Background: Section 5107.04 of the
Revised Code requires the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to
increase the Ohio Works First (OWF) payment standard on the first day of each
January by the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) that occurs in the previous year.
The COLA is announced by the Social Security Administration.
New Payment Standard: On October 13,
2017, the Social Security Administration announced a COLA increase of 2.0
percent. Beginning January 1, 2018, ODJFS will issue the following revised OWF
and Refugee Cash Assistance payments, based on assistance group size and
reflecting the COLA increase:
|
Assistance Group Size
|
Payments as of January 1, 2018
|
|
1
|
$289
|
|
2
|
$395
|
|
3
|
$483
|
|
4
|
$596
|
|
5
|
$698
|
|
6
|
$776
|
|
7
|
$868
|
|
8
|
$962
|
|
9
|
$1058
|
|
10
|
$1153
|
|
11
|
$1246
|
|
12
|
$1342
|
|
13
|
$1437
|
|
14
|
$1530
|
|
15
|
$1628
|
|
+15 ADD
|
$120
|
Implementation: Over the Thanksgiving
weekend a mass change will run in CRIS-E to update the payments. Alerts will be generated, and exception
reports will be created for all cases that CRIS-E could not update
automatically. For those cases, eligibility workers must run ED/BC in order for
the changes to be implemented. All assistance groups affected will receive
notices stating their new benefit amounts. A CLVB was issued with the details
of the system changes.