Mississippi welfare spending by category, over time

Mississippi is only required to report in vague categories the way it spends Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars to the federal government. From 2017 to 2018 alone, MDHS reported spending half what it had spent on work activities, work supports and supportive services and quadruple the amount it had spent on "Fatherhood and Two Parent Family Formation," which purportedly includes parenting classes like those offered by Mississippi Community Education Center, the nonprofit currently under investigation. This fluctuation could be a result of the agency's shoddy reporting. The trend continued in 2019, though with significantly less overall spending, according to the most recent federal data released in October. In 2018, one of the years the alleged fraud occurred, the state also spent $16.3 million on program administration, more than three times the amount it spent the year before.

*Some spending categories have changed since 2010 and "state scholarship" is not a category on federal spending reports. In 2010, we counted the state scholarship as part of "additional work activities" and subtracted from that category so the funds would not be counted twice. We also grouped related categories for clarity. Transfers to the Child Care Development Block grant are included under "total child care" and in most cases make up the bulk of that spending. Transfers to the Social Services Block Grant are not included.