Although the MFIP program is specific to Minnesota, TRIM3 has generalized it to be available to all states. The TANF/AFDC simulation calculates both the cash portion and food portion of the combined benefit, and passes them to the TRIM3 FoodStamps simulation (see the section Combined Cash & Food Benefits from the description of the TANF/AFDC simulation for details). The program rule PotentialFoodBenefitEligFor specifies which result variable from the TANF/AFDC simulation contains the food portion of the person’s benefit. The program rules MonthlySimulatedAFDCBenefit and MonthlySimulatedAFDCEligFor specify which result variables from the TANF/AFDC simulation contain the cash portion of the person’s benefits. The "food" result variable, together with the "cash" result variables are used by the FoodStamps simulation to determine whether the unit chooses to participate in the state’s combined cash & food program, or instead chooses to receive no cash but stay in the standard federal SNAP Program.

Due to complexities that are involved when a TANF/AFDC unit does not closely resemble a SNAP unit, the TRIM3 simulation of SNAP only considers for possible participation in the joint cash/food program those units that are "simple". The FoodStamps results variable PotentialUnitType indicates whether a unit eligible for joint cash/food benefits is considered "simple," and if so, for what reason. For the simple units, the approach for determining whether a unit participates in the joint program or the standard federal program is guided by the logical relationships between eligibility and participation across TANF/AFDC and SNAP. First, a determination is made as to which food benefit the unit should be considered eligible for, as follows:

• For months in which the unit participates in cash TANF/AFDC, the SNAP eligible benefit is set equal to the amount specified in PotentialFoodBenefitEligFor.
• For months in which the unit is eligible for cash TANF/AFDC but does not participate in cash TANF/AFDC, the SNAP eligible benefit is set equal to the simulated federal benefit.
• For months in which the unit is ineligible for cash TANF/AFDC, but has a positive value for PotentialFoodBenefitEligFor, the SNAP eligible benefit is set to the greater of PotentialFoodBenefitEligFor and the simulated federal benefit.
• For months in which the unit is ineligible for cash TANF/AFDC and PotentialFoodBenefitEligFor is equal to $0, the SNAP eligible benefit is set equal to the simulated federal benefit.

Units that participate in cash TANF/AFDC under the MFIP program are automatically simulated to receive SNAP benefits. The amount of their SNAP benefits is set equal to the amount specified in PotentialFoodBenefitEligibleFor. The SNAP participation status of all other units is determined by the SNAP participation function.