The short answer
TANF pays monthly cash to low-income families with a child in the home. Federal law caps assistance funded with federal money at 60 months in a lifetime and requires most adults to work or prepare for work. Within those limits each state sets its own income test, its own payment and its own name for the programme, and benefit levels vary enormously.
Cash, and what that changes
SNAP arrives on a card that buys groceries. TANF arrives as money, and a family may spend it on rent, a bus pass, nappies, a utility bill or a car repair. That flexibility is the point of it, because the shortfalls that stop a household functioning are rarely all in the same category.
States also spend TANF money on things that are not a monthly payment at all, including childcare help, short-term emergency aid meant to stop a crisis becoming a case, and work programmes. A family that does not qualify for ongoing cash may still be able to get one of those, which is worth asking about directly.
A child in the home is the threshold question
Federal funds generally cannot be used for ongoing assistance to a household that does not include a minor child living with a parent or another adult caretaker relative. A pregnant person may qualify as well. This is the test that settles most applications before income is ever discussed.
A household where only the child is eligible, often because the adult is not a parent or is not eligible on immigration grounds, is usually handled as a child-only case. Those cases are common, and the work requirements and the time limit generally do not apply to them in the same way.
Your state decides nearly everything else
TANF is a block grant. Congress fixes the federal amount, currently about $16.6 billion a year, divides it among the states, territories and tribes, and leaves the design to them. Each sets its own income and resource limits, its own payment levels within federal constraints, and its own rules, and many call the programme something else entirely.
The consequence is that the same family may be comfortably eligible in one state and not eligible at all across a state line, and that the monthly payment where they do qualify can differ several times over. Any national figure for what TANF pays is an average of very different things.
Work is a condition, not a suggestion
Adults receiving assistance are generally required to work or take part in approved work activities as soon as they are ready, and in any case once they have received assistance for 24 months. States are themselves measured on the share of their caseload meeting those requirements, which is why the rules tend to be applied closely.
What counts as an approved activity is broader than a job, and may include subsidised employment, on-the-job training, job search, vocational training or community service. There are hour requirements attached, and missing them can reduce or end a payment, so it is worth being clear at the outset about what your state expects and what it will count.
The five-year clock
Federal law limits assistance funded with federal dollars to 60 months in an adult's lifetime. The months need not be consecutive, and they follow the adult rather than the case, so time used years ago in another state generally still counts against the total.
States may set a shorter limit and many have. They may also exempt a limited share of their caseload from the federal limit for hardship, and they may use their own funds to keep paying a family beyond it. Whether any of that applies to you is a state question, not a federal one.
It is not an entitlement, and that matters
SNAP works like an entitlement: meet the rules and the benefit follows. TANF does not. The 1996 law that created it ended the individual entitlement to cash welfare, so meeting a state's criteria establishes that you may receive assistance rather than that you must.
In practice that can mean waiting lists, a one-off diversion payment offered in place of ongoing assistance, or a programme not currently taking new applications. It is the most important thing to understand before planning around a TANF payment, and a reason to apply early rather than as a last resort.
What our calculator works out
Our TANF screener checks the federal threshold questions rather than guessing at a dollar amount: whether the household includes a minor child or a pregnancy, and how your citizenship or immigration status affects eligibility. It then points you to the agency in your state that sets the income limit and the payment.
What this does not tell you
There is no national TANF benefit amount to calculate, so the site does not invent one. Your state agency sets the income test, the payment and the conditions, and it makes the decision.
The screener does not apply your state's income or resource limits, its time limit, its work requirements or its treatment of child-only cases, and it cannot tell you whether the programme in your area is open to new applicants.
Official sources
What you can do next
If there is a child in your household and money is short, find your state's programme and ask what it is currently paying and whether it is taking applications. Check the threshold questions here first so that the call is a short one.