EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

Background: Section 17 (b) (1) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 gives the Secretary the authority to conduct certain demonstration projects. Accordingly, the Secretary may utilize this authority to waive the requirements of Section 5(d) of the Act and exclude temporary income. On August 24, 2009 the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service issued a memorandum offering states the opportunity to participate in a demonstration project to exclude earned income from temporary employment in the 2010 Census. For States that choose to participate, earned income from temporary Census employment will be excluded for food assistance benefits through September 30, 2010.

Current Policy: The census income currently is considered countable income in the food assistance budgets.

New Policy: On October 23, 2009 Ohio applied for and was approved to participate in the 2010 Census Income Demonstration Project. Effective immediately any income received from temporary employment in the 2010 Census is excluded in the food assistance budget. Participation in this demonstration project helps to further align policy among the food assistance, cash assistance and Medicaid programs.

Implementation: The census income code on CRIS-E table TEMP has been updated to exclude the census income from the food assistance budget through the approval of the waiver, which ends on September 30, 2010.