Where this sits: Benefits › Child support and benefits › MFIP. Related: one-time back payments, SNAP.
MFIP provides cash and food assistance together.
The short answer
MFIP counts child support as the child's income, but up to $100 a month (one child in the unit) or $200 (two or more children) is disregarded. Whatever is left lowers the MFIP grant dollar for dollar. The family still receives its current support, even though the money goes through the state.
What to ask: how many children are in the MFIP unit; whether the support is current support or back support (and if back support, from before or during the time on MFIP); and whether any of it comes to the family directly rather than through the county.
How the money moves
- Applying for MFIP signs the family's right to child support and spousal maintenance over to the state. This is called assignment, and the family is not eligible without it. MFIP refers the family to the county child support office.
- The other parent pays the state, usually through income withholding. The state passes current support through to the family.
- Back support that built up while the family was on assistance belongs to the state permanently. When it is collected, the state's share is paid first.
- Back support owed from before the family went on MFIP is also signed over ("temporarily assigned arrears"). The state may collect and keep it while the family gets MFIP cash, and must give it back to the family when the cash case closes if it has not collected it. The program manual and the statute describe exactly when the assignment starts and ends a little differently, so if a date matters, check with the county.
- When the family leaves MFIP, the assignment of current support ends. Back support collected after that goes first to what is owed to the family, except federal tax refund offsets, which still pay the state first. The state can never keep more than the assistance it paid or the support owed, whichever is less.
What matters for MFIP is whether the money reaches the family:
- Current support the state passes through counts, after the disregard.
- Support the other parent pays straight to the family also counts, and the caregiver must report it to the child support agency.
- Money the state keeps (back support assigned to it, and medical or child care support assigned to it) never reaches the family, so it should not count as the family's income. No source this site rests on says this in so many words; it follows from the rule that only income available to the family counts. Treat it as a reasoned reading, not a stated rule.
How it is counted
- Child support (current and back support) is unearned income of the child. Spousal support is unearned income of the caregiver, with no disregard.
- MFIP budgets prospectively: the county uses what it expects the family to receive.
- The disregard is up to $100 when the unit has one child and up to $200 when it has two or more. It applies to the whole unit, not to each child, and covers current support and back support together.
- Not counted:
- support for a child who is no longer on assistance in the household (if that child is on another MFIP case and the support is forwarded, it counts there);
- medical or child care support that pays back expenses already paid;
- support the child support agency collects for a child on SSI, or for any other child left out of the MFIP case;
- after the initial MFIP decision, income that was not expected.
- How it lowers the grant: the countable amount is subtracted dollar for dollar from the MFIP transitional standard. If the family also has earnings, the payment is first worked out from the earnings, and the countable support is then subtracted from that payment.
When a change shows up. MFIP budgets for six months at a time. An increase in support usually does not change the grant until the next six-month review, because a change in unearned income is not one of the changes an MFIP family has to report. A decrease counts from the date it happened if the family reports it by the 10th of the following month. (This comes from the statute; the manual's budgeting chapter has not been checked.)
Example (an illustration, not a benefit calculation): a unit with two children receives $300 a month in support. $200 is disregarded and $100 counts, so the grant is about $100 lower than it would be with no support.
Parents under 18 (minor caregivers)
First ask: whose support is it, support from the baby's other parent, or support the teen's own other parent pays for her? Is her mother on MFIP or another program herself? And has she ever been married or legally emancipated? A minor caregiver is someone under 18 who is neither; if she has been, these rules may not apply.
- Support for the baby from the baby's other parent is the baby's income on the teen's MFIP case, under the general rule, after the disregard ($100 for one child).
- The teen lives with her own parent (for example, a 17-year-old mother living with her mother): the manual says "the minor caregiver's portion of the child support" counts as the teen's income. The manual does not say which support that means. It most likely means support the teen's absent parent pays for the teen herself, and the statute leans the same way, but this is not verified. Say so if it matters.
- The teen does not live with that parent: support counts on her case only if it is forwarded to her, or to the adult she lives with. If it is not forwarded, it counts neither on her case nor against the MFIP grant of the parent who received it.
- The teen and her baby are their own MFIP unit. If the parent she lives with (or a stepparent) is not on MFIP, part of that parent's income counts toward the teen's case. The county first sets aside 200% of the federal poverty guideline for the parent's family (not counting the teen and her baby) and any court-ordered support the parent pays. This comes from the statute; the manual's section on it has not been checked.
Families moving from Mille Lacs Band Tribal TANF
When a Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Tribal TANF family moves to a county and stays on MFIP, up to $400 a month of its child support is not counted for the first 2 months in the county. This has not yet been confirmed against the current manual section.
Support someone in the family pays out
Court-ordered child support and spousal support that a unit member pays to someone outside the home is not counted as part of the payer's own income (it does not reduce other members' income). Fees an employer charges for withholding are not disregarded, and the county verifies the payments at application, recertification, the six-month review and when they change. The manual speaks of the "actual" support paid and also covers child care and medical support paid, without saying "court-ordered"; the statute disregards only payments made under a court order. For voluntary support, tell the person it may not count, and to check with the county. When MFIP counts the income of someone outside the unit (an ineligible or disqualified member, or a minor parent's parents), court-ordered support that person pays is disregarded first.
Public summaries that say it differently
A House Research overview says the grant is reduced "by the total amount" of the support; with the disregard, it falls only by the part above $100 or $200. A LawHelpMN page says MFIP goes down "2 months later"; that describes an older budgeting method. Follow the rules on this page.