Medicaid Income Limits by State: What You Can Earn & Still Qualify

There is no single Medicaid income limit, and looking up the wrong one is the most common mistake families make. Medicaid runs three separate eligibility tracks, each with its own income rule and its own dollar figure: roughly $1,835 a month for working-age adults in states that expanded Medicaid, $994 a month for the aged and disabled, and $2,982 a month for long-term care.1,2,3 Which number decides your case depends on your age, whether you have Medicare, whether you need nursing-home-level care, and then on your state. This guide sorts you into the right track, then sends you to your state's exact figures.

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• Which Medicaid Income Limit Applies in Your State?
• The MAGI Income Limits: Adults, Parents, and Children
• Turning 65 Can Change Which Limit Applies
• Over the Aged, Blind, and Disabled Limit? Medicare Savings Programs Are Next
• What Counts as Income, and Who Counts as Your Household
• Being Over the Long-Term-Care Limit Is Not the End
• Why Medicaid Income Limits Change from State to State
• Find Your State's Income Limits
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Learn More

Which Medicaid Income Limit Applies in Your State?

Three questions sort almost everyone into one of the three tracks. Answer them in order, and stop at your first yes.

1. Do you need nursing-home-level care, either in a facility or through a home-based waiver? This is a clinical determination your state makes, not a figure you can calculate. If yes, you are on the institutional track. Your figure is the special income level, up to $2,982 a month.3
2. Are you 65 or older, or entitled to or enrolled in Medicare? If yes, you are on the aged, blind, and disabled track. Your yardstick is the SSI benefit rate, $994 a month for an individual.3 If your income is above that, do not stop reading here: most retirees are, and the Medicare Savings Programs covered below reach well past it.5
3. Otherwise you are on the MAGI track, the one that covers working-age adults, parents, pregnant applicants, and children. In a state that expanded Medicaid, the adult ceiling is 138% of the federal poverty level, roughly $1,835 a month for one person.1,2

Here is what each track looks like side by side in 2026, for a single applicant:

The three numbers are set out below in full.

1. Working-age adults (the MAGI, or modified-adjusted-gross-income, pathway). If you are under 65, not pregnant, not enrolled in Medicare, and live in a state that adopted the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion, you generally qualify up to 138% of the federal poverty level: roughly $22,000 a year for one person in 2026, or about $37,700 for a household of three, against poverty guidelines of $15,960 and $27,320 for the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia.1,2 Alaska and Hawaii run higher guidelines, so the ceiling there is higher.2 This pathway exists only in expansion states, the single biggest reason the answer changes by state.

2. Aged, blind, or disabled (the ABD pathway). If you are 65 or older, blind, or disabled, your Medicaid ties to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program instead: the 2026 federal benefit rate is $994 a month for an individual and $1,491 for a couple, and most states peg the ABD limit at or near it.3 The exact figure and its asset limit are state decisions, and being over that figure is the usual case on this site rather than a dead end.5

3. Long-term care and nursing homes (the institutional pathway). If you need nursing-home care or a home-based waiver, a more generous rule applies: a special income limit set as high as 300% of the SSI rate, $2,982 a month in 2026.3 In states that treat it as a hard cap, you can still qualify by routing income through a Qualified Income Trust, commonly called a Miller trust.6 Our guide to Medicaid planning walks through meeting the limit.

One overlap is worth naming. If you are under 65 with a disability but not yet enrolled in Medicare, the expansion adult group can still apply, because it is written around age and Medicare status rather than disability status.1 That matters: the MAGI groups apply no asset test and the ABD track does.4

The MAGI Income Limits: Adults, Parents, and Children

The MAGI track is where most Medicaid enrollees sit, and it is almost certainly the track behind the question "what is the income limit for Medicaid." It runs on percent-of-poverty floors set in federal law, which states may exceed but not go below.

