FY 2024 Annual Performance Plan and Report - Strategic Goal 3: Objective 3.1

Fiscal Year 2024
Released March, 2023

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. In consultation with OMB, HHS has determined that performance toward this objective is progressing. The narrative below provides a brief summary of progress made and achievements or challenges, as well as plans to improve or maintain performance.

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.

The Benefit Targeting Index  (measure 1C) score for FY 2021 based on all states with usable data was 111, indicating that LIHEAP provided 11 percent higher benefits to those households with the highest energy burden compared to average recipient households.  The Burden Reduction Targeting Index (measure 1D) score for FY 2021 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.  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. In FY 2022, Congress appropriated $4.6 million for the same purposes. The President’s FY 2023 Budget proposed to increase this amount to $20.5 million to substantially enhance our efforts around administrative support, training and technical assistance, equity, and environmental justice.  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 training and technical assistance tools to support LIHEAP grantees.  In FY 2022, LIHEAP formed an Application Streamline and Electronic Verification Workgroup with a selected number of state directors to create technical assistance tools that will improve customer experience and verify data through third party systems.  This workgroup will continue in FY 2023. In fiscal year 2022, LIHEAP made several online dashboards publicly available on topics such as extreme heat and disaster management, as well as published quarterly LIHEAP reports, which included assisted households, performance management, use of LIHEAP funds, and implementation and support data.  Additional tools will include grant recipient performance management profiles, a completely redesigned energy-assistance locator www.energyhelp.us website, and several program-specific 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 2021 actual result of 40.58 percent was below the target of 56.50 percent by 15.92 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 national termination rate. COVID 19 also contributed to delays in employments and extended benefits period 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 2024.

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 to client direct assistance funding. The purpose of the program is to help participants become self-sufficient within 240 days from the date of eligibility for the program. This is a shift from the previous client support period of 180 days, which was implemented starting in FY 2022. The extension of the client service period will enable grant recipients to further emphasize basic integration services such as English language acquisition and to provide more equitable employment services. The actual result for the refugee self-sufficiency rate in FY 2022 indicates that 76 percent of program participants were self-sufficient at the end of the 240-day program service period, falling just short of the FY 2022 target of 78.58 percent. This result also remains below the pre-pandemic level of performance in FY 2019. ORR expects positive growth to continue in FY 2024 as grant recipients continue to refine their pandemic era methodologies and the U.S. economy recovers.

The Social Services Amendments of 1975 (P.L. 93-647) established the federal child support enforcement program as part of Part D of title IV of the Social Security Act. 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. Despite the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on program operations, states continue to show strong performance with respect to this measure as the total number of cases with an order established was 11.1 million in FY 2021. The percent of cases with support orders was 88 percent, which is slightly below the target of 90 percent for FY 2021.  The target for FY 2024 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 increased from 6.7 percent in FY 2020 to 7.4 percent in FY 2021, exceeding the target of 6.8 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.

Endnotes

²⁴  The FY 2023 target is to maintain the previous actual result.

²⁵  The FY 2024 target is to maintain the previous actual result.

²⁶  The preliminary result for FY 2017 is based on result for 46 states that submitted usable data.

²⁷  The language of this performance measure has been updated as a result of the change to client service period from 180 to 240 days total.