Sponsors (4)
Consolidates specified antipoverty funding streams under a new Administration in HHS/ACF, and requires cross-agency transfers of program functions and proportional administrative funding for State pilots.
The bill allows a small set of States to test consolidated, better-evaluated antipoverty strategies with predictable funding and coordination benefits, but creates substantial risks of reduced benefits, increased conditionality, centralized control, and uneven impacts for local and tribal communities.
State governments can combine funds from SNAP, TANF, LIHEAP, WIOA, CDBG and other covered programs to run Upward Mobility Grants that pilot coordinated antipoverty strategies.
Pilot projects are required to prioritize designs that limit Marginal Effective Tax Rates (METRs), which can reduce benefit cliffs and strengthen work incentives for participants (especially parents and families).
Approved pilots receive predictable funding: guaranteed five-year grant payments plus administrative funding proportional to prior-year program funding, enabling states to staff and plan multi-year experiments.
Low-income participants risk receiving lower benefit levels because States may elect to receive a reduced percentage (10–100%) of covered amounts, potentially underfunding services relative to prior funding.
Individuals enrolled in State pilots are barred from receiving the same federal antipoverty program benefits outside the pilot during the pilot period, which could reduce access to services for some participants.
The requirement to enforce work requirements and measure compliance may increase administrative burdens and risks that participants who cannot meet new work rules will lose benefits.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Official title: To establish a pilot program in which States may use consolidated funds, through Upward Mobility Grants, for antipoverty programs, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 6, 2026 by Blake D. Moore · Last progress January 6, 2026
Creates a framework to consolidate a set of federal antipoverty funds into defined “covered amounts,” centralizes certain program administration responsibilities into a new entity within HHS (acting through the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families), and requires covered federal agencies to transfer specified administrative funding and portions of functions to that Administration. The bill defines key terms, lists the federal programs whose funds may be redesignated as covered amounts (SNAP, TANF, child care, LIHEAP, WIOA dislocated worker assistance, CDBG, public housing authorities amounts, and others), and gives the HHS official broad authority to receive, allocate, redelegate, and manage transferred functions, personnel, assets, and unexpended balances to run pilots and implement the consolidation authority.