California Department of Social Services - State Hearings Division
Notes from the Training Bureau - September 24, 1996

This ACIN provides guidelines for treating income, in the FS program, for individuals suspended from SSI/SSP by the Social Security Administration (SSA).

As indicated in CDSS ACL 95-80, dated December 21, 1995, individuals in receipt of SSI/SSP whose disability is based on Drug Addiction and Alcoholism (DA&A) will be suspended if they fail to comply with rehabilitation treatment requirements. (Public Law 104-121, signed into law on March 29, 1996, mandates that no new applications for SSI/SSP may be approved on or after that date solely based on DA&A disability. Current DA&A recipients have been given the opportunity to request that their cases be reviewed for other disabilities. If none is established, they will no longer be eligible for SSI/SSP benefits effective January 1, 1997.)

For Food Stamp Program purposes, individuals whose SSI/SSP benefits are suspended are not eligible to receive FS benefits (MPP §63-402.225). However, in DA&A suspended cases, individuals are not precluded from receiving AFDC due to nonreceipt of SSI/SSP benefits. Those individuals may receive AFDC if otherwise eligible.

An individual suspended from SSI/SSP is included as a member of the FS household for purposes of defining a household (see MPP §63-402.22). The individual is treated as a nonhousehold member for purposes of determining household size, eligibility and benefit level (see MPP §63-503.433).

The income of an individual suspended from SSI/SSP is not considered available to the FS household. If such individual is receiving aid as a member of an AFDC Assistance Unit (AU), the AFDC grant is prorated, and the excluded member’s portion is not treated as income to the FS household. The remaining portion of the AFDC grant is income to the household if the other AFDC AU members are also members of the FS household (see MPP §63-503.45).