Hi everyone I'm Rose Marie Miller here with Tara Watson, the director of Center for Economic

Security and Opportunity at Brookings here to tell us about the generosity of each state's safety net programs.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Tara.

My pleasure.

So Tara, can you explain how state and federal program policies interact to determine

eligibility and benefit levels in the context of safety net programs for

single parent families?

Sure.

In this country we don't just have one big safety net program.

We have a complex network, patchwork, if you will, of overlapping programs.

Some of them are funded by the federal government.

Some of them are funded by states and some of them are a combination of the two

and there are also programs at the local level.

And these programs are all serving somewhat overlapping populations

and have somewhat different purposes.

They pull together this sort of stew of supports for low-income people in the country.

So we have a few programs that we think of as the most important programs in the safety net for single parent

families. These include the earned income tax credit, which is a federal credit for

workers with low incomes that is primarily geared at workers with children.

We also have a state-level version of that same program in many states. There is also the temporary assistance for Needy Families

program which is a traditional cash welfare program that came out of welfare reform and still provides some cash assistance but has been declining

over time. In addition, there are food assistance programs that are very important to families.

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