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months may be granted when the Department determines that such an extension is required to achieve the goals of the previously approved plan. Approval of a total period of up to 48 months is possible when the plan includes an educational goal that extends beyond the initial and extension periods. If the plan is abandoned, the amount in the savings or trust account becomes countable assets in accordance with the policies in Section 1.29: Trusts and Section 1.4.1: Liquid Assets (Cash Value) in this Part. QM: See SR. In addition, exclude impairment-related work expenses for QMBs. Also, for both QMBs and SLIMBs, disregard the Title II COLA for the first three months of the calendar year, from January 1 through March 31. The Title II COLAs are disregarded to alleviate problems caused by the disparity between the effective dates of the COLAs and the annual adjustment made, based on inflation, to FPLs. MC: For both the DC HealthCare Alliance and Childless Adult Medicaid, deduct $100 from earned income. The standard work expense deduction and the dependent child care deduction are not applied to the earnings of any individual who has terminated employment, reduced his/her earned income, or refused to accept a bona fide offer of employment without good cause during the 30 days preceding the month of application or recertification. Good cause is determined by considering the salary in relation to minimum wage and customary salary for similar work in the community, the availability of transportation, the individual's physical ability to do the work, and the hazardousness of the working conditions (see Section 1.7: Good Cause for Non-Compliance with Work Activities and Section 1.9.2: Good Cause in Part V).

TANF In determining the need of families applying for assistance, apply income disregards to applicants and recipients as detailed below. The applicant disregards described below are used to calculate an applicant group's countable monthly income for purposes of determining whether the applicant group meets the income eligibility criteria for the program. If the applicant group's countable monthly income, using the applicant disregards described below, are below the payment standard and the group's assets are below the asset limit (see Section 3.3: Asset Limits in this Part) and all non-financial eligibility requirements are met (see Part IV: Non-Financial Eligibility), the group is eligible for TANF. Once a group is eligible for TANF, the group is eligible for the recipient disregards described below. Stated another way, when determining level of benefits, recipient disregards are always used, even for new cases. Applicant disregards are only used to determine initial eligibility for new applicants. For purposes of this section, an applicant is a person who is not currently receiving TANF. APPLICANT DISREGARDS Apply the following disregards to the earned income of applicants to calculate net earned income (see Section 4.8: Children's Earnings in this Part for a discussion of the treatment of the earnings of children who are students):