Connecticut Medicaid Income Limits 2026: HUSKY and Long-Term Care

Connecticut Medicaid income limits come in two versions, and the one that applies to you turns mostly on age. Residents who are 65 or older, blind, or disabled can qualify on the aged, blind, and disabled track, where Connecticut caps a single long-term-care applicant's countable assets at just $1,600, below the $2,000 federal SSI resource standard.1,2 Everyone else (adults under 65, parents, pregnant residents, and children) is measured on the MAGI track, against a percentage of the federal poverty level, with no asset test at all.3

That $1,600 ceiling looks daunting, but Connecticut's spend-down means a high monthly check does not by itself shut the door.1

The state runs both tracks as HUSKY Health, through the Department of Social Services.1

Which Connecticut Medicaid income limit applies to you?

Connecticut applies two income tests. They share almost nothing: different yardsticks, different household rules, and only one has an asset limit.

• The MAGI track. For adults under 65 who are not disabled, parents and caretaker relatives, pregnant residents, and children. Income is counted as Modified Adjusted Gross Income and measured against a percentage of the federal poverty level. Federal law bars the state from applying any asset or resource test to these groups.3
• The aged, blind, and disabled (ABD) track. For residents 65 or older, blind, or disabled, including everyone seeking long-term-care coverage. Federal law excepts these pathways from the MAGI rules, but only for eligibility on those grounds, so a 65-year-old parent is still assessed for the parent group under MAGI.3 Connecticut runs this track as HUSKY C: income is measured against DSS's own HUSKY C standards and countable assets are capped;2 this is the $1,600 limit's track, and the one the rest of this guide covers.1

The household rules differ too. On the MAGI track, your household is generally set by federal income-tax filing relationships (your tax household) rather than by who lives under your roof. Generally, not always: CMS does not use tax-household rules at all for someone who will not file and will not be claimed as a dependent, for a dependent claimed by a non-parent or a non-custodial parent, or for children living with two parents who do not file jointly. In those cases the household is you plus, only if they live with you, your spouse and your children (and, for a child applicant, parents and siblings), and you do not need to file a return to apply.6

Connecticut Medicaid income limits on the MAGI track: HUSKY A, B, and D

Connecticut runs its MAGI-based Medicaid and CHIP as HUSKY Health, administered by the Department of Social Services. The standards below took effect March 1, 2026.7

Use the dollar column, not the percentage. The percentages come from the national medicaid.gov eligibility table, which is a snapshot as of December 1, 2023, while the dollar figures are DSS's own chart effective March 1, 2026; the two sets are not restatements of each other, and no conversion runs between them.7 Federal law does apply a mandatory income disregard equal to 5 percentage points of the FPL, which is why an adult group listed at 133% is commonly described as reaching 138%, but that disregard is applied for the group with the highest MAGI standard, not group by group.8 What DSS measures your income against is the dollar figure.7

Adults under 65: HUSKY D and the 138% ceiling

Connecticut has adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion, so it covers the "new adult group" in full.7 HUSKY D covers adults ages 19–64 who do not have Medicare, are not pregnant, and have no dependent child under 19 at home, at under $22,025/year for a household of one.7 That works out to roughly $1,835/month, which is 138% of the $15,960/year federal poverty guideline for one person in the 48 contiguous states and DC; Alaska and Hawaii have separate guidelines of their own.9,8 No asset test applies, so savings, a second car, and investments are irrelevant to a HUSKY D determination, the sharpest contrast with the $1,600 long-term-care limit below.3

One condition is new and appears on no income chart. Under the 2025 budget-reconciliation law, states must make community engagement a condition of new-adult-group eligibility no later than the first quarter after December 31, 2026: 80 hours a month of work, community service, a work program, half-time schooling, any combination of those, or equivalent earnings. Nine categories are excluded outright, among them anyone medically frail or disabled, a parent or caretaker of a child 13 or under or of a disabled person, someone pregnant or receiving postpartum coverage, an Indian or Urban Indian, and a veteran rated totally disabled. If one of those describes you, the requirement is not yours to meet.8

Parents and caretaker relatives: a floor set by old welfare rules

HUSKY A covers parents and caretaker relatives at under $29,863/year for a household of two, the smallest household this group can have, because it always requires a child in the home.7 One caution when you cross-check this number: the medicaid.gov national table puts Connecticut at 155% FPL for this group, but that is a December 2023 snapshot rather than a current-year figure, so compare your income to the DSS dollar figure instead.7