The new adult group: 133% on paper, 138% in practice. The ACA created the new adult group at Section 1902(a)(10)(A)(i)(VIII) of the Social Security Act for individuals under 65 who are not pregnant and not entitled to or enrolled in Medicare, with income at or below 133% of the federal poverty line. The figure families actually see quoted is 138%, and both are correct: the statute applies a MAGI-equivalent income disregard of 5 percentage points of the poverty level, so the effective ceiling is 138% FPL.1 The group covers adults 19 and older (children under 19 have their own mandatory group) whether or not they have children at home.1,7 It exists only where a state adopted the expansion, which the Supreme Court's 2012 decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius made effectively optional.1

Parents and caretaker relatives: the trap in the rules. Parents and other caretaker relatives are a federally mandatory group, but they are mandatory only at the state's old cash-welfare standard, not at a percent of the poverty level. Under 42 CFR 435.110, the minimum income standard a state must use is its AFDC income standard in effect on May 1, 1988, converted to a MAGI equivalent, and the statute ties the group to the state's pre-welfare-reform AFDC criteria as they stood on July 16, 1996.8 Those frozen standards are typically far below the poverty level. This is why a working parent in a state that did not expand Medicaid can be over the income limit at a very low income, and it is the single most misread rule on this topic: the "138%" number simply is not available to them.8

Children: a 133% floor, and usually higher. Coverage of children under 19 is federally mandatory under 42 CFR 435.118, and the minimum standard a state must use is the higher of 133% FPL for the family size or the state's grandfathered pre-existing level. For infants under 1 a state may set a higher standard, up to 185% FPL where it had previously elected to do so. The 133% figure is a floor, not the answer: states commonly cover children well above it, including through a separate CHIP program.7

No asset test on this track. Federal law bars a state from applying any asset or resource test to the MAGI groups: expansion adults, children, pregnant applicants, and parents or caretaker relatives.4 Savings, a car, and a retirement account do not count against you here. That is the central break between this track and the ABD and long-term-care pathways, which the statute expressly excepts from the rule and which do apply a resource test.4

Turning 65 Can Change Which Limit Applies

This is the transition almost no general-audience income-limit page names, and it catches families every year: turning 65 can end Medicaid eligibility even though nothing about the person's income changed.

The new adult group is written for individuals under 65 who are not pregnant and not entitled to or enrolled in Medicare, at an effective ceiling of 138% FPL, and because it is a MAGI group it applies no asset test.1,4 For one person in 2026 that ceiling is roughly $1,835 a month, which is 138% of the $15,960 annual poverty guideline for one person in the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. Alaska and Hawaii run higher.2,1

On the 65th birthday that pathway closes, and the same person is generally assessed on the SSI-related aged, blind, and disabled track instead, the track the statute expressly excepts from the MAGI no-asset-test rule.4 Two things change at once:

• The income yardstick drops. It becomes the SSI federal benefit rate of $994 a month for an individual rather than 138% of the poverty level.3
• A resource test appears. The MAGI groups are barred from applying one; the ABD track is not.4

So a 64-year-old covered at $1,600 a month with $10,000 in savings can, in a state that applies the SSI resource standard, be over both tests at 65: the income standard drops below their income, and an asset test that never applied to them appears.1,2,3,4 Neither their income nor their savings moved.

Two cautions before you act on this.

The $2,000 asset limit is a default, not a national rule. The SSI resource standard is $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple, and most states apply it.3 Several states set theirs far higher: Illinois allows $17,500 for AABD Medical, raised from $2,000 in May 2023.9 New York's non-MAGI resource limit is $33,038 for a single applicant.10 California reinstated a non-MAGI asset test of $130,000 for one person effective January 1, 2026 under AB 116, after eliminating it in 2024.11 Missouri's single-applicant resource limit is $6,068.80.12 Nebraska uses $4,000.13 If you read "$2,000" on a national chart and assume it is your number, you may be spending down money you did not have to spend. Check your state's page.

Age is not the only trigger. The new adult group also excludes anyone entitled to or enrolled in Medicare, so a person under 65 who reaches Medicare through disability leaves the 138% no-asset-test group the same way, at whatever age that happens.1 Both routes land on the ABD track, which is where your state's rules start governing the answer.

