GIS 10 MA/024: Discontinuation of the $.00 Additional Unemployment Insurance Benefit (UIB) Disregard

The purpose of this General Information System (GIS) message is to provide information and budgeting instructions regarding the discontinuance of the $25.00 Federal Additional Compensation (FAC) Unemployment Insurance Benefit (UIB). The $25.00 weekly UIB FAC payment has been payable to claimants who filed a new regular UIB claim on or before May 24, 2010. These additional payments will be discontinued effective the week ending December 12, 2010.

As explained in GIS 09 MA/012 and GIS 09 MA/018, this additional weekly payment is disregarded by Medicaid Budgeting Logic (MBL) for Medicaid eligibility purposes. MBL automatically disregards the $25.00 additional weekly payment from UIB income based on an Unearned Income Source Code of 49, UIB, and a budget "From" date of 12/01/2010 or earlier. This disregard is given through the end of the case authorization period, or until such time that a Medicaid budget is stored with a "From" date of January 1, 2011 or later.

For those individuals who were not entitled to receive the $25.00 additional UIB benefit because they filed a UIB claim after May 24, 2010, local departments of social services (LDSS) were instructed to add $25.00 to the total amount of UIB income entered in the Unearned Income field with a Source Code of 49 in order to offset the automatic $25.00 disregard.

For Medicaid cases with an authorization "From" date of 12/1/2010 or earlier, where the individual was receiving the $25.00 FAC payment or $25.00 was added to the UIB total amount of income as described above, the UIB amount in MBL will continue to include the additional $25.00 even after the FAC payments have been discontinued (12/12/2010). However, for these cases, the $25.00 disregard in MBL will also continue, so the actual amount of UIB received by the individual will match the resulting calculation in MBL. Therefore, no action is required to be taken on these cases until a Medicaid budget is recalculated with a "From" date of January 1, 2011 or later. At that time, the actual UIB amount received by the recipient should be entered.

Please direct any questions to your LDSS liaison at the contact numbers listed above.