Every family staring down a Medicaid application asks the same question in roughly the same tone: how much can the well spouse keep? The answer, at the federal ceiling, is $157,920 (2026). That number is the Community Spouse Resource Allowance — the CSRA — and it is the single most important figure for any married couple approaching long-term-care Medicaid.
The ceiling, the floor, and the space between
The CSRA was built into the 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act to keep non-applicant spouses from being impoverished by their partner's nursing-home costs. Congress wrote it as a band, not a fixed number: a floor the states must honor, a ceiling the states may not exceed, and a half-assets calculation in between.
For 2026, the band is:
- Federal CSRA floor: $31,584
- Federal CSRA ceiling: $157,920
Inside that band, a state picks one of two postures. Federal-max states let the community spouse retain the full ceiling — the entire $157,920 — regardless of whether the couple's combined non-exempt assets are large enough to support it. Half-assets states protect one-half of the combined non-exempt assets as of the Snapshot Date, subject to the floor and ceiling as outer limits.
A federal-max state is simpler. A couple with $280,000 in combined non-exempt assets gets $157,920 sheltered and $122,080 to spend down before the applicant becomes Medicaid-eligible. In a half-assets state, the same couple's CSRA would be $140,000 — half of the combined total — and the spend-down figure would be $140,000.
Which rule your state uses
About half the states — including California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts — apply the federal ceiling automatically. The rest run the half-assets math. The practical difference can be tens of thousands of dollars, particularly for couples whose combined non-exempt assets fall between $63,168 (twice the federal floor) and $315,840 (twice the federal ceiling). Below $63,168 the CSRA is the floor regardless of rule. Above $315,840, both rules arrive at the ceiling.
This is why the state posture matters so much, and why any planner's first question is always which rule applies. A Florida couple and a Pennsylvania couple with identical asset sheets will see different CSRAs and different spend-down obligations, even before any state-specific retirement-account or home-equity rule enters the picture.
Where this gets tricky
The ceiling is not a promise the community spouse will have $157,920 to live on. It is the maximum non-exempt-asset amount the state will not require the couple to spend before qualifying the applicant. If the couple's combined countable assets are $80,000, the CSRA cannot exceed $80,000 no matter what rule the state applies — the ceiling is a cap, not an entitlement.
Retirement accounts can scramble the arithmetic in states that count them as the community spouse's resources. A $400,000 401(k) in the community spouse's name pushes total combined non-exempt assets past the ceiling quickly; in most states that means a spend-down obligation, not an automatic shelter. Only a handful of states exempt retirement accounts in payout status.
Timing also matters. The CSRA is calculated as of the Snapshot Date — the first day of continuous institutional stay — not the application date. Moves made before the Snapshot Date can legitimately reshape the asset base that gets counted. Moves made after the Snapshot Date generally cannot.