Can states align the definitions of what counts as income among benefit programs?
Yes, states can align income-counting rules across benefit programs; there are some minimum federal requirements in the rules states can adopt for the Food Stamp Program, but as a practical matter, these are unlikely to cause serious problems for state alignment efforts. While different programs have different income-eligibility cut-offs, those differences rarely cause great difficulty for program implementation because the actual calculation to determine whether an applicant s countable income is above or below this eligibility limit typically is done by a computer. At the same time, differences in the definition of what income counts toward the income-eligibility limit can cause significant confusion both for families and for caseworkers helping families navigate the application process for multiple programs. Fortunately, federal law no longer compels states to have different rules for whether a particular type of income such as small donations provided by a church, educational benef
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