SNAP Hawaiʻi · work out your own benefit

Work out your own SNAP benefit

A free calculator for Hawaiʻi that shows every line of the arithmetic, uses the State’s own published figures, and prints a schedule you can hand in with an application or a recertification.

If you are 60 or older, or disabled, read the medical section carefully. Most households claim their Medicare premium and stop — and leave money behind every month. What counts as a medical expense →

New to this? Start here instead.

Seven short things about how SNAP actually works — including the one that decides almost everything if anyone in your home is 60 or older or disabled, and the mistake that costs people weeks of pointless paperwork.

Read how SNAP really works →

Nothing you type here is sent anywhere. The calculation runs entirely inside your own browser, there is no account, nothing is stored, and closing the page discards it. This is an estimate, not a decision. Only the Department of Human Services determines your benefit.

1. Which month?

The figures change every 1 October. You can check the month you are in now, or a month in the past — useful if you are querying a decision you have already been given.

2. Your household

Count everyone who buys and prepares food together with you.

Ticking that box changes three rules in your favour. You are not subject to the gross income test — only the net income test. The Department’s own website says so: “Households with an elderly or disabled member are subject only to the net income test.” Your shelter deduction is not capped. And you can deduct medical expenses above $35 a month, which no other household may do.

Most of the money is in that third one, and hardly anybody is told what counts. See the list →

3. Monthly income, before deductions

4. Housing and utilities

Hawaiʻi uses standard allowances for utilities — not what you actually pay. If you have the expense at all, the standard amount is used, even if your real bill is higher or lower. The federal rules count electricity, water, sewerage, rubbish collection, telephone and basic internet service as utility costs — 7 CFR 273.9(d)(6)(ii)(C). Ask DHS which of those Hawaiʻi’s allowances cover.

Do not send them your electricity bills. It is wasted effort. Hawaiʻi does not use what you actually pay. It uses a fixed standard allowance, and the only thing you have to show is that the bill is yours to pay — an account in your name, a tenancy agreement saying utilities are not included, one bill. The amount on it makes no difference. You get the standard figure whether your real bill is far higher or far lower, and you cannot claim more by proving you use more. The same goes for the telephone.

5. Medical expenses

Medical expenses will not help your household, and I am sorry to say so. SNAP only allows a medical deduction where a household member is 60 or over, or disabled. If that changes — if someone turns 60, or is awarded SSI, SSDI or VA disability — come back, because it is often worth a great deal. Everything else on this page still applies to you.

5. Medical expenses

Now the part that matters. Answer each question — they take a few seconds, and every yes becomes a line on a schedule you can print and hand in. Enter the monthly cost; if you pay yearly, divide by twelve. Only count what you pay yourself, after any insurance has paid its share. The rules behind each one →

Confused by the Medicare letters? Almost everyone is, and for SNAP it does not matter. You do not have to work out what any of it is called. If a premium comes out of your money each month, it counts — just put it down.

If it helps: Medicare has four Parts — A (hospital), B (doctor visits), C (Advantage) and D (drugs). Medigap supplement plans are lettered too — A, B, C, D, F, G, K, L, M, N — but those are plan letters, not Parts. Medigap Plan G is not “Part G”; there is no Part G. Plan D is not Part D. And you either have an Advantage plan or Original Medicare with a supplement — never both.

Nearly everyone on Medicare does, including people on an Advantage plan. It is usually taken out of your Social Security before you see it — check your annual award letter.

In Hawaiʻi that usually means HMSA Akamai Advantage, Kaiser Permanente Senior Advantage, UnitedHealthcare or Humana. This is Medicare Part C. Most of these include your drug coverage, so you will not have a separate Part D plan — that is normal, not a mistake. Put down whatever the plan itself costs you each month, even if it is a small amount, and put your Part B premium in the question above as well.

Only if your drug cover is billed on its own. If you are on an Advantage plan your drugs are probably already included, so leave this one alone.

A policy that sits on top of Original Medicare and pays what Medicare does not — Plan G and Plan N are the common ones now, and older policies may be Plan F or Plan C. AARP, HMSA and Mutual of Omaha all sell them. You will not have one of these if you are on an Advantage plan. These are often the largest premium of the lot.

Dental plans, vision plans, private hospital cover. All of it counts.

What you actually hand over at the pharmacy. Over-the-counter medicines count too, if a doctor or nurse told you to take them — including insulin.

Co-pays and deductibles. And if you are paying off an older medical bill by instalments, that monthly payment counts while you are paying it.

Whatever insurance did not cover. A big one-off, like dentures, can be spread across the months of your certification — ask for that.

The batteries and repairs count, month after month, not just the aids themselves.

This is the one people miss most. Bus fares, taxis, petrol, parking. And if you fly to another island to see a specialist, the airfare and somewhere to stay both count. A handwritten note of your journeys is enough to prove it.

An attendant, home health aide, homemaker or housekeeper. And if you provide most of that person’s meals, there is a further deduction worth over $500 a month — ask about it, because almost nobody claims it.

A walker, wheelchair, hospital bed, oxygen, incontinence supplies, a prosthesis — including rental and upkeep.

The food counts. So do veterinary bills, the animal’s insurance, grooming and licensing. This is written into the federal regulation itself — “including the cost of dog food and veterinarian bills” — and it is refused more often than anything else on this list. If you are told it does not count, ask for that in writing.

5. Anything else

The figures this page uses, and where they come from

FY2026 and FY2025 from the USDA SNAP Cost-of-Living Adjustment memoranda of 13 August 2025 and 2 August 2024, Hawaiʻi columns. FY2024 from Hawaiʻi DHS’s own DHS 1017 Eligibility Disposition Sheets — household of two only; the other household sizes for that year are left blank rather than guessed. Utility allowances are the standard amounts printed on those DHS worksheets.

Found something that looks wrong?

If your figures and the Department’s differ, ask which line they disagree with, and ask them to show their working — in writing. A notice that gives one total does not tell you what was left out, and you cannot appeal what you cannot see. You have a right to a fair hearing.