Mississippi TANF keeps SSI recipients in the unit and counts their income; MDHS totally disregards SSI recipients #10516

Summary

Mississippi leaves SSI recipients out of the TANF assistance unit and totally disregards their income and resources. On main, Mississippi TANF does neither:

• ms_tanf_maximum_benefit and the need standard in ms_tanf_income_eligible use spm_unit_size, which counts SSI recipients.
• ms_tanf_countable_income and the 185% gross income test in ms_tanf_income_eligible add tanf_gross_earned_income and tanf_gross_unearned_income of every member, SSI recipients included. (The SSI payment itself is not counted, because ssi is not in gov.hhs.tanf.cash.income.sources.unearned.)
• ms_tanf_resources_eligible tests the whole unit's spm_unit_cash_assets.

No variable under variables/gov/states/ms/dhs/tanf reads ssi or receives_ssi.

PR #10258 adds ms_tanf_countable_earned_income, which gives every earner the $90 work expense deduction, SSI recipients included. The manual takes the deduction only from the earnings of "each individual ... whose needs are included in the eligibility determination", so an SSI recipient's earnings should not be counted at all.

Law

Miss. Admin. Code tit. 18, pt. 13, TANF Policy Manual, Volume III (PDF dated 2024-12-05; page numbers are PDF file pages):

• Chapter 6, Budgetary Process: General Principles, revised 12-01-17 (file page 458):

  Totally disregard the income and resources of an SSI recipient or of an SSI ineligible spouse who was converted with the SSI recipient and whose income is still included in the SSI test. The system will disregard the income and resources when the participation code is SS.

• Chapter 6, Special Budgeting Procedures, "When Receipt of SSI Is Involved", revised 07-01-06 (file page 472): when one parent receives SSI, include the non-SSI parent's income "along with his requirements"; "For cases including only children receiving SSI, the income and resources of the SSI child(ren) will be totally disregarded."
• Chapter 3, Assistance Unit Concept, revised 08-01-06 (file pages 192-193):
  • Siblings who receive SSI are "technically ineligible for TANF" (participation code SS).
  • A legal parent is left out of the unit if the parent is "An SSI recipient ... The income and resources of these parents must not be considered." People whom SSA considers SSI-eligible without a payment are treated the same way.
  • A parent stays in the unit as "The legal parent of at least one child in the budget or of a child who would be in the budget if not receiving SSI".
• Chapter 4, Income: Basic Principles (file page 351), item 11: "Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments (recipients are excluded from TANF)."

Reproduction (PE-US main 86b04f3, 2026-10-27)

Mississippi, January 2026. A parent (35) and two children (6 and 9), no assets. PolicyEngine computes ssi. ms_tanf_eligible is true in every row.

Expected: the SSI recipient is left out, so the unit has 2 people (case A: the two children; cases B and C: the parent and the 9-year-old). The maximum is $200 + $36 = $236, and countable income is $0. PolicyEngine's current formula (maximum less countable income) gives $236. The 60% rule in #10269 gives the same amount: min(floor(0.6 × 460), 236) = $236.

PE pays $236 too little in case A, $176 too little in case B and $24 too much in case C. With #10258, case A is still $0 (260 − (400 − 90) < 0), and cases B and C do not change.

Expected vs actual

Suggested fix

1. Add a Person variable ms_tanf_is_assistance_unit_member that is false when ssi > 0 or receives_ssi, like ks_tanf_is_assistance_unit_member.
2. Count members of the unit for the need standard in ms_tanf_income_eligible and for ms_tanf_maximum_benefit.
3. Sum only members' income in ms_tanf_income_eligible, ms_tanf_countable_income and Apply Mississippi TANF's $90 work expense and dependent care deductions and $10 minimum payment #10258's ms_tanf_countable_earned_income.
4. Keep the parent of an only child who receives SSI in the unit (Chapter 3), so that parent gets the one-person payment.
5. spm_unit_cash_assets is a unit amount, so the SSI recipient's resources cannot be separated. Note this as a limitation.

Related

• Apply Mississippi TANF's $90 work expense and dependent care deductions and $10 minimum payment #10258 (open): $90 work expense, dependent care and the $10 minimum. Its per-earner $90 should skip SSI recipients.
• Mississippi TANF pays the maximum benefit less income; MDHS pays 60% of the deficit (need standard less net income) up to the maximum #10269 (60% of the deficit), Mississippi TANF counts a student child's earnings; MDHS disregards them in the gross and net income tests #10490 (student earnings disregard), Mississippi TANF omits the $90 work expense and dependent care deductions and pays grants under $10 #10209.
• Other states that already leave SSI recipients out: Kansas ks_tanf_is_assistance_unit_member (Add Kansas TANF county payment groups and fix SSI and child support handling #8741), Missouri mo_tanf_is_assistance_unit_member (Fix MO TANF assistance unit, eligibility, student earnings, SSI exclusion, and disregard sequence #9229, Fix Missouri TANF SSI exclusions and per-earner income disregards #9271), North Carolina nc_tanf_household_size and Apply North Carolina Work First's 27.5% earnings exclusion and $25 minimum payment #10260, South Carolina Count South Carolina TANF unearned income at gross amounts and leave SSI recipients out of the benefit group #10184.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code