Maryland's main cash-assistance safety net for its poorest parents is routing far more money into services and bureaucracy than into actual checks for families. The upshot: monthly Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, grants cover only a slice of typical rent, so many households are still scrambling to make up the difference by the end of the month.
In a Spotlight on Maryland report published yesterday, investigators reviewed state budget records and found that Maryland receives about $228 million a year in the federal TANF block grant. Once state dollars and related programs are added in, the state spent roughly $833 million in TANF-related funds in fiscal 2023. Only about a quarter of that total reached families as direct cash assistance, a share advocates say is too small to meet basic needs, according to Fox Baltimore.
What state and policy analysts say
Independent analyses highlight how the funding structure shapes those choices. The federal TANF block grant has been frozen since 1996, and states are allowed to count their own maintenance-of-effort dollars toward combined TANF totals. That accounting helps explain why researchers at the Maryland Center on Economic Policy and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have found that only about a quarter of combined TANF funds in recent years are going to basic cash assistance. The Maryland Center on Economic Policy lays out how Maryland fits into the broader state and national context.
Where the money goes
State budget documents break TANF-linked spending into categories that often do not put money directly into parents' hands. Foster care maintenance, local child welfare services, work programs, and administrative costs all claim major slices of the pie. The Department of Legislative Services' fiscal 2023 overview shows recent increases in foster care and child welfare spending, along with a shifting mix of cash assistance and services, underscoring how line-item decisions change who benefits. The Department of Legislative Services provides the detailed budget breakdowns.
What families actually receive
Under 2025 benefit levels, a family of three can receive up to $753 a month and a family of six up to $1,149, with benefits scaling upward for very large households. Those amounts, Fox Baltimore reported, fall far short of typical housing costs. Kali Schumitz of the Maryland Center on Economic Policy told the station, “That’s clearly not enough to live on.”
Average asking rents across Maryland generally fall in the roughly $1,600 to $2,000 per month range, according to rental market data from Zillow and Apartments.com. In other words, even the maximum TANF check for a larger household usually fails to cover the rent, never mind utilities, food, or anything else.
Advocates and lawmakers push back
Advocates and some lawmakers argue that Maryland could steer a bigger share of TANF-eligible dollars into direct cash assistance while still maintaining child welfare and work programs. National and state research shows that cash assistance has steadily shrunk as a share of TANF spending over the past few decades, and policy groups are calling for clearer accounting and legislative fixes to ensure more of the money actually reaches families. The Maryland Center on Economic Policy and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities outline a range of reform options.
Lawmakers on Maryland’s Health and Social Services committees say they plan to scrutinize agency budgets this session and press for more transparent tracking of federal and state TANF streams. How the state ultimately chooses to count and spend those dollars will determine whether TANF continues to function primarily as a family safety net or increasingly serves as a quiet funding source for other programs in the years ahead.
