Income and assets affect social assistance

If you receive wages or other earnings on the last business day of the month, we will count it as income for the following month.

If your income varies on a monthly basis, we can estimate the amount of your income based on your income in previous months. Your income can be estimated in this way if, for example, you receive wages or earned income from self-employment.

A large one-off amount of income can affect your social assistance over several months. This type of income could be a single large payment such as a tax refund, inheritance or compensation payment. If you get a large one-off payment, you need to be prepared to use it to pay for your everyday expenses over a longer period of time.

If you received income and we did not know about it when we made the decision on your social assistance, we can take the income into account later. This can be done if you apply for social assistance within 2 calendar months of the decision.

If you receive unemployment benefits, they are paid to you every 4 weeks for 20 working days at a time. This payment for 20 days is taken into account as your monthly income when calculating the social assistance.

If you receive social assistance for a longer period of time, at some point two payments of unemployment benefit for 20 days will fall within the same month. From that month on, we will periodise your unemployment benefits. Periodisation means that we take into account your unemployment benefits for 21.5 days as your income for a month. The same amount of unemployment benefit is also taken into account as your income for any subsequent month in which you receive two payments of unemployment benefit.

The following benefits and pensions are among those that have an impact on the amount of social assistance you can get:

• unemployment benefits paid by Kela
• unemployment allowance from an unemployment fund
• housing allowance
• student financial aid (study grant, student loan and any housing supplement payments)
• daily allowances for parents
• child benefit
• child care allowances
• child support payments and child maintenance allowance
• daily allowances payable under the Health Insurance Act or other laws, for example sickness allowance
• rehabilitation allowance
• national pension
• guarantee pension
• earnings-related pensions
• pensions from outside Finland.

The following types of earned income are among those that affect social assistance:

• wages and salaries
• compensation, such as compensation for informal caregivers
• copyright royalties from Teosto
• shares in profits, in other words, wages paid partly in money and partly in some other form, such as shares or products
• fringe benefits (such as housing, car or meals)
• payments supplementing a wage or salary (such as overtime pay, shift pay or holiday pay)
• earnings from work abroad.

You can earn up to EUR 150 per month without it affecting your social assistance. This is called the earned-income deduction. This deduction is made from the earned income of each member of the family.

We can make an estimate of your earned income if the amount of your earned income varies from one month to the next and if you do not yet know the amount of your earned income for the month for which you apply for income support. The estimate will be based on your earnings in the previous months.

We estimate a self-employed person’s earned income based on the information provided by the self-employed person and on information otherwise available to Kela. If you are self-employed and you are applying for social assistance, you should submit to Kela the form Statement of self-employment income TO 4e (pdf) and the supporting documents listed on that form.

You can earn up to EUR 150 per month in income from self-employment without it affecting your social assistance. This is called the earned-income deduction. If several members of the same family are self-employed, this deduction is made from the income of each self-employed member of the family.

Even if you receive wages or other earned income in addition to your self-employment income, the earned-income deduction will only be made once from your total income.

The following are examples of capital income that affects social assistance:

• rental income
• income from investments
• dividends
• interest on deposits.

The amount of social assistance is also affected by other types of income that have not been listed above, for example the following:

• scholarships or grants
• financial assistance, bank deposits, or loans from parents or other private individuals
• insurance settlements, compensations for damages and compensations in criminal matters
• tax refunds
• winnings, for example from gambling
• inheritances
• child support
• sales income.

You can earn up to EUR 150 per month in earned income and self-employment income without it affecting your social assistance. This is called the earned income deduction. This deduction is made from the earnings of each member of the family.

If you receive money from someone, such as a relative or a friend, it will be considered financial assistance when we calculate your social assistance. Financial assistance of this kind is considered to be a minor amount if the total maximum you receive in one month is

• EUR 50, if you live alone
• EUR 100, if you have a family.

Social assistance is affected only by the amount that exceeds the above amount.

The income of a childr under 18 does not affect the family’s social assistance if the income is low and irregular. As an example, a child’s earnings from a summer job lasting less than 3 months do not affect the family’s social assistance.

If the income of a child under 18 is regular and the amount is more than minor, the income will still only be taken into account as the equivalent of the child’s basic amount and the other basic expenses calculated for the child. Read more about the basic amount.

Some benefits and compensations do not affect social assistance. These include

• maternity grant
• school transport subsidy
• disability allowance for children under 16 years of age
• disability allowance for persons aged 16 years or over
• care allowance for pensioners
• maintenance allowances related to rehabilitation and the rehabilitation allowance
• compensations for expenses related to unemployment benefits (for example, travel and maintenance costs related to participation in employment-promoting services)
• the supplementary amount payable with the labour market subsidy and the basic unemployment allowance during participation in employment-promoting services
• the difference between the increased earnings-related amount and the earnings-related amount of earnings-related unemployment allowance.

If part of your income is garnished, that is to say taken by the authorities to settle a debt, that part of your income will not affect your social assistance. Social assistance is only affected by the amount of income you receive monthly after part of your income has been garnished, or taken to settle a debt.

If you have a payment plan approved by the enforcement authority, we will deduct the payment stated in the plan from the income taken into account when calculating your social assistance. We will do the same if the income of one of your family members is garnished.

If you make voluntary repayments of a debt that is being garnished, those repayments cannot be taken into account as expenses when we calculate your social assistance.

If you receive a benefit other than social assistance from Kela and part of that benefit is not paid to you, but instead used for a purpose such as the recovery of an overpaid benefit, your social assistance is affected only by the amount of the benefit that is paid to you.

The amount of social assistance is affected by savings, such as money in cash, in bank accounts and in gambling accounts. Social assistance is also affected by investments, for example shares in investment funds, savings insurance policies, virtual currencies and securities. Investments can be liquidated (converted into money), and because of that, they are usually considered as disposable funds when calculating the amount of social assistance.

Any assets you or your family may have abroad also affect your social assistance. If you have any assets abroad, you must tell us about it in your application. With your application for social assistance, include documents showing your assets abroad, for example bank statements for all foreign bank accounts belonging to you or your family members.

If you have assets other than those mentioned above, we will set a deadline for the liquidation. This means that you must convert the assets into money within the specified time frame. For example, if you own a boat, we usually take its value into account as assets after the deadline for liquidation has passed.

The decision to grant social assistance may specify that all or some of the social assistance paid to you will be recovered from the assets that you or your family have. This kind of assets can be, for example, an apartment or house that you own but do not live in. The final decision on recovery is made by an administrative court.

Social assistance is not affected by

• a permanent dwelling where you or your family live and the essential household items
• tools and equipment needed for work or study
• the assets of a child under age 18 to the extent that they exceed the child’s basic amount and other basic expenses
• other assets necessary to ensure a continuous income (for example a car owned by the family, if it is necessary for commuting and making a living).