Citizenship

To be eligible for assistance, an individual must be a citizen of the United States or a qualified alien. Qualified aliens who entered the U.S after August 22, 1996, are prohibited from receiving assistance five years. Refugees, asylees, and certain other special alien status groups are not subject to this five-year bar.

Alaska Residency Requirements

An individual must be a resident of Alaska with intent to remain.

Age requirements

Blind or disabled individuals must be at least 18 years old. Individuals who qualify because of age must be at least 65 years old.

Social Security Number Requirements

Not required for Adult Public Assistance. However, the benefit package includes Medicaid coverage, which does require a Social Security Number.

Work Requirements

None. However, individual referred for Vocational Rehabilitation must participate.

Categorical Requirements

A blind individual must be legally blind.

A disabled individual must be unable to perform substantial gainful activity because of a physical or mental impairment that is either expected to result in death or that will last at least 12 months.

Allowable Resources

Countable resources may not exceed $2,000 for an individual, or $3,000 for an individual living with a spouse, whether or not the spouse is eligible for assistance.

These resource limits are the same as those used by the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

Non-countable resources include: the home, household goods and personal effects, certain property necessary for self-support, retained cash distributions from an ANCSA corporations that do not exceed $2,000 per year, Limited Entry Fishing Permits that are being used, and one necessary motor vehicle.

Countable resources include: additional vehicles, non-home real property, stocks, bonds, savings accounts, mortgage contracts, cash surrender value of whole life insurance over $1500 face value per insured individualA pregnant woman may be eligible for assistance during her last trimester., and other salable assets.

An individual who transfers a resource for less than fair market value to become eligible for assistance may be disqualified for up to 36 months.

Allowable Income

To be eligible for assistance an individual's (or couple's) countable income in 2002 may not exceed:

Non-countable income includes the first $2,000 of cash distributions received from an ANCSA corporation per individual per year, most costs of doing business for self-employed, work expenses for the blind, impairment related work expenses (for example, special equipment of prosthesis) of disabled individuals, $65 plus ½ of any remaining gross earned income, $20 disregard against non-needs based income, and other income exclusions authorized by federal laws.

Payment

The maximum payment standards for 2002 are as follows:

Individuals (or couples) whose income falls between the allowable income standards (i.e., need standards) and the maximum payment standards above are eligible for a $1 APA payment.

Effects of PFD

If PFD Hold Harmless were to end, recipients could lose Medicaid eligibility for the month of Dividend receipt. SSI recipients would lose eligibility for SSI payments for the month of receipt. Current statutory language prohibits counting PFD payments as income for state funded assistance. If this were to change, Adult Public Assistance recipients would lose eligibility for the month of receipt.

Cross-Program Effects

An APA recipient cannot be included in a Temporary Assistance grant, but dependent children may receive Temporary Assistance.

An APA recipient is not eligible for General Relief Assistance.

Adult Public Assistance counts as income for Food Stamps, AHFC and Section 8 housing.

Adult Public Assistance eligibility for $1 or more results in Automatic eligibility for Medicaid. Medicaid continues for certain individuals who lose eligibility due to increased earnings if SSI puts them into special protected status or the individual qualifies for Working Disabled Medicaid Buy-in coverage.

Other

Adult Public Assistance is Alaska's state-funded supplement to the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which covers the same categorical groups (i.e., the aged, blind, and disabled).

Individuals must apply for and pursue other program benefits (Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security, Veterans' Affairs, as well as private pensions, annuities, disability benefits.)

Interim Assistance benefits ($280 per month) are available to individual's applying for SSI benefits pending the SSI decision

Alaska has an Interim Assistance reimbursement agreement with Social Security. This agreement allows the state to receive a successful SSI applicant's retroactive SSI payment and use the money to reimburse itself for Interim Assistance provided while the applicant was waiting for a final decision on their SSI application.

Longevity bonus payments to individuals not grandfathered into exempt category by October 1985 are treated as countable income by the SSI. A few Individuals whose longevity bonus payments put their income over 300% of the SSI standard also have their longevity bonus payments counted for the Medicaid program. Lost SSI benefits are replaced by Adult Public Assistance funds. Individuals who lose Medicaid due to counting longevity bonus payments receive 100% state-funded medical coverage.

Funding (state/fed breakdown)

For fiscal year 2001

Average Caseload

For fiscal year 2001 -- 13,911

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