Federal law sets the floor for this group in an unusual way. Parents and caretaker relatives are a federally mandatory eligibility group, but unlike children (mandatory to at least 133% FPL) and the expansion adults, states are only required to cover them at their own old cash-welfare standard: the state's AFDC income standard in effect on May 1, 1988, converted to a MAGI equivalent.10 A state may set the standard far above that floor, up to the higher of its 2010 or 2013 effective level or its July 16, 1996 AFDC standard adjusted for inflation. So what decides whether a working parent qualifies is the state's own published number, not a poverty-level percentage, and in Connecticut that number is the DSS dollar figure in the table above.10

This is the group that matters most to older readers of this guide. A grandparent raising a grandchild can be measured here even at 65 or with a disability, and can also be assessed on the ABD track below.3 Whether a particular relative meets Connecticut's definition of a caretaker relative is DSS's call; confirm it with the DSS Benefits Center (contact details below).

Children, CHIP, and pregnancy coverage

Children through age 18 are covered by HUSKY A under $66,330/year for a household of four, or under $32,080 for a household of one.7 Above that band, Connecticut runs a separate CHIP program, HUSKY B, reaching up to $51,551/year for a household of one.7 Federal law sets a mandatory children's floor of 133% FPL (higher for infants in some states) and lets a state set its standard above that floor, within a federal maximum.11 Connecticut's children's limit sits well above it.7,9 Pregnant residents are covered by HUSKY A under $56,913/year for a household of two, counting the unborn child as a household member.7

What changes on your 65th birthday

Connecticut's expansion coverage carries an edge that almost no income-limit chart shows. The new adult group is written for people under 65 who are not pregnant and not entitled to or enrolled in Medicare.8 On the 65th birthday, that pathway closes.

Consider a 64-year-old with about $1,600/month in income and modest savings. On HUSKY D they are covered easily: the ceiling is roughly $1,835/month and no asset test applies.7,3 The day they turn 65 they are assessed on the ABD track (HUSKY C) instead, and two things change at once:

• The income yardstick changes. It is no longer 138% FPL but DSS's own HUSKY C standards, which DSS says vary with the part of HUSKY C a person qualifies for; for a single long-term-care applicant DSS states $2,982 a month.2
• A resource test appears. MAGI groups are barred from applying one; the ABD track is expressly excepted from that bar.3 The SSI resource standard is $2,000 for an individual, and Connecticut applies an even tighter $1,600 limit to a single long-term-care applicant.12,1

So the same person can lose HUSKY D at 65 and, if their savings top $1,600, fail the new asset test, without a dollar of their income changing.1 The cliff has a second trigger unrelated to age: the new adult group also excludes anyone entitled to or enrolled in Medicare, so someone under 65 who reaches Medicare through disability leaves it the same way.8

Connecticut Medicaid income limits for long-term care start with the $1,600 asset rule

The federal SSI program lets an individual hold up to $2,000 in countable resources.12 Connecticut's long-term-care limit sits below that standard:2 $1,600 for a needs group of one, $2,400 for a needs group of two, and, where one spouse is institutionalized, $1,600 plus the amount protected for the spouse at home.1

"Countable" is the word doing the work. Connecticut disregards one car per household, certain burial expenses, your home (subject to the home-equity limit), and certain life-insurance policies, so the $1,600 applies to bank balances, a second car, and investments, not the roof over your head or the car in the driveway.1

The home exemption has a ceiling, and Connecticut's is genuinely unsettled. Federal law sets a 2026 range of $752,000 to $1,130,000 and lets each state elect within it.13 Connecticut's own most recent published figure is $786,000, from a DSS booklet last revised in 2012 that DSS has not restated since; ask DSS which number governs before relying on either it or the 2026 federal maximum.1 Being over the limit is not the end of it either. The limit does not apply at all when a spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or disabled child lawfully lives in the home, and equity can be brought down with a reverse mortgage or home-equity loan.13 An applicant who shows DSS they cannot obtain one may still be eligible, and DSS may waive the equity rule where denial would cause an undue hardship.1 From January 1, 2028, a 2025 federal law (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21) caps a state's election at a flat, un-indexed $1,000,000 for any home not on a lot zoned for agricultural use.14

The low limit makes early planning matter more here than it would under the $2,000 SSI standard. With only $1,600 of countable room, the gap between "over" and "under" is small and easy to drift back across.1 For the broader toolkit, see our guide to Medicaid planning strategies.

