340:50-7-46.

Policy outlines how to consider daily and irregular income.

Daily Income

For daily income, the worker converts income received on a daily basis to a weekly amount. When there is a consistency in days worked each week and a regularity of pay dates, the worker multiplies the weekly income by 4.3.

For example, when a person is paid daily and employed five days per week, Monday through Friday, the worker converts daily income to a weekly amount and multiplies the weekly income by 4.3 to arrive at a monthly gross wage.

Another example occurs when a person is paid daily and employed three days per week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The worker converts daily income to a weekly amount and multiplies the weekly income by 4.3 to arrive at a monthly gross wage.

Irregular Income

For irregular income, the worker does not convert income received at irregular intervals by 4.3, 2, or 2.15, when there is no consistency in the work offered or when pay is received. Instead, the worker adds all irregular income received in the calendar month together to arrive at a monthly average. When more than one month of irregular income is available, the worker totals the income and divides it by the number of months used.

Example 1:

Dallas is registered with a day labor but has only worked two days in the last two full months.

The appropriate method for determining monthly gross wage is to average these two month’s income: $60 + $50 = $110 divided by 2 = $55. Monthly gross income considered is $55.

Example 2:

Mariah started working for a day labor agency on May 2nd and applied for food benefits on May 10th. Mariah worked three days before applying and does not know how many more days she will work before the end of the month. She declares that she has been paid $250 dollars so far.

The appropriate method is to total the wages of $250 so far in the application month and use that amount as the countable earned income for the initial and ongoing months, as there is no reasonable way to anticipate earnings.