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DE DSS - Family Budget Group

The family budget group is the total number of persons whose needs and income are budgeted together for the purposes of receiving public assistance from the Delaware Division of Social Services (DSS) for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), General Assistance (GA), Medicaid, and other programs.

NOTE: Individuals who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits are not included in the Family Budget Group. See TANF - SSI Recipient for details.

The Family Budget Group always includes:

·      Married couples if they live together and are both eligible for a grant

·      Unmarried couples who live together as husband and wife and are both eligible for a grant

·      Parents and their eligible children

NOTE: See TANF - Family Cap for details of how to count children who are subject to the TANF Family Cap restrictions.

Family Budget Groups and Assistance Units

In some circumstances your Family Budget Group may have more than one Assitance Unit. In such cases, the income and the size of each Assistance Unit is used in determining the TANF income-eligibility or the General Assistance income-eligibility of the members of each Assistance Unit.

Resource-eligibility for both TANF and GA, however, is always determined for the Family Budget Group as a whole.

And the size of the Family Budget Group is used to cap the total of the TANF and/or GA payments in accordance with the TANF Payment Standards.

NOTE: See TANF - Income Eligibility, TANF - Income Limits, and TANF - Grant Amount for details.

In households that include a caretaker and the caretaker's children, the caretaker's needs and income and those of his/her children are always budgeted together. The needs and income of any other children in the home are considered separately. In these situations, the separate budget groups can be combined to form a single-family budget group only when the following conditions are met:

·      Assistance would be denied to any of the recipients by maintaining separate budget groups; and

·      The caretaker understands the consequences of combining the budget groups (i.e., lower assistance payments, increased Medicaid coverage, etc.) and chooses to have his/her needs and income and those of his/her children considered with the needs and income of any other children in the home.

See also:

DE TANF - Assistance Unit

DE TANF - Financial Eligibility

DE GA - Assistance Unit

DE GA - Financial Eligibility

DE DSS - Application Procedures

DE DSS - Change Reporting Requirements

DE DSS - Contact Information

Source:

DSS Policy Manual (Sect. 4001)

Back to:

DE Division of Social Services - Overview

DE Benefit Information System Overview

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