Formerly known as “welfare,” Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, also known as TANF, strives to provide provisional yet sufficient financial aid to poor American families with dependent children through the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Families who want to apply for TANF must satisfy strict requirements. Low-income individuals are in need of TANF benefits mostly because of the following:

• a death of a parent;
• a parent is absent from the home or;
• physical or mental incapacity or unemployment of a parent

The main purposes of the TANF assistance are:

• assisting needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes ;
• reducing the dependency of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage ;
• preventing out-of-wedlock pregnancies ;
• encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families

Created by former President Bill Clinton in 1996 under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the TANF program succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The TANF assistance is designed not to create dependency on the financial assistance handed out by the government, but to help poor families get out of their needy state primarily through employment and promoting accountability and responsibility.