Florida Leads Welfare Reform with First-Ever TANF Cash-Use Limits on Nonessential Purchases

Florida has become the first state to impose item-level limits on TANF cash benefits via EBT, barring purchases for nonessential items such as tattoos, theme-park admissions, video games, vaping products and other luxuries, while preserving basic-needs spending and phasing in the changes. Supported by federal officials as common-sense governance, the plan extends Healthy SNAP-like limits to cash assistance and is pitched as a model for other states; typical TANF households receive around $250 a month, and benefits themselves are not reduced, only spending restrictions.