Background: Ohio was previously approved for a demonstration project to exclude earned income from temporary employment in the 2020 Census through October 31, 2020. On January 12, 2021, the United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service announced it is extending this project to align with the Census Bureau’s Post-Enumeration Survey (PES) operations and excludes income earned from this employment from February 1, 2021 through October 31, 2021. As a standard component of the decennial Census, PES operations determine the number of people and housing units missed or counted erroneously (including those counted more than once) during the Census.

New Policy: Income earned from Census Bureau’s PES operations from February 1, 2021 through October 31, 2021, is excluded from the SNAP budget.

Implementation: Ohio Benefits (OB) functionality excludes Census income from both cash and SNAP budgets. Workers should enter Census income in OB by completing the following steps:

1.From the Eligibility tab, select Customer Information and access the Employment Screen.

2.Create a Census employment record for the customer.

3.Once the screen is complete, select “Save and Return” to save the employment record.

4.From the Eligibility tab, select Customer Information and access the Income Screen.

5.Enter “Earnings” as the Income Category and select “Add” to add the income record on the Income Detail Screen.

6.On the Income Detail Screen, enter the Type as “Census Earnings – Decennial, Temporary.”

7.For Employment, select and link the Census employment record.

8.Once the Income Detail Screen is complete, select “Save and Return” to save the income record.

9.Enter journal notes detailing the actions taken. 

Questions can be sent to TANF-FSTA@jfs.ohio.gov  or by calling Program Policy Services at 1-866-886-3537 (option 6).