How Much Income Does a Spouse Get if the Other Spouse in in a Nursing Home on Medicaid?
In this Elder Law Minute, Wes Coulson breaks down how much money the community spouse gets to keep in Illinois and Missouri as of 2022.
Video Transcript:
Greetings. I’m Wes Coulson from Dent Coulson Elder Law, and this will be your elder law minute. We’re happy to present these, because we think we can help inform you as to the ways in which we can help you and the things that you need to think about relative to the elder care and estate planning journey. Hope you enjoy.
Today I’m going to talk about the basics of something that turns out to be a deceptively complicated question, and that is if you have a married couple and one spouse in in the nursing home, how much income does the other spouse get to keep?
I want to first mention that I am recording this in July of 2022 and in a minute I’m going to explain why that data is important relative to when you might be watching this. As of right now, in Illinois, the spouse who is not in the nursing home gets to keep the first $2,739.00 a month of income. If they don’t have that much income, then they get part of the other spouse’s income in an amount enough to bring them up to the $2739. If you’re talking about Missouri, it could be as much as $3435 or quite a bit less than that and it depends on the community spouses, what are known as shelter expenses.
The reason I said that the date is is important is that starting January 1 of 2023, Illinois is going to go up to the federal maximum, the $3400 and some odd dollar figure that I mentioned for 2022, but that number changes with Social Security increases.
I just saw something that said that they’re projecting that the Social Security increase could be as much as 10% or more for next year, so if you will, those community spouses are all going to get a raise next year. In another video, I’m going to talk about what happens if the community spouse has more income than what that limit is.
Thanks.
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Dent-Coulson Elder Law is dedicated to providing families in the St. Louis area with their Elder Law needs. Our practice areas include Asset Preservation Planning, Veterans Benefits, Medicaid Eligibility, Alzheimer’s Planning, Special Needs Planning, Estate Planning and more. We understand the financial challenges you may face as you and your loved ones grow older. At Dent-Coulson Elder Law, our clients’ well-being is our number one priority. For immediate help, call (618) 632-7000 (IL) or (314) 567-9292 (MO), or Contact Us and we will get in touch as soon as possible.
