The Department of Transitional Assistance has issued guidance to expand the use of the “categorical eligibility rule” to ELIMINATE he Food Stamp asset test most FS households with income below 200% FPL, unless the household has a work or IPV sanction. (The 130% gross income tests will still apply to FS applicants age 18 – 60, if no children and no disability.)
Elimination of the asset requirement was a recommendation of several advocacy groups. This policy change brings Massachusetts in line with a growing number of states that have used the categorical eligibility rules to eliminate asset requirements. Elimination of the asset test is also consistent with many of the asset exclusion provisions(non-countable retirement and pension accounts) included in the 2008 Farm
Bill recently passed by Congress.
For a number of years there has been NO asset test in Food Stamps for families with children (or pregnant women) with income is below 200% of the FPL. This has not changed. The NEW policy directs DTA workers to NOT ask questions about assets or ask for verification of assets for any households with an elder (age 60 +) or person with disabilities if the household income is below 200% of the FPL. For elder/disabled
households with income above 200% FPL, DTA will ask about assets. Note: for any household seeking “expedited” (fast) food stamps, DTA will continue to ask about assets (less than $150) to determine expedited issuance, but this will not affect ongoing eligibility if the household fails to provide the information.
Congratulations and thanks to Commissioner Kehoe, FS Director Phuoc Cao and his staff for their very hard work on this policy change! This policy change will make a HUGE difference for so many elder and disabled households. Spread the word!!!!
Some of us aren’t all that conversant with things like “asset requirements,” “categorical eligibility rules,” and “IPV sanctions.”
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p>Thanks!
There has been terrific work going on by “Food Security” advocates who have been very busy identifying various barriers that hungry families face getting food stamps, and then working with the state and federal folk to figure out a simpler and faster path to eligibility. After months and years of talking eligibilityspoke with state and federal officials, they sometimes forget to talk plain talk to us. Of course they are very good at talking to potential recipients in lots of different languages, but recipients learned eligibilityspoke a long time ago.
Dealing with stuff on a daily basis its easy to get caught up in the lingo. Asset requirements simply means the asset test or a review of one’s liquid assets that would have made them ineligible for food stamps prior to this change. DTA no longer counts assets such as money in the bank, car, retirement account, your home or other assets for certain groups of people. These groups of people are placed in to a number of different categories based on age, disability, children in the household and others. Categorical eligibility rules means the criteria by which one can be considered to belong to one of these groups.
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p>A IPV sanction is a “intentional program violation” where DTA determines that the recipient has purposely violated rules or agreements regarding eligibility or benefit amount, therefore the recipient is either terminated or is applied some other sanction such as repayment of benefits.