ECONOMIC SUCCESS CLEARINGHOUSE
(formerly Welfare Information Network)

Links to Other Organizations

Organizational Links
Clearinghouses
Key Online Resources

Organizational Links

Federal Government Agencies

• Office of Family Assistance, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor
• Child Care Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Associations of Local and State Governments

• American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
• National Association of Counties (NACo)
• National Association of State Workforce Agencies
• National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)
• National Governors' Association (NGA), Center for Best Practices
• National League of Cities
• U.S. Conference of Mayors

Policy Research & Advocacy Organizations

• Brookings Institution, Welfare Reform and Beyond
• Cato Institute
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Center for Community Change
• Center for Law and Social Policy
• Center for the Study of Social Policy
• Child Trends
• Coalition on Human Needs
• Food Research Action Center
• Heritage Foundation
• Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin
• Joint Center for Poverty Research
• Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty, Weingart Center
• MDRC
• Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
• National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University
• National Coalition for the Homeless
• National Low Income Housing Coalition
• National Poverty Center, University of Michigan
• New America Foundation, Asset Building Program
• Research Forum
• Rockefeller Institute of Government
• Urban Institute, Assessing the New Federalism

Clearinghouses

Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network

Workforceusa.net

Child Care and Early Education Connections

Key Online Resources

2004 Poverty Guidelines The Department of Health and Human Services annual update of the poverty guidelines to account for increases in prices as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

Family Resource Simulator The National Center for Children in Poverty’s Family Resource Simulator illustrates how policies to assist low-income parents create incentives or, inadvertently, disincentives to work. Users can track the point at which increased earnings fail to provide families with additional resources because they lose eligibility for assistance.  The Simulator is state specific but takes both state and federal policies into account, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, child care and housing subsidies, public health insurance, and cash assistance. The Family Resource Simulator is part of NCCP’s Making Work Supports Work initiative, which examines the current patchwork of federal and state programs that assist low-wage workers and their families and explores policy alternatives.

Online Information About Key Low-Income Benefit Programs Virtually all states have made information regarding the five main state-administered low-income benefit programs--food stamps, Medicaid, SCHIP, TANF and child care--available to the public via the internet. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has put together a list of links to online state information provided about these benefit programs. 

The State Policy Documentation Project, a joint project of the Center for Law and Social Policy and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) tracks policy choices on TANF cash assistance programs and Medicaid in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.  It includes data on: Applications, Formal Cash Diversion Programs and Emergency Assistance; Cash Assistance Entitlement Programs; Categorical Eligibility/Assistance Unit Composition Rules; Child Care Assistance; Financial Eligibility Rules; Sanctions for Non-Compliance with Work Activities; Separate State Programs and State-Only TANF Funds; Time Limits; and Work Activities and Requirements. 

Directory of State Human Services Administrators compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance.

Directory of National Homeless & Housing Organizations compiled by National Coalition for the Homeless.

TANF Annual Reports to Congress: November 2004, February 2003, May 2002, August 2000, August 1999 by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. The annual reports include chapters on:

• Trends in Caseload and Expenditures
• Work Participation Rates
• Work and Earnings
• High Performance Bonus
• Child Support Collections
• Formation and Maintenance of Two-Parent Families
• Out-of-Wedlock Pregnancies and Births
• Child Poverty and TANF
• Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of TANF Recipients
• Tribal TANF and Native Employment Works
• Specific Provisions of State Programs
• TANF Research and Evaluation