Over the Aged, Blind, and Disabled Limit? Medicare Savings Programs Are Next

The last section leaves you in the situation most readers of this page are actually in. You are 65 or older, your Social Security check is $1,400 a month, and the ABD yardstick is $994.3,5 You are over the limit, and most national income-limit charts stop there.

That is the wrong place to stop, because full Medicaid is not the only thing Medicaid runs for people on Medicare. The Medicare Savings Programs are state-run programs, administered through Medicaid, that help people with limited income and resources pay Medicare costs, and their income ceilings are set as percentages of the federal poverty level that sit well above the SSI benefit rate.5,3 There are four, and the first three are where most readers of this page land:

For a married couple the ceilings are about $1,824, $2,184, and $2,455. A fourth program, QDWI (Qualified Disabled and Working Individual), pays the Part A premium for certain working people with disabilities who lost premium-free Part A.5 The $1,400-a-month retiree above, over the limit for full Medicaid, sits inside the SLMB range.5

Four details decide what these are worth to you:

• QMB carries a billing protection. Federal law bars providers from billing a QMB enrollee for Part A and Part B deductibles, coinsurance, or copayments, under any circumstances. A bill that arrives anyway is improper billing, not a debt you owe.5
• QI is first-come, first-served, and exclusive. It is granted from limited annual funding, and you cannot hold QI and full Medicaid at once, so applying early in the year matters here as it does not for QMB or SLMB.5
• Any MSP turns on Extra Help automatically, the Part D Low-Income Subsidy, so an approval reaches your prescription costs and not just your premiums.5
• The resource test is far more forgiving than the $2,000 standard governing full ABD Medicaid: $9,950 for an individual and $14,910 for a couple in 2026.5,3

As with every number on this page, your state can be more generous. Massachusetts eliminated the MSP asset test entirely effective March 1, 2024 and runs its tiers at 190% of poverty for QMB, 190% to 210% for SLMB, and 210% to 225% for QI.2 Ceilings are higher in Alaska and Hawaii, and a state's published limits may already fold in its own income disregards, so treat the figures above as the federal shape and confirm the current numbers with your state.5 Our guide to Medicare Savings Programs by state carries each state's thresholds and how to apply.

An MSP pays your Medicare costs rather than making you fully eligible for Medicaid, so it is not the only door worth trying. If your state runs a medically-needy program, the spend-down described in the next section but one is the other, and it is not reserved for nursing-home applicants: the budget period is commonly one month for community Medicaid.14 Massachusetts, for one, sets its medically-needy limit at $522 a month for a single person living at home.2 A senior over $994 and still in their own house can be reaching for both.

What Counts as Income, and Who Counts as Your Household

A percentage only becomes a dollar figure once you know how many people are in your household and which of your money counts. Both answers follow the same track split as the limits themselves, and the two tracks use different rulebooks.

On the MAGI track, eligibility is determined using modified adjusted gross income, the tax-based measure, and no asset or resource test may be applied at all.4 Household size and composition follow federal income-tax filing relationships, the "tax household." Under 42 CFR 435.603(f), a person who expects to file a return and does not expect to be claimed as a dependent has a household of the taxpayer plus their spouse and tax dependents, subject to the regulation's further rules; CMS states that a Medicaid and CHIP household is generally the same as a tax household, with situational additions and exceptions.15 If you file a joint return with two dependents, your household is four, and four is what sets your dollar ceiling.

On the aged, blind, and disabled track, income is measured using the SSI program's methodology rather than the MAGI calculation, the household rules are the non-MAGI rules rather than your tax household, and a resource test applies.3,15 The same family can therefore be counted differently depending on which pathway applies.

