Revised on August 16, 2019
Legal References:
The 3.3 IRP and Stacking Activities section has two separate sub-sections:
Federal rules reduce funding to states that fail to meet a federal work participation rate. To meet the rates, states must have a percentage of participants in the required number of hours of countable activities each month.
Section 1.2.1 What is participation and how is it counted describes the participation requirements for participants and teens who are able to participate. Stacking goes beyond the basic participation requirements and gives guidance about how we might best meet the needs of participants, achieve the most important WorkFirst goals, and maximize our ability to meet the federal rate.
All WorkFirst activities were designed for a purpose - but not all of them count towards meeting the federal Work Participation Rate (WPR). WorkFirst activities fall into one of five broad categories:
The Core & Non-Core Activity chart lists countable core and non-core activities.
The Stacking Activities Chart sorts WorkFirst activities by how they count towards meeting the rate, listing all exemptions, exceptions, stabilization (uncountable), and core activities. The chart gives an overall strategy for core and non-core activities you may stack to help move the participant towards employment.
Comprehensive Evaluation (CE) recommendations designed to meet participants' needs while maximizing our ability to meet federal participation requirements should:
We build an IRP based on the primary activity the participant needs to progress. Some participants will be exempt and others will be required to access stabilization services (uncountable "X" codes).
Note: Please refer to section 6.3.5- How do we treat participants with medical issues who don’t have Washington Apple Health? for participants who do not have Washington Apple Health (WAH) due to citizenship verification requirements AND have an activity requirement that is dependent on WAH coverage.
You can require a participant to apply for WAH in their IRP, and sanction for failure to follow through, if they are potentially eligible but have never applied or let their coverage lapse. For example, use an IRP to require WAH application for a participant who needs chemical dependency treatment but has no current WAH coverage (See WAH Application IRP for suggested IRP language.).
A few parent/caregivers, minors and teens will meet the rate while participating fewer hours under federal participation exceptions. Participation requirements are:
Most parents/caregivers are able to participate and don't qualify for federal participation exemptions. You can stack activities to build an IRP that meets the rate as follows:
Example: Jacques and Sarah are married with two children and on WorkFirst. Jacques is working 25 hours per week and Sarah has been staying at home with the children. Both Sarah and Jacques want to participate in WorkFirst activities. Their WorkFirst Program Specialist looks at their CE results, talks to them and develops an IRP that meets the two-parent participation requirement of 38 hours per week including three hours of strengthened participation. See WFHB 1.2.2 for participation requirements.
Jacques' employment meets 25 hours of the household’s 30-hour core activity requirement. Based on Jacques’ CE options, he selects and agrees to the option of attending job skills training classes for 6 hours per week.
Based on the results of Sarah’s CE options, she agrees to go to job search for 32 hours per week. The household exceeds their 38 hour per week participation requirements by doing 57 hours per week of core activity and 6 hours per week of countable non-core activity.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) has rules that apply to participants in community service and work experience (unpaid work activities).
Under federal rules, participants who work the FLSA maximum hours meet their full core activity requirement. The FLSA maximum hours for the past, current and upcoming month is calculated and displayed in eJAS, and visible to contractors in the Component/Contractor/IRP Update screen via the Calculate FLSA link. To calculate FLSA hours for applicants and re-applicants, the WFPS/WFSSS enters the cash and food benefit amounts and household size. The eJAS calculation will default to Washington State minimum wage, so if a client is subject to a higher local minimum wage the FLSA hours will need to be manually adjusted. See section 3.3.2.6 for more information about determining FLSA hours based on local minimum wages.
When a participant is first approved for WorkFirst cash assistance, and the participant is entering a community service or work experience activity, DSHS staff are required to use the eJAS FLSA Calculator Tool to determine the maximum number of participation hours for the current month and pass that information to community service and work experience providers. eJAS will start to calculate and display the FLSA maximum hours to all partners and contractors as soon as the calculation is saved.
Staff can use the eJAS FLSA calculator tool to calculate the FLSA maximum hours based on the participant's grant and food stamp benefits, divided by the state or local minimum wage. The result is the maximum FLSA hours for the month. The FLSA calculator tool automatically divides the monthly maximum FLSA hours by 4.33 and rounds down to determine how many hours the participant will perform unpaid work, on average, each week.
For example, Dorothy will be doing Community Works, skills enhancement training and her FLSA maximum hours are 14 hours per week. Under FLSA we can only require Dorothy to do 14 hours per week of Community Works and that meets her 20-hour core activity requirement. Dorothy does an additional 12 hours per week of skills enhancement training to bring her up to 32 hours per week of countable participation and we add 3 additional hours of skills enhancement training (instead of Community Works) per WFHB 1.2.3 to add additional hours without exceeding the FLSA maximum.
There are special rules for deeming in two-participant families. Most important, the FLSA maximum hours apply to the entire family, not to each participant. To be classified as a two-participant family under federal rules, neither participant can be:
Under WorkFirst, we want each participant to participate 32-40 hours per week unless one participant is opting out, or the participants are splitting the hours, under WFHB 1.2.4. When we maximize participation at the headquarters level, we will use federal rules to deem 30 hours of core activities if either participant works the family's FLSA maximum hours. When we do this, the whole family will meet the rate if either participant does an additional 5 hours of another type of core or non-core activity.
Some families FLSA maximum hours will exceed 20-30 hours per week so we will not be deeming additional hours. In these cases you may:
See WFHB 1.2.3 for additional information about adding an additional three hours (preferably core activity hours) in the parent’s IRP when possible. Don’t exceed the FLSA maximum hours for unpaid work activities. You can substitute non-core hours for core hours as needed to stay within the FLSA maximum.
Under FLSA and state law, DSHS must use the state or local minimum wage, whichever is higher, when determining hours of participation in unpaid work experience and community service activities. Local ordinances are only in effect within the local government's boundaries and may only apply to some types of employment. For the purposes of FLSA deeming, DSHS is an employer.
For local minimum wage cases, the WorkFirst partner/contractor must send the local minimum wage rate to DSHS to receive the adjusted FLSA hours. The WFPS/WFSSS is responsible to calculate the adjusted FLSA hours by entering the cash grant amount, basic food allotment, and number of household members into the FLSA calculator tool. Staff must use the eJAS FLSA Calculator Tool to update participation when there is a change on the cash or food household, and as update the IRP for all local minimum wage cases.
Note: When the WFPS/WFSSS sets up the unpaid work activity, they will use the FLSA Local Minimum Wage Chart (for staff use only) to determine whether local minimum wage applies.