How Connecticut Medicaid income limits work: the spend-down

Connecticut does state an income limit: DSS puts the long-term-services-and-supports figure at $2,982 a month for a single applicant.2 But it runs a medically needy program with a spend-down, so being over that line does not disqualify you.1

If your monthly income is above the state's medically needy income limit, the excess becomes your spend-down amount: once you have incurred at least that much in medical and care costs that no insurance or third party covers, Medicaid covers the rest.1 Ask your DSS caseworker what spend-down period applies, because that window is what your bills have to fall inside.

Long-term care: what a nursing-home resident keeps

When Connecticut Medicaid pays for nursing-facility care, the resident pays their monthly income toward the cost of that care, less the approved deductions described below.1 What they keep is the Personal Needs Allowance (PNA), money set aside for the resident's own small expenses like clothing, a haircut, or a phone. Connecticut's PNA is $75/month, set by statute under Conn. Gen. Stat. section 17b-272 and in effect since July 1, 2021.5,3 The figure is fixed in statute rather than adjusted for inflation, so it has not changed since 2021. Connecticut sits well above the federal PNA floor of $30/month that every state must at least meet.3

The $75 is the resident's to use5; the rest goes toward care after approved deductions, such as an allowance for a community spouse, health-insurance premiums like Medicare coverage, and certain medical bills.1 For the national picture on the PNA and how it's calculated, see our explainer on the Medicaid personal needs allowance.

Protecting the spouse who stays home

When one spouse needs long-term care and the other stays in the community, federal spousal-impoverishment rules keep the at-home spouse from being left with nothing. Connecticut applies the federal framework for 2026:1,15

So a married couple is in a very different position from a single applicant. Connecticut guarantees the community spouse $50,000 by statute, a floor it set for itself in 2022 and one well above the federal minimum, so a couple with modest savings is protected further here than the federal minimum alone would allow.1 Above that, the spouse keeps half the couple's countable assets up to $162,660, far above the applicant's own $1,600 limit, and all of her own income besides, the MMNA being only the level income shifted from the applicant brings her up to.15,1 Neither maximum is absolute: either spouse can ask for a fair hearing to set the income allowance higher where exceptional circumstances, such as caring for a disabled child or relative, cause significant financial duress, and a fair hearing or court order can raise the asset amount too.1

The five-year look-back

Connecticut reviews asset transfers made in the 60 months before institutionalization, before an application made while institutionalized, or after applying through the first month of eligibility.16,13 Giving away money or property for less than fair market value during that window, gifting a grandchild a down payment, signing a house over to a child for a dollar, can trigger a penalty period during which Medicaid won't pay for long-term-care services, even though you're otherwise eligible.

The rule reaches people getting long-term-care facility services, equivalent care in a medical institution, or home and community-based services under a Medicaid waiver or the Connecticut Home Care program. Each penalty lasts the uncompensated value divided by the average monthly private-pay cost of Connecticut nursing-facility care, a figure DSS sets and updates, so ask DSS for the current one.16

There are legitimate exceptions: transfers between spouses, transfers to a disabled child, and certain caregiver-child home transfers.13 In Connecticut, the home can go to a son or daughter who lived there at least two years before the parent was institutionalized and whose care kept the parent home, but DSS decides whether the care qualified. Paying a family caregiver is not automatically penalized either: federal law excuses a transfer the state accepts was meant to be at fair market value, and the family carries the burden of showing it.16 See our personal care agreement guide. Anything done inside the five-year window deserves an elder-law attorney's review before you move assets.

Will Connecticut recover from your estate?

Connecticut runs a Medicaid estate-recovery program through the Connecticut Department of Social Services. After a recipient who was 55 or older when they received long-term-care services dies, the state seeks repayment from the estate for the cost of that care and of related hospital and prescription-drug services.1,2

Federal law builds in protections Connecticut must honor. Recovery cannot happen while a surviving spouse is alive, and it is barred while there is a surviving child who is under 21 or who is blind or permanently and totally disabled.2 These protections postpone recovery; they do not by themselves cancel the state's claim. Connecticut, like every state, must also have procedures to waive recovery when it would cause an undue hardship; ask DSS how to request one.1 For how estate recovery works and where families have room to plan, see our Medicaid estate recovery explainer.

How to apply in Connecticut

Connecticut Medicaid is run by the Connecticut Department of Social Services (DSS).1 You have three ways to apply:

Long-term care also has a care-needs test: Connecticut's home and community-based waiver for elders, for example, serves people 65 or older who meet a nursing facility level of care.17 Apply even if you think you're over the asset or income limit: the spend-down and the spousal protections can bring within reach an applicant who looks disqualified on the raw numbers.1

Learn More

Find personalized help working through Connecticut Medicaid eligibility for your family at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.