7 U.S.C. § 2031 — Minnesota Family Investment Project

(a) General rules. (1) After Minnesota submits a written application complying with this section and the specified 1989 Minnesota-law provisions, and the Secretary approves it under (b) and (d), Minnesota may operate the Family Investment demonstration project in parts of the State. The project tests whether it helps families become self-supporting and care for children better than SNAP and the listed title-IV programs. Subject to paragraph (2), it may replace SNAP and part-A title-IV assistance with cash. (2) The project may operate only under this section and only if the Health and Human Services Secretary approves Minnesota’s application to include families eligible for part-A title-IV benefits.
(b) Required terms. The application must assure that: (1) only families may receive project assistance or services; (2) participating families, eligible or participating SNAP or part-A families assigned to and eligible for the project, and applicant families found eligible for it cannot receive SNAP; (3)(A) except for this paragraph’s rules and any subsection (c)(3) reduction, project assistance is at least the combined assistance they could have received under SNAP and part A without the project; (B) child-care payments count in that comparison for families with earnings, but not for families without earnings, and unassigned child support minus $50 per month counts in the amount they could have received; (C) Minnesota must identify family characteristics linked to lower project assistance, create a way to check whether each such family would receive more in the two programs, raise project assistance to at least that amount when needed, and add enough to offset State or local food sales tax. It need not make that comparison for families without an identified set of characteristics. (D) Minnesota must set standard amounts designated as food assistance and tell each family monthly. That amount must be at least the SNAP amount the family could have received without the project; the State need not calculate the designated amount individually. Families must periodically be allowed to choose that food assistance as benefits. (E) Ineligible individuals living in a household with a participating family must be separately assessed under SNAP rules. The State must ignore the participating family when deciding their eligibility and amount, use the maximum excess-shelter deduction, and give the higher of $10 or 75 percent of the calculated allotment, rounded down to a whole dollar. (4) The project must offer education, employment, and training services equivalent to those offered under section 2015(d)(4) to similar families elsewhere in Minnesota. (5) Families may be selected through project applications or by assigning families eligible for or participating in part A or SNAP. (6) For application selection, Minnesota must decide eligibility and issue assistance retroactive to application within 30 days; treat an ineligible project application as a SNAP application and issue SNAP if eligible; provide expedited assistance under no stricter terms than section 2020(e)(9) and Minnesota law; accept and allow an in-person request for financial help to be filed that day; offer phone contact, mailed forms, and home or phone interviews to elderly, disabled, transportation-limited, and similarly burdened people; allow an adequately informed adult designated as representative to represent a family, subject to State limits and verification rules; and provide a way to review and serve families without permanent homes or fixed addresses. (7) For assignment selection, assistance must arrive no later than SNAP would and without interruption for existing title-IV or SNAP families. (8) Section 2020(e)(1)(B) and (8) apply to project applicants and families. (9) Project assistance must be reduced by the proportional value of SNAP benefits for the same period. (10)(A) When participation ends or is terminated, the State must tell the family or member about SNAP and whom to contact. (B)(i) If eligible, SNAP must be provided when the project ends or a family or member becomes ineligible because of income, resources, or household composition, retroactive to project termination. (ii) If the specified Minnesota laws are changed to reduce or eliminate benefits or restrict project rights, affected applicants, families, or individuals must be excluded and screened under (C). The State must continue State-funded payments equal to the food-assistance part until SNAP eligibility is decided or needed information is not supplied within 10 days. SNAP food benefits for those found eligible are retroactive to the eligibility decision, and the Secretary pays the State the value of benefits that would have been available without those payments from project termination until benefits begin. (C) A terminated family must be screened for SNAP. If potentially eligible, it must receive a specific request for missing information and help completing a signed SNAP application, including relevant project information. If supplied within 10 days, the State must decide within five days. Anyone found ineligible must be notified. (11) Section 2020(e)(10) applies, with hearing notices consistent with regulations under sections 402(a)(4) and 482(h) of the Social Security Act. (12) Each year Federal project costs cannot exceed what they would have been without the project, except evaluation costs. The Federal share must nevertheless be adjusted fully for State-specific economic, demographic, and other changes, authorized eligibility or benefit^* changes, and changes in Federal funds. (13) Minnesota must run SNAP statewide while running the project. (14) The project lasts five years from the first family’s assistance unless ended: by Minnesota 180 days after notice, by the Secretary 180 days after notice and a hearing finding material noncompliance, or by joint agreement. (15) No more than 6,000 families may participate at once.
(c) Additional terms. (1) Minnesota may require a participating parent to do education, employment, or training unless the one-parent family has a parent who is ill, incapacitated, or at least 60; is needed at home for another member’s illness or incapacity; personally cares for a child under one; has a child under six and works or receives qualifying services at least 20 hours weekly; works at least 30 hours weekly or, if unverifiable, earns at least 30 times the Federal minimum hourly wage per week; or is in the second or third pregnancy trimester. (2) A sole parent of a child under six may not be required to work or receive these services more than 20 hours weekly. (3) Without good cause, failure to follow a required activity may reduce project assistance by no more than 10 percent of what the family would receive with no income other than project income.
(d) Funding. If the application meets subsection (b), the Secretary must approve it and, subject to (b)(12), pay quarterly grants for food assistance equal to what SNAP would have issued, and authorized administrative costs equal to what would have been paid without the project, using negotiated satisfactory estimates. Section 2025(g) payments must equal the no-project amount. Payments must be adjusted for excess benefits to ineligible household members and for families choosing project food benefits, and for State-specific cost changes from economic, demographic, other conditions, eligibility or benefit changes, and Federal funding changes.
(e) Waiver. For this project, the Secretary must waive any other chapter requirement that would prevent operation or achievement of the project’s purpose.
(f) Audits. The Comptroller General must periodically audit the project to verify amounts payable and report each audit to the Agriculture and Health and Human Services Secretaries and the two Agriculture committees.
(g) Construction. For other Federal, State, or local laws, except part A of title IV and this chapter, State-designated project cash food assistance is treated like SNAP allotments and participating families like SNAP participants. Project payments cannot be less than no-project payments to Minnesota and eligible households, and the Secretary cannot incur extra project costs except evaluation costs.
(h) Quality control. Participating families are excluded from section 2025(c) samples. For section 2025(c)(1)’s total allotment value, project food assistance and Federal liability limited by (b)(12) count as SNAP allotments.
(i) Evaluation. Minnesota must independently evaluate implementation and effects using treatment and control groups, including random assignment in an urban setting. The plan must address participant benefits, project costs, payment accuracy, administrative effects, welfare dependency, total assistance, cash effects on spending and food consumption, and State evaluation duties. It must measure income growth, prevention of long-term dependency, movement toward self-support, and welfare-system simplification. Minnesota pays half the plan’s development and implementation cost; the Federal Government pays the rest.
(j) Definitions. This section does not otherwise define these terms: (1) ‘family’ means cohabiting minor children or siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings, or adopted siblings with natural or adoptive parents or a caregiver, and also a pregnant woman in her third trimester with no children; (2) ‘contract’ means a self-sufficiency plan based on State assessment of a family’s needs and abilities and developed with a parental caregiver; (3) ‘caregiver’ means a natural or adoptive parent living with the child and, for project eligibility, a person living with and supporting a child when the parents do not live there: grandparent, sibling, stepparent or stepsibling, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, a preceding-generation relative identified by ‘great’ or ‘great-great,’ or a spouse of any listed person even after death or divorce; (4) ‘State’ means Minnesota.