ACF is able to capture outcomes of individuals who find work outside of that state’s jurisdiction after exiting the state’s TANF Program. 

Territories and the District of Columbia are referred to as “states.” Note: Tribes are not required to report.

INSTRUCTIONS AND DEFINITIONS

The state agency should collect and report data for each item. The data must be complete and accurate.

In accordance with 45 CFR 265.2 (c) and (d), for purposes of the Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report:

Work-Eligible Individual (WEI) as defined in 45 CFR Part 261.2(n) applies to the Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report.

Exit is the date that a family with a work-eligible individual ceases to receive assistance from the TANF program. The last day of assistance cannot be determined until 90 days or three months have elapsed since the participant last received assistance. 

In pay-for-performance states, ”ceases to receive” may be interpreted as “last eligible to receive” assistance. The 90 days or three months would be counted from the period the work-eligible individual last satisfied the state's performance requirement, not from the date of the benefit issuance.

Some states may move individuals out of the TANF program and into separate state programs (funded by maintenance-of-effort funds) or solely state-funded programs (not reported as maintenance-of-effort). For some states, these may be distinctly different programs, while for other states the difference may just be the funding source. The statute clearly states “with respect to a State program funded under this part” which refers only to the TANF program, and not separate state programs or solely state-funded programs. Therefore, when considering who exited TANF for this data collection, states should include as exiters those work-eligible individuals who were moved to separate state programs or solely-state funded programs and have not received TANF-funded assistance in at least 90 days or three months. 

A work-eligible individual will be included as an exiter in these measures only when their family ceases to receive assistance, and will not meet the definition of an exiter when the needs of the work-eligible individual are removed from the assistance payment but the family continues to receive assistance and the individual remains work-eligible.  An individual in the family must have been “a work-eligible individual,” as defined in 45 CFR 261.2(n)(1), in their last month of assistance. 

For reporting purposes, a family means: (a) all individuals receiving assistance as part of a family under the state’s TANF program; and (b) the following additional persons living in the family, if not included under (a) above: (1) Parent or caretaker relative of any minor child; (2) A minor child; and (3) Any person whose income or resources are counted in determining the family’s eligibility for or amount of assistance. This is the same definition used for reporting on the TANF Data Report (ACF-199) (page 4).

Unsubsidized employment is full- or part-time employment in the private or public sector after exiting the TANF program. 

The reporting period is the period of time covering one federal fiscal quarter, during which exit data relevant to the measure are recorded.

The report must contain the SSNs of all work-eligible individuals who are confirmed to have exited during the reporting period.

States submit SSNs 45 days after the quarter ending (QE) in which their exit date was confirmed. An individual’s exit date is confirmed when 90 days have elapsed since the individual’s family last received TANF assistance. For example:

An individual exits on November 23, 2024 (FY 2025, Quarter [Q]1). For the state to confirm the exit date, 90 days or three months must elapse after the individual’s family last received assistance. The exit date is confirmed on February 21, 2025 (FY 2025, Q2).

The individual’s SSN is included as an exiter in the report covering October 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024 (FY 2025, Q1), due June 30, 2025.

ACF will then match the SSN with quarterly wage records in the NDNH to obtain records from two quarters after the individual’s exit (FY 2025, Q3) through four quarters after the individual’s exit (FY 2026, Q1). ACF will use the matched results to compute the measures on behalf of states: Employment Rate - 2nd Quarter After Exit; Employment Retention Rate - 4th Quarter After Exit; and Median Earnings - 2nd Quarter After Exit.

Individual Exits in	Exit Date Confirmed in	Individual appears in Quarterly Reporting Period	Due Date
FY Q1	FY Q2	FY Q1, October-December	May 15
FY Q2	FY Q3	FY Q2, January-March	August 14
FY Q3	FY Q4	FY Q3, April-June	November 14
FY Q4	Following FY Q1	FY Q4, July-September	February 14

The data file should be submitted in a CSV (comma separated values) format with the following columns (without headers):

Exit Year and Month: Enter the four-digit year and two-digit month codes (YYYYMM) for the month in which the individual exited.

Social Security Number: Enter the Social Security Number (SSN) for each individual who exited during the performance period for which the data are being reported. All SSNs should be nine-digits, include only numeric values, with no dashes or spaces. Additionally, SSNs cannot contain all zeros in any digit group (e.g., 000-XX-XXXX, XXX-00-XXXX, XXX-XX-0000) and SSNs should not be repeated numbers like 111-11-1111.

The only exception is if a WEI does not have an SSN, in which case the individual should be reported as “999999999” in order to get a sense of the true exiting population and to understand missingness in the work outcomes measures. Since those individuals won’t be able to be matched with the National Directory of New Hires, any positive work outcomes would only be captured if a state chooses to submit a Supplemental Work Outcomes report and includes those individuals. 

Electronic Transmission File Layout for Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters

Field Name	Length	Alpha/Numeric	Comments
Exit Year and Month	6	N	YYYYMM; Numeric; Year>2024; Month 01-12;
Social Security Number	9	N	Numeric; 9-digits; no dashes or spaces; no digit group is all zeros (e.g., 000-XX-XXXX, XXX-00-XXXX, XXX-XX-0000).