Improving TARP's Investment in American Workers

TARP’s Hardest Hit Fund is an investment in American workers, providing a temporary safety net to help save the homes of unemployed and underemployed working class Americans in Rust Belt states (such as Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois), Southern states (such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia), and 10 other states. HHF has helped more than a quarter of a million homeowners, but even good programs can be better. The program is meeting a real need, one that continues. The need for this unemployment bridge—and other Hardest Hit Fund programs, like blight demolition—remains so critical that, in December 2015, Members of Congress from Ohio and Michigan worked across the aisle to convince Congress to add $2 billion to the program. Hardest Hit Fund dollars have been slow to flow in many states, and more than 160,000 people were denied HHF assistance. SIGTARP analyzed data provided by state agencies on each person who was turned down for this program.