FY 2023 Annual Performance Plan and Report - Strategic Goal 3: Objective 3.1

Fiscal Year 2023
Released March, 2022

Topics on this page: Objective 3.1: Provide effective and innovative pathways leading to equitable economic success for all individuals and families | Objective 3.1 Table of Related Performance Measures

Objective 3.1: Provide effective and innovative pathways leading to equitable economic success for all individuals and families

HHS invests in strategies to provide effective and innovative pathways that lead to equitable economic success for all individuals and families.  HHS facilitates system enhancements and partnerships across the federal government to coordinate resources and technical assistance to individuals and families hoping to achieve and sustain economic independence.

The Office of the Secretary leads this objective.  The following divisions are responsible for implementing programs under this strategic objective: ACF, ACL, ASPE, CDC, CMS, HRSA, IHS, OASH, and OCR.  The narrative below provides a brief summary of any past work towards these objectives and strategies planned to improve or maintain performance on these objectives.

Objective 3.1 Table of Related Performance Measures

By design, LIHEAP targets energy assistance to low-income households with the highest energy needs.  It does so as part of Congress' statutory mandate, as expressed in 42 U.S.C.  8624(b)(5).  ACF measures the extent to which LIHEAP meets this mandate through targeting indices, which show the extent to which the program reaches selected households over others, specifically households with (a) elderly members, (b) young children, and (c) high energy burdens.  ACF also measures the extent to which LIHEAP reduces energy-burdens among high-energy burden households.  A household's energy burden is the household's energy costs as a share of its income.  Reducing a household's energy burden prevents the household from suffering adverse outcomes—including hypothermia, heat stroke, etc.—due to extreme indoor temperatures.  It also prevents the household from forgoing essential items; like food, medication, etc.; in order to pay for energy.  The index score that measures the targeting of energy burden reduction shows the extent to which high energy burden recipients receive more benefits than other recipients.  ACF computes this score by dividing the percent reduction, attributable to LIHEAP, in the median individual energy burden for high energy burden recipients by the equivalent type of reduction for all recipients and multiplying the result by 100.

In FY 2016, 40 states initially submitted usable data and the result was 97, indicating that LIHEAP paid about 3 percent less of the energy bill for households with the highest energy burden compared to average recipient households.  For FY 2018 reporting, state capacity to report the new performance measures data improved with 49 states reporting results with Burden Reduction Targeting Index score of 87, indicating that LIHEAP paid about 13 percent less of the energy bill for households with the highest energy burden compared to average recipient households.

For FY 2020 reporting, state capacity to report this new performance measure data improved further, with only 13 percent of states lacking data or having low data reliability.  The Burden Reduction Targeting Index score for FY 2020 based on all states with usable data was 86, indicating that LIHEAP paid about 14 percent less of the energy bill for households with the highest energy burden compared to average recipient households.  This result was just below the target of 90 for FY 2020.  Under funding provided by the Consolidated Appropriations act of 2012, which increased training and technical assistance funds to $3 million, ACF has invested in increased grantee training and technical assistance to improve performance management and monitoring activities by states.  A virtual conference for LIHEAP grantees was held in March 2021 and included performance management training to improve reporting on the new performance measures, including the Burden Reduction Targeting Index.   ACF plans to continue its support for the LIHEAP Performance Management Workgroup (PMIWG), which is comprised of selected state directors; make each year's Report to Congress available for publication, continue to make LIHEAP household and performance management preliminary data available for public consumption through the LIHEAP Performance Management website; and develop evidence-based more precise T&TA tools to support LIHEAP grantees.  They include an energy price increase dashboard, grantee performance management profiles, and other fact sheets.

The Transitional and Medical Services (TAMS) program provides refugees and other eligible populations with time-limited assistance to purchase food and clothing, pay rent, use public transportation, and secure medical care.  Additionally, this program provides a path to economic self-sufficiency by supplying resources for employment training and placement, case management services, and English language training in order to facilitate economic self-sufficiency and effective resettlement as quickly as possible.  A cash assistance termination is defined as the closing of a cash assistance case due to earned income in an amount that is predicted to exceed the state's payment standard for the case based  on family size, rendering the case ineligible for cash assistance.  The FY 2020 actual result of 42.45 percent was below the target of 56.00 percent by 13.55 percent.  Many refugees are placed into full-time jobs with reduced work hours, thus not always producing termination.  A few large programs had lower termination rates, which negatively affected the overall, national termination rate.  The COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to delays in employment and extended benefit periods due to COVID-19 eligibility extensions.  ACF plans to continue to work with states to increase the ratio of full-time job placements and to increase terminations to 56.75 percent in FY 2023.

The Matching Grant program is an alternative to traditional cash assistance that provides participants with services such as case management, job development, job placement and placement follow-up, and interim housing and cash assistance through grants awarded to participating national refugee resettlement agencies.  These agencies provide a match (in cash and/or in-kind services) of one dollar for every two dollars of federal contribution.  The purpose of the program is to help participants become self-sufficient within 180 days from the date of eligibility for the program.  The actual result for the refugee self-sufficiency rate in FY 2021 indicates that 77.80 percent of program participants were self-sufficient at the end of the 180-day program service period, exceeding the FY 2021 target of 76.05 percent.  This result is also an improvement of more than two percentage points over the previous year's actual result of 75.3 percent, though it remains below the pre-pandemic level of nearly 81 percent in FY 2019.  ORR expects positive growth to continue in FY 2022 as grant recipients continue to refine their pandemic era methodologies and the U.S. economy recovers.

Child support is one of the most significant financial resources available to children living apart from a parent.  Child support receipt promotes family self-sufficiency, child well-being, and health from birth through adulthood, thereby reducing costs in other government programs.  The annual performance measure regarding child support orders compares the number of IV-D child support cases with support orders established (which are required to collect child support) with the total number of IV-D cases.  (The Social Services Amendments of 1975 (P.L.  93-647) established the federal child support enforcement program as Part D of title IV of the Social Security Act.) States continue to improve their performance with respect to this measure as the total number of cases with an order established was 11.5 million in FY 2020.  The percent of cases with support orders was 87.2 percent, which is slightly below the target of 88 percent for FY 2020 and the most recent result of 88 percent in FY 2018 and FY 2019.  This decline is most likely attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The target for fiscal year 2023 will remain at 90 percent.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program provides state flexibility in operating programs designed to help low-income families achieve independence and economic self-sufficiency.  The performance measures for the TANF program assess the extent to which TANF work-eligible individuals and families transition from cash assistance to employment.  Full success requires not only that recipients get jobs, but also that they stay in employment and increase their earnings in order to reduce dependency and enable families to support themselves.  The state spending requirement of matching funds for the federal TANF payment is referred to as “maintenance-of-effort” or MOE.

This performance measure reports on the median state share of federal TANF and state MOE funds used for work, education, and training activities.  The most recent actual result decreased from 7.3 percent in FY 2019 to 6.7 percent in FY 2020, falling short of the target of 7.4 percent.  Through intentional technical assistance , ACF encourages states to invest more resources towards engaging TANF work-eligible individuals in work and work preparation activities so that families with barriers to employment can reach the ultimate outcome of a stable, unsubsidized job.

27. The FY 2016 data is the first set of information collected from the states, including the District of Columbia, for the developmental measures 1C through 1F.
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28. The preliminary result for FY 2017 is based on result for 46 states that submitted usable data.
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29. The FY 2016 actual result should be considered preliminary pending final data validation.
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