With the child-tax-credit money flowing monthly, state TANF administrators expect fewer and fewer poor parents to bother applying for welfare. That raises the prospect that the program might wither away. Some politicians on the Hill—most notably Senator Mitt Romney of Utah—have proposed killing TANF entirely and using the money for other child-welfare initiatives.

That seems unlikely at the moment. The Biden administration has shown little interest in TANF—the program wasn’t even mentioned in its budget proposal—and the budget and infrastructure package working its way through Congress seems unlikely to make significant changes to the program. But there is growing support on the left for reforming TANF, improving it rather than letting it fade away, particularly in light of the new child allowance’s success. Experts have long pushed for making it more effective and evidence-based—standardizing its benefits, streamlining its application processes, and getting rid of its work requirements, asset tests, and drug tests. Even with the child allowance in place, the United States will still leave millions of kids in poverty each and every year. Why not use TANF to give them more support, and get every child above the poverty line? “Three hundred dollars a month is a huge boon to families, but it is still not enough to raise a child on,” Ife Floyd, a TANF expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told me.

Pruitt agrees. The child allowance is more help that comes with fewer strings attached. But the assistance from welfare still matters, given how tight the family’s budget feels. “If you’re trying to do something for yourself, then it is a program that will be beneficial,” she said. “For me, it is beneficial.”