Where this sits: Benefits › Child support and benefits. Program pages: SNAP, MFIP, GA, MSA and Housing Support, and one-time back payments.
The short answer
In every Minnesota program covered here, child support a household receives counts as income. The programs differ in how much of it counts, whose income it is, and how a one-time back payment is treated.
| Program | Regular child support received | Main exception |
|---|---|---|
| SNAP (food support) | All of it counts, current support and arrears | A one-time back payment is not income (back payments) |
| MFIP (cash and food for families) | Counts as the child's income, minus a disregard of up to $100 a month for one child or $200 for two or more, per unit, not per child | Support collected for a child outside the MFIP case (for example, a child on SSI) is not counted |
| General Assistance (GA) | All of it counts when the person receives it directly | None found |
| Minnesota Supplemental Aid (MSA) | People on SSI: SSI's own rules apply. Others: as GA | |
| Housing Support | Aged, blind or disabled: as MSA. Everyone else: as GA | |
| MA for people who are aged, blind or disabled (MA-ABD) | The child's income; one-third is excluded | Support given in kind is not income |
| Child care assistance (CCAP) | All of it counts | A one-time back payment is spread over 12 months |
Minnesota Statutes 256P.06, subd. 3 sets the split for the cash programs and child care assistance: all child support counts for child care assistance, GA, MSA and Housing Support; for MFIP only the part above $100 (one child) or $200 (two or more).
Spousal support counts in all of these programs too, as the adult's income. In MFIP there is no disregard for it.
First thing to ask: is the family on SNAP alone, or on MFIP, which provides cash and food together? The rules are different.
Whose income it is
This decides which case the support lands on when people live in more than one unit.
- MFIP and MA-ABD: support for a child is the child's income; spousal support is the adult's.
- SNAP: support a parent receives for a child who does not live with them counts as the parent's income, unless the parent forwards it to the child or uses it for the child.
Two rules that run through the cash programs
- Only available income counts. In MFIP, GA, MSA, Housing Support and child care assistance, income counts only if the household can actually get at it. SNAP has its own rule.
- Budgeting looks ahead. The cash programs count income they expect with reasonable certainty, and an increase usually waits until the next review.
MFIP families normally receive support through the state. The right to support is signed over to the state, the county child support office collects it, and current support is passed on to the family. It still counts as the family's income. Medical support and child care support signed over to the state are kept by the state. Details: MFIP.
Support someone pays out
When someone in the household pays child support for a child who lives elsewhere, most programs give some credit, but only for support actually paid, and usually only court-ordered support.
- SNAP: a deduction for court-ordered child support actually paid. See SNAP.
- MFIP: court-ordered support paid out is not counted as part of the payer's own income. See MFIP.
- GA: credit only for people who get a personal needs allowance: up to $250 a month of child support garnished under a court order. See GA, MSA and Housing Support.
- MSA: no provision.
- Housing Support: some deduction may be allowed.
- Child care assistance: child or spousal support paid for people outside the household is deducted from income.
One-time back payments
A large one-time payment of back support is treated differently from regular support, and this is where the programs differ most. It usually does not cost SNAP or MFIP benefits for long, and often not at all. See one-time back payments.
Not covered yet
This site does not yet cover how child support counts for MA for families and children or MinnesotaCare (they use different income rules), or for RCA, DWP and Tribal TANF (except one Mille Lacs Band rule on the MFIP page). Do not assume the rules above apply to them.