TANF State Expenditure Integrity Act of 2025

Key Points

• The bill creates a new TANF Program Integrity Unit within the Administration for Children & Families. This federal team would monitor how states and their subrecipients spend welfare block grant money, specifically looking for intentional misuse.
• The new oversight unit would receive $10 million per year in new federal funding to pay for staffing and operations. The Secretary would also develop a monitoring framework and could require states to submit additional reports.
• If the federal government finds that TANF funds were intentionally misused, the state must spend an additional amount equal to the misused funds on direct cash assistance to families living below the poverty line. This penalty comes on top of existing penalties for intentional violations.
• The new rules would take effect about a year after the bill becomes law, on either the first day of the fifth calendar quarter after enactment or the first day of the next federal fiscal year, whichever comes later. The government has two years to publish rulemaking.