The Women’s Economic Security Campaign (WESC), led by four women’s funds--the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis, the Chicago Foundation for Women, the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, and the Women’s Foundation of California--is   dedicated to increasing opportunity for low‐income women through policy, advocacy, public education, and grant making to organizations that use a gendered lens to focus attention on the problem of poverty. One of the goals of WESC is to create, strengthen, and protect policies and practices that support the ability of women and their children to achieve economic security. 

WESC commissioned both national and local/regional research briefs on specific policy issues that impact the well being of low‐income women. An initial review of the literature on women and poverty led CROW researchers to identify several current policies of Tennessee's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, Families First, that we believe should be revised, and/or which deserve more careful analysis.