Minnesota Family Investment Program
1986 Yearbook – A lot has changed since 1986, but not MFIP cash assistance.
In 1996 the federal government ended the 65-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children launched during the Depression and established a block grant to the states, Temporary Assistance to Needy Children. States were told to use the block grant to refashion their cash assistance programs with a new focus on work. Minnesota responded by creating the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP).
In the 1990s with a seven-county pilot version of MFIP, Minnesota proved that it would be possible to construct a welfare to work program that helped families move out of poverty. But we have abandoned much of what worked in the years since.
Getting welfare policy right matters. More than 70,000 of the state’s poorest children rely on MFIP and when their families can move out of poverty, their lives stabilize, their performance in school improves and their futures open.
- Is “welfare” the only unemplyoment safety net available to some workers?
- See a concise history of the Minnesota Family Investment Program.
- Replace the myths who turns to cash assistance with the facts. Myths and Realities
- Understand more about the flawed way the federal government measures “success’ for state welfare-to-work programs.{docs}evaluating-welfare-reform{/docs}
MN Data
Every December the MN Department of Human Services releases a snapshot about the demographics of who uses cash assistance in Minnesota for that month.
- Characteristics of 2008 Minnesota Family Assistance Cases
- Minnesota Family Investment Program Trends Report
- History of MFIP
Source: Affirmative Options Coalition