ACF Shifts Welfare Caseload Base Year from 2005 to 2015
Published Date: 11/20/2025
Notice
Summary
The Administration for Children and Families wants to update and extend a form that helps states show how much they've lowered their caseloads. The big change is switching the base year from 2005 to 2015, thanks to a new law, which affects how states calculate their credits. States and the public can comment on these changes for the next 30 days, with no new costs expected.
Analyzed Economic Effects
2 provisions identified: 0 benefits, 2 costs, 0 mixed.
Base Year Change for TANF Credits
If your state runs TANF, ACF will use fiscal year 2015 instead of fiscal year 2005 as the base year to calculate the caseload reduction credit under Section 407(b)(3) following the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (Public Law 118-15, Sec. 301). That caseload reduction credit is the amount used to reduce a state's required work participation rate for a fiscal year, and ACF proposes to revise form ACF-202 to reflect the change.
Estimated Paperwork Burden Hours
ACF's notice estimates that the Caseload Reduction Credit Documentation Process (ACF-202) involves 54 respondents with an average burden of 40 hours per response and an annual burden of 2,160 hours for that instrument. The notice also reports an estimated total annual burden across listed TANF-related instruments of 546,804 hours.
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