Will my CalFresh amount decrease if one child is removed from my CalWORKs case?

Your CalFresh benefits are based on household size, income, and expenses. When your household size decreased (your son moving out), that would definitely cause a reduction in your CalFresh amount. The sanction also affected it, but even with the sanction cleared, you won't get back to $850 because that was calculated for a household with one more person. Also, sometimes when they recalculate after a sanction is lifted, they might have updated other information about your income or expenses that could affect the amount. Have you had any other changes recently (job, rent, utilities)?

They absolutely SLASH your benefits when household size changes - happened to me too when my teenager moved out. What's crazy is removing 1 person shouldn't cut your benefits in HALF but that's exactly what they do! The system is rigged against us. And they probably didn't even tell you this would happen when your son left, did they? 🤬

This is actually a common issue with CalFresh recalculations after household changes. The $850 to $397 drop seems larger than just removing one household member would cause. Here's what might be happening: 1. When you were sanctioned, they did a full recalculation of your case 2. During that recalculation, they might have updated income information or expense deductions 3. The $850 might have included some back benefits or corrections that made it temporarily higher I would definitely call your eligibility worker and ask for a breakdown of how your new CalFresh amount was calculated. They should be able to explain exactly why it changed so dramatically.

I went through something similar last year. Spent 2 weeks trying to call my worker with no luck. I finally tried Claimyr.com to get through to my county worker - they got me connected in about 20 minutes when I'd been trying for days. There's a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/jzISHxCPLwE When you do get through, specifically ask for a "CalFresh Budget Worksheet" that shows exactly how they calculated your benefit amount. That way you can see if they made any mistakes with your income or expenses. In my case, they had wrong info about my rent amount which was causing my benefits to be way too low.

hey ur situation sounds familiar did u recently report any new income? sometimes when they lift a sanction they also process other changes at the same time and dont tell u. my benefits went way down cause my ex started paying child support and they counted that as income even tho i told them he only paid once n stopped lol

The CalFresh calculation is really complicated! They take your total gross income, subtract a standard deduction based on household size, then subtract 20% of earned income, then subtract child care expenses, then subtract housing costs (but only up to a certain amount)... it's no wonder the amounts seem random sometimes. Definitely get that budget worksheet when you finally reach someone!

Make sure when you call that you specifically mention you need to know why your CalFresh dropped from $850 to $397 even after your sanction was removed. Sometimes the workers don't volunteer information unless you ask very specific questions. Also, it's possible that the $850 might have included some retroactive benefits that made it temporarily higher. Did you receive any lump-sum payments or back benefits around the time you were getting $850?

I'm really sorry you're going through this stress with your benefits. From what I'm reading in the other comments, it sounds like there might be several factors at play here. The reduction from $850 to $397 does seem steep for just removing one household member, but if that $850 included back pay or retroactive benefits, then your regular monthly amount was probably never actually that high to begin with. Here's what I'd suggest: definitely use that Claimyr service someone mentioned to get through to your worker faster. When you do connect, ask for three specific things: 1) A CalFresh Budget Worksheet showing exactly how they calculated your current $397, 2) Clarification on whether the original $850 included any back pay or lump sum, and 3) Verification that they have your correct household size, income, and expenses (especially rent since you mentioned it went up). Also double-check that they're not counting child support you're not actually receiving consistently. That's a common issue that can really mess up the calculations. Hang in there - once you get the actual breakdown, you'll at least know if the amount is correct or if there's an error to fix.