California SSP: every aged or disabled recipient gets the restaurant-meal allowance by default #10296

Summary

California's SSI/SSP payment standard for an aged or disabled person living independently is
$1,206.94 a month in 2025 ($2,057.83 for a couple). An aged or disabled recipient or couple "whose
living arrangement prevents preparation of ... meals at home" (Welf. & Inst. Code 12200(e)) gets a
higher standard, the restaurant meals allowance (OSS C): $1,335.81 ($2,315.57 for a couple), that is
$128.87 more per person (POMS SI 01415.057, California codes A and C). SSA pays it only to recipients
without access to adequate cooking and food storage facilities who are not provided meals, on a
signed California Application for Restaurant Meals Allowance; blind recipients and children under 18
are not eligible (POMS SI SF01415.140). The Legislative Analyst's Office counted
over 39,000 recipients of the allowance in 2009 (2009-10 Budget Analysis Series: Social Services).

PolicyEngine-US 2.49.1 adds the allowance when living_arrangements_allow_for_food_preparation is
false (ca_state_supplement_food_allowance_eligible). That household input has no default_value,
so it is False for every household that does not set it. Every aged or disabled SSP recipient in a
microsimulation therefore gets the restaurant-meal standard, which is the exception, not the rule. In
the PolicyEngine-PRD comparison's 2025 run (Enhanced CPS), of 1,259 California SPM units with a
supplement, 735 get exactly 12 x $368.81 = $4,425.72 and 237 get 12 x $865.57 = $10,386.84, the
restaurant-meal state shares for a single person and a couple.

In 2.49.1 the state supplement also counts as SNAP unearned income
(gov.usda.snap.income.sources.unearned_spm_unit includes ca_state_supplement; 1.811.2 did not
count it), so the allowance can lower SNAP by up to 30% of it ($464 a year per recipient, $928 for a
couple) where the benefit is above the minimum.

Still the same on main (2.49.15, 79249f0): living_arrangements_allow_for_food_preparation has no
default and ca_state_supplement_food_allowance_eligible is unchanged.

Reproduction (PE-US 2.49.1, January 2025, CA)

from policyengine_us import Simulation
Y = 2025
def run(prep=None):
    hh = {"members": ["a", "b"], "state_code": {Y: "CA"}}
    if prep is not None:
        hh["living_arrangements_allow_for_food_preparation"] = {Y: prep}
    sim = Simulation(situation={
        "people": {"a": {"age": {Y: 83}, "is_disabled": {Y: True}}, "b": {"age": {Y: 78}, "is_disabled": {Y: True}}},
        "tax_units": {"t": {"members": ["a", "b"]}}, "spm_units": {"s": {"members": ["a", "b"]}},
        "families": {"f": {"members": ["a", "b"]}}, "marital_units": {"m": {"members": ["a", "b"]}},
        "households": {"h": hh}})
    return [float(sim.calculate(v, f"{Y}-01").sum()) for v in
            ("ca_state_supplement_payment_standard", "ca_state_supplement")]
run()      # [2315.57, 865.57]  -- restaurant-meal standard
run(True)  # [2057.83, 607.83]  -- independent living with cooking facilities

snap_unearned_income for the year: $27,787 by default, $24,694 with the input set to true. This
couple gets the minimum SNAP benefit ($279 for 2025) either way.

Expected vs actual

• Expected: without information on the living arrangement, the common case (independent living
  with cooking facilities, $1,206.94 / $2,057.83 in 2025), e.g. default_value = True for
  living_arrangements_allow_for_food_preparation, or the allowance only where an input says so.
• Actual: the restaurant-meal standard for every aged or disabled recipient.

References

• SSA POMS SI SF01415.140, California OSS C - Independent Living Without Cooking Facilities:
  https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0501415140SF
• SSA POMS SI 01415.057, Federally Administered Optional Supplementary Payment Programs for January
  2025: https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0501415057
• CDSS, SSI Total Monthly Payment Amounts 2026 ("Independent Living - No Cooking Facilities"):
  https://cdss.ca.gov/Portals/13/SHD/ParaRegIndex/SSI%20Monthly%20Payment%20Amounts%202026.pdf
• Welf. & Inst. Code 12200:
  https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=WIC&sectionNum=12200
• LAO, 2009-10 Budget Analysis Series: Social Services: https://lao.ca.gov/analysis_2009/ss/ss_anl09003003.aspx

Impact (PolicyEngine-PRD comparison, 2025 aligned view, shared set)

The comparison's cause snap_state_ssi_supplement (PE counts state SSI supplements as SNAP income)
applies to 917 mismatched units, 444 of them in California, where it predicts $1.26 million less SNAP
under PE. That is the whole supplement; the allowance is $128.87 of a single person's $368.81 state
share ($257.74 of a couple's $865.57), about a third. The comparison's PRD side uses its own
supplement table (sspData, 2022 amounts).