Who Can Get TANF Benefits

To help families who can't pay for their basic needs like food, clothing, and rent, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provides:

1. Cash benefits, and
2. Referrals to other benefits and programs that help families become more financially stable.

Nevada has two main types of TANF (sometimes called Cash Assistance):

• TANF-NEON (New Employees of Nevada) for families with a "work-eligible adult" in the home
  
• TANF Child-Only for families where:
  
  • The parent can't get TANF because they get Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits or are not a citizen, or
    
  • The child is living with a relative-caregiver instead of their parent or parents.

A family is defined as one or two parents (or other relative-caregiver) living with their child or children under 18. A family can include biological kids, step kids, adopted kids, and children of relatives.

To be eligible for TANF, you must:

• Be a Nevada resident (if you are experiencing homelessness, you can still qualify)
• Be unemployed, underemployed, or about to become unemployed
• Have a child under age 18 at home, or be pregnant
• Be a U.S. citizen or qualified alien
• Have very low or no income (see details below)
• Have $10,000 or less in resources (see details below)
• Have each adult (18 or older) member of the family unit create, sign, and follow a Personal Responsibility Plan (PRP) listing the steps they will take while on TANF, and
• Cooperate with any efforts to get child support payments for your children, if applicable (unless you have good cause not to because of domestic violence or other potential harm).

You cannot get TANF if you:

• Get Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits
• Get Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, unless your benefit amount is unusually low)
• Are an undocumented immigrant
• Are on strike
• Are a fugitive felon, or in violation of your probation or parole
• Refuse to work
• Do not cooperate with efforts to get child support payments for your children
• Do not provide all the information needed to prove you are eligible for TANF
• Have used up the federal and state time limits on TANF benefits

Note: Even if you can't get TANF for any of these reasons, other members of your family (including your children) may be able to get TANF benefits, so it can still be a good idea to apply.

To decide if you qualify, TANF looks at three things:

• Who counts as part of your family unit under TANF rules
• Your family's resources, which are the things you own, and
• Your family's income.

How TANF Counts Your Family

Income is money you get from work, benefits, or other sources. There’s a limit to how much income you can have and still qualify for TANF, based on the size of your family unit. Not all income is included, and remember that they may not count every family member.

To see if you can get benefits, Nevada TANF does a process that it calls budgeting, which includes several different steps.

Gross Income

First, Nevada TANF looks at your family unit's gross income, which means adding together all:

• Earned income, which is money you get from work, and
• Unearned income, which is money you get from other sources, like unemployment benefits, investment income, or any other money you get that isn't from work.

To get TANF benefits, your gross family income must be less than 130% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG) for the size of your household. The Nevada Division of Social Services has a chart showing the TANF Income Limits (130% of FPG) by household size:

• If your family unit's gross income is more than 130% of FPG, you don't qualify for TANF.
• If your gross family income is less than 130% of FPG, you may be eligible for TANF, and TANF moves on to the next step, which is calculating your family's total countable income.

Total Countable Income

For each family member with earned income, TANF takes their total earnings and subtracts a standard deduction of $90 or 20% of their earned income (whichever is more) to get their adjusted earned income.

All of your family's adjusted earned income is added together with any unearned income to get your family's total countable income.

TANF then compares your family unit's total countable income to its TANF Need Standard, which is 75% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG) for the size of your household. The Division of Social Services provides a TANF Needs Standard Chart.

If your total countable income is less than 75% of FPG for your size of household, you qualify for TANF benefits.

After TANF decides that you are eligible for benefits, they do another calculation to decide how much you get in benefits each month.