Overview
- - The freeze targets California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, with HHS saying payments will resume only after states document lawful use and eligibility.
- - Affected programs total roughly $7.35 billion in TANF, nearly $2.4 billion in CCDF and about $869 million in Social Services Block Grant funding.
- - Under a new “defend the spend” approach, HHS is demanding more administrative data from all states and proposing payments based on attendance and after services are delivered.
- - Minnesota remains the focal point of ongoing criminal and civil probes into alleged large-scale fraud, a spotlight intensified by a viral video, while no evidence of widespread fraud in the other named states has been presented by federal officials.
- - Democratic officials warn the pause could disrupt providers and low-income families and call it political retaliation, and some state agencies say they have not yet received formal notice of the changes.