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50. Certain Payment Types Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic There is no uniform policy for how to count payment types related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some payment types are counted as income for BadgerCare Plus and some payment types are not counted as income for BadgerCare Plus. The criteria used to evaluate whether a payment type is counted as income include: • The text of the federal law that authorized the payment type • Guidance received from federal agencies • Whether the payment is taxable • Whether the payment can be considered “disaster assistance” The payment types that do not count as income for BadgerCare Plus include but are not limited to: • Federal recovery rebates (sometimes referred to as Coronavirus stimulus payments or economic impact payments) issued by the IRS in response to the federal COVID-19 public health emergency • Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) payments (these are payments in addition to regular unemployment benefits) • Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) payments (these payments are from a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program that provides an additional $300 per week to eligible individuals who are unemployed or partially unemployed due to disruptions caused by COVID- 19) • Wisconsin Emergency Rental Assistance (WERA) payments • Education Stabilization Fund (ESF) payments, which include payments from the following funds: ◦ Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund ◦ Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund ◦ Emergency Assistance to non-Public School (EANS) Fund ◦ Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER) Fund payments • Economic relief payments paid directly from a tribal government to a tribal member using local government relief funds provided through the CARES Act • A Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. The loan itself is not counted as income. However, if the loan is being used to pay employee wages, the wages are counted as income for the employee who receives them. See SECTION 16.5 OTHER INCOME, #23 CERTAIN PAYMENT TYPES RELATED TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC for countable types of pandemic-related unemployment compensation benefits. 51. Advance payments of the federal EITC and the Child Tax Credit Advance payments of the federal EITC and the Child Tax Credit are disregarded as income, whether they are received regularly or as a lump sum. 52. Guaranteed Income Payments A guaranteed income payment is excluded from income if both of the following apply: • The payment itself is privately funded. • The payment is administered by a non-profit organization. Payments that are excluded from income include, but are not limited to, payments from the Madison Forward Fund, the Madison Forward Fund 2.0, and The Bridge Project in Milwaukee.