WAC 388-450-0050

Effective February 1, 2011

WAC 388-450-0050 How does your participation in the community jobs (CJ) program affect your cash assistance and Basic Food benefits?

  1. There are two different types of income in the community jobs program.  They are:

    1. Subsidized, where your wages are paid from TANF or SFA funds; and

    2. Unsubsidized, where your wages are paid entirely by your employer. 

  2. We figure your total monthly subsidized or unsubsidized income by:

    1. Estimating the number of hours you, your case manager, and the CJ contractor expect you to work for the month; and

    2. Multiplying the number of hours by the federal or state minimum wage, whichever is higher.

  3. Because you are expected to participate and meet the requirements of CJ, once we determine what your total monthly income is expected to be, we do not change your TANF grant if your actual hours are more or less than anticipated.

  4. We treat the total income we expect you to get each month from your CJ position as:

    1. Earned income for cash assistance, except we do not count any of the CJ income for the first month you receive your paycheck.

    2. Earned income for Basic Food for all months.

  5. If your anticipated subsidized income is more than your grant amount, your cash grant is suspended. This means that you are still considered a TANF/SFA recipient, but you do not get a grant.

    1. Your grant can be suspended up to a maximum of nine months.

    2. You can keep participating in CJ even though your grant is suspended, as long as you would be eligible for a grant if we did not count your subsidized income.

    3. The months your grant is suspended do not count toward your sixty-month lifetime limit.

  6. If your unsubsidized income, after we subtract half of what you have earned, is greater than your grant, your TANF/SFA case will close. This happens because your income is over the maximum you are allowed. You will still be able to participate in the CJ program for up to a total of nine months.

  7. If your income from other sources alone, not counting CJ income, makes you ineligible for a cash grant, we terminate your grant and end your participation in CJ.

This is a reprint of the official rule as published by the Office of the Code Reviser. If there are previous versions of this rule, they can be found using the Legislative Search page.