Golden State Grant

The Golden State Grant is part of California’s recent COVID-19 relief bill and provides direct aid to those most impacted by the pandemic. It provides a one-time $600 state supplementary payment (SSP) grant to SSI seniors and people with disabilities, which will help meet the high costs SSI recipients are struggling to pay during COVID. It also provides a one-time $600 grant for seniors and people with disabilities who receive Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI), which is a state-funded program for certain immigrants who are not eligible for SSI due to 1996 federal welfare legislation that restricted eligibility for non-citizens.

Paper checks are being mailed out to SSI/SSP and CAPI recipients starting the week of May 24th, based on the zip code at your current address on file. See the below mailing dates to find out when you can expect your payment.

While these are the timeframes for the checks to be mailed out, due to COVID-19 delivery delays it may take longer than usual for you to actually receive the check.

Updated July 2021: The payment will not count as income for SSI and will not reduce your regular SSI check, and it will not count as a resource if you save the payment. For example, if you deposit the payment in your bank account, it will not count as a resource if the balance remains in your bank account.

Based on Social Security guidance released in July 2021, pandemic-related assistance payments will not count as a resource for SSI. This guidance affects state stimulus payments like the Golden State Grant, as well as the federal stimulus payments. For example, this means that the federal stimulus payments can be excluded from counting as a resource for as long as you save them, rather than being excluded for only 12 months. More detailed information can be found in two policy guidance documents from Social Security: EM-20014 REV 4 and EM-21050 REV 2.

The state has set up a call center to answer questions about the Golden State Grant. You can reach the call center at 1-866-312-3100.

FAQs, FAQs in Spanish, and webpage about the payment for SSI/SSP recipients

FAQs, FAQs in Spanish, and webpage about the payment for CAPI recipients