To help improve the lives of poor children and their families, Massachusetts provides direct cash assistance through a program known as TAFDC. MassBudget’s new brief, “TAFDC: Declines in Support for Low-Income Children and Families” finds that this cash assistance has shrunk significantly over time.
- For every dollar that an eligible family received in 1989, they receive just 58 cents today (adjusted for inflation)
- The official poverty level for a family of three is $19,500, and the maximum amount of cash assistance such a family can receive from TAFDC is less than half of that
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From the report above.
The decline in the number of people receiving cash assistance over time is not due to a significant drop in child poverty in Massachusetts. In 1990, in Massachusetts, approximately 13 percent of children were poor, which amounts to close to 173,000 children5. This number did not decline over the next two decades (see chart below). In 2011, approximately 15 percent of children were poor, defined in 2011 for a family of three as an income under $18,530 annually. This is close to 212,000 children and approximately the same as the number of poor children in 2000.