State TANF Spending: Predictors of State Tax Effort to Support Welfare Reform

State spending on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) greatly varies. Combined federal and state spending by the states per TANF family or recipient reflects the historic level of state generosity for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the failure of the federal government to set any minimum spending standard for the states, and the failure of the federal government to adjust federal grants for huge changes in state TANF caseloads. Our multivariate analysis shows that state spending for TANF is greatly influenced by the percentage of the state population that is black, the percentage of the state population that is on TANF (especially if a significant percentage of the rolls consist of black recipients), and the economic conditions within the state. Some states spend as much as their economies will allow, while other states spend far below capacity. Despite the very different goals of TANF, state spending is still heavily influenced by their historic approach to AFDC. Copyright 2006 by The Policy Studies Organization.

Policy Attention in State and Nation: Is Anyone Listening to the Laboratories of Democracy?

Do patterns of policy attention at the state level influence agenda setting in Washington over the short term? We examine this question by first developing a series of hypotheses about such linkages. We test these conjectures with a data set pooling measures of policy attention at the national and state levels for several years and several policy areas. We find little evidence that changes in state policy agendas in the aggregate influence national patterns of policy attention. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.