He said a firm position would be taken on Wednesday, but indicated that people tended to gravitate towards the old-age grant.
President Cyril Ramaphosa's cabinet is expected to meet on Wednesday to consider several economic proposals to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.
A coalition of NGOs and academics wrote to Ramaphosa last week calling for an immediate R500-a-month increase to the child-support grant for six months.
"This measure is critical to mitigate the devastating impact of Covid-19 on children, families and the economy. Currently, the child support grant is the simplest, quickest and most effective way to get cash into millions of poor households that will otherwise face food insecurity and debilitating poverty," they said.
They cited experts who estimated that food poverty rates for households relying on income from the informal labour market could more than double over the three weeks of the lockdown. They added that as the depth of poverty increased, more people would go hungry - including millions of children.