Targeting Employment Services

ment now provides states with block grants to provide cash assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. States have wide discretion to structure TANF eligibility, but federal law imposes a lifetime limit of 60 months on benefit receipt and impos-es work requirements on adult recipients after a maximum of two years of benefit receipt. These changes mean that welfare recipients must now find jobs and stay employed. To help welfare recipients reach these goals, many state welfare agencies are setting up (or are considering setting up) job retention programs. However, because large numbers of welfare recip-ients are moving into the workforce, states may not have sufficient re-sources to provide job retention and advancement services to all wel-fare recipients who become employed. Therefore, states may want to target job retention services to those groups of newly employed welfare recipients who are at high risk of losing their jobs and who can mos