Despite the efforts of Democrats to extend it, federal funding runs out today for the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund (ECF), which was a $5 billion appropriation in the Recovery Act that has been used in a variety of ways to help low-income families. One very important use of the ECF dollars has been to finance transitional jobs and summer youth employment programs, which have provided 235,000 jobs in 36 states for low-income parents and young adults. Wisconsin’s new transitional jobs program will be adversely affected, but not as quickly as programs in other states that rely more heavily on the ECF dollars.

Read more in this Wisconsin Budget Project Blog post: Unhappy fiscal New Year begins for TANF-subsidized jobs programs.