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VA Auxiliary Grants and Employment

The Effects of Earnings on your Auxiliary Grant

If you are an Auxiliary Grant recipient and you become employed (or if you are already employed and you increase your earnings), then your combined Supplemental Security Income (SSI) cash benefit (if any) and AG Payment will be decreased by an amount equal to the countable portion of your earnings. (See: AG Countable Income.)

Assuming, however, that you are still eligible for at least $1 of AG benefit (and your resources remain below the resource limit), your spendable income will increase even though you must pay part of your earnings to the facility to make up for the benefit decrease. (See the examples below to find out how your spendable income increases.)

If, on the other hand, your income is high enough to decrease your AG benefit to zero, or if you save enough of your earnings to make your resources too high, then you would no longer be eligible for the Auxiliary Grant; and the facility could charge you their private rate (which is usually higher than the AG rate). And worse, you could become ineligible for Medicaid. (See AG Income Eligibility.)

Examples

NOTE: The examples below use June 2003 rates.

Example 1: SSI Recipient – Assisted Living in Norfolk

Currently: Jacob is an SSI recipient who has an Auxiliary Grant and lives in a licensed Assisted Living Facility in Norfolk. Since he has no other income, he receives $552 in SSI and $289 in Auxiliary Grant money, for a total of $841. He pays $779 to the facility (the facility's AG Rate) and he keeps $62 (his AG Personal Allowance) to spend.

Part Time Job: If Jacob gets a small part-time job earning $85 per month, the SSI and AG amounts do not decrease (because of the $20 general exclusion and $65 earned income exclusion). So now Jacob has $147 per month to spend ($62 + $85). (NOTE: If you do not understand the exclusions, see AG Countable Income.)

Full Time Job: If Jacob lands a job paying $1,200 per month, his countable income is $557.50 (Earnings of $1,200 minus $85 general and earned income exclusions yields $1115. $1115 divided by 2 yields $557.50).

So instead of receiving SSI and AG checks totaling $841.00, Jacob receives no SSI check and an AG payment of $283.50 ($841 minus countable income of $557.50 yields $283.50).

The facility still bills him $779, so he turns over the $283.50 AG Payment to the facility and pays the difference of $495.50 from his earnings. Doing so leaves him with $704.50 to spend ($1,200 in earnings minus the $495.50 he pays the facility from earnings yields $704.50). (NOTE: This assumes that the Earned Income Tax Credit cancels out the FICA withholding from his paycheck).

Eligibility: To see how much Jacob could earn without losing his AG eligibility, see Example 1 in AG Income Eligibility.

Example 2: SSDI Beneficiary – Assisted Living in Fairfax

Currently: Buffy lives in a Licensed Assisted Living Facility in Fairfax County. She receives $600 monthly in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). (Her SSDI benefit is too high for her to be eligible for SSI, but she is eligible for Medicaid under the Auxiliary Grant covered group.)

To figure out the amount of Buffy's AG payment, we must subtract her countable income from the sum of the facility's AG Rate and her Personal Allowance. (To understand why this is so, it may help to remember that the purpose of the AG Payment is to add enough to countable income for the individual to pay the facility and have at least the Personal Allowance amount to spend.)

The facility's AG Rate is $905 per month and Buffy's Personal Allowance is $62; so the total of the two is $967. Buffy's countable income is $580 (Her SSDI of $600 minus the $20 General Exclusion yields $580). The AG payment amount, therefore, is $387 (The total of $967 minus $580 of countable income yields $387).

The result is that Buffy receives two checks, her $600 SSDI and the $387 Auxiliary Grant, for a total of $987. After she pays the facility $905, she has $82 of spendable income.

Job Possibility: Buffy may be able to take a job paying $800 per month. She wonders what effect the job would have on the amount of money she would have to spend.

She calculates that her countable income would increase by $367.50 (Her earnings of $800 minus the $65 Earned Income Exclusion yields $735. Dividing $735 by 2 yields countable earnings of $367.50).

Her Auxiliary Grant would therefore decrease by $367.50, giving her an AG Payment amount of $19.50 (The AG Payment of $387 minus countable earnings of $367.50 yields the new AG Payment of $19.50).

Her total income would be $1,419.50 ($600 SSDI plus $19.50 AG plus $800 in earnings yields $1,419.50). And she would have $514.50 to spend (Total income of $1,419.50 minus the $905 facility rate yields spendable income of $514.50).

Eligibility: To see how much Buffy could earn without losing her AG eligibility, see Example 2 in AG Income Eligibility.

Back to:

Auxiliary Grant Overview

VA Benefit Information System Welcome and Introduction

Source:

Information came both from http://www.dss.state.va.us/family/auxgrant.html and communications with the Virginia Department of Social Services (DSS) Division of Benefit Programs.

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