Does Social Security count as income? Yes. This is the question nearly every reader over 65 arrives with, and the answer follows from the SSI rules the ABD track borrows.16 Under that methodology a Social Security retirement or disability benefit is unearned income, reduced only by the $20 general income exclusion.17 Mom's $1,600 monthly benefit therefore counts as $1,580 against the standard rather than as nothing, which is exactly why so many retirees sit above the $994 ABD figure and belong in the Medicare Savings Programs above rather than in full Medicaid.3,5 Past that general rule, the further income exclusions and the countable-resource rules are set state by state, and a 209(b) state may apply a rule stricter than SSI's, so confirm what counts on your state's guide or with your state agency rather than assuming a national chart applies to you.16

The long-term-care track adds a second test that has nothing to do with money. Meeting the income limit does not by itself open the institutional pathway: you must also need nursing-home-level care, which is a clinical determination rather than a figure you can calculate. How your state assesses it, and who performs the assessment, is covered on your state's guide.

Being Over the Long-Term-Care Limit Is Not the End

The $2,982 figure, 300% of the SSI benefit rate, is quoted everywhere as a hard wall.3 Whether it actually is one depends on which financial-eligibility regime your state runs, and this is the distinction most pages on this topic skip.

In an income-cap state, the cap is real, and a trust is the way through. Florida is the clearest example: its Institutional Care Program and SMMC long-term-care waiver cap a single applicant's gross monthly income at 300% of the SSI benefit rate, $2,982 in 2026, and an applicant over the cap cannot qualify no matter how high their medical expenses are unless they establish a Qualified Income Trust, funded before eligibility begins and naming the state as residual beneficiary.18

In a medically-needy state, there is no such cap, and no trust is needed. New York does not apply the 300% special income limit at all: its Medicaid Income Level is $1,836 a month for a single applicant, and applicants over it qualify by spending down excess income, or for community Medicaid by depositing it into a pooled income trust.10 Massachusetts is likewise not an income-cap state; its medically-needy income limit is $522 a month for one person in the community, and no Miller trust is required.2

What "spending down" actually means. It does not mean writing a check to the state, and the mechanics are where this path is misread. The agency deducts from your income the medical expenses you have incurred that no third party will pay, and once those incurred expenses equal the amount by which your income exceeds the standard, coverage begins for that period.14 The arithmetic runs over a budget period of no more than six months, commonly one month for community Medicaid and six months for long-term care.14 Massachusetts shows the shape of it: excess income over the $522 medically-needy limit is multiplied by six to set the deductible, so a person at $1,000 a month carries $478 of excess and a $2,868 deductible to meet before MassHealth starts paying.2 The bills you already owe are what get you there, which is why a spend-down reaches people who could never write that check.

So the same retiree with the same $3,200-a-month pension is told to set up a trust in Florida and to spend down in New York or Massachusetts.18,10,2 Being over the special income level means different things in different places, and it rarely means "you do not qualify."

If you are married, your spouse keeps an income allowance. Under the spousal-impoverishment rules at 42 U.S.C. 1396r-5, the community spouse keeps a Minimum Monthly Maintenance Needs Allowance of $2,705.00 a month effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 (Alaska $3,381.25; Hawaii $3,111.25), against a maximum Monthly Maintenance Needs Allowance of $4,066.50 a month, plus a resource allowance your state elects between $32,532 and $162,660.12 Note the July-to-June cycle on the income figures: they do not turn over in January with the poverty guidelines, so a chart published earlier in the year may already be superseded.12

Two rules reliably arrive attached to this question and are not income rules at all, so they live where they belong. Giving assets away before applying can trigger a penalty period under Medicaid's 60-month look-back, which our Medicaid planning guide covers.19 And once you qualify, an institutionalized resident keeps a personal needs allowance of at least $30 a month, with most states setting theirs above that federal floor, explained in our personal needs allowance guide.20 Neither one changes which income limit applies to you.

Why Medicaid Income Limits Change from State to State

Federal law sets the framework above, but states fill in the specifics, which is why the same person can qualify in one state and not the next.

The biggest divide is expansion. As of 2026, 41 states including the District of Columbia adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion, and 10 states did not: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.21 In a non-expansion state, the working-age-adult pathway is absent, so a low-income adult who would qualify next door may not qualify at all. In nine of those ten states, adults below the poverty level can fall into a coverage gap: too much income for Medicaid, too little for Marketplace premium subsidies.21 If that describes you, do not stop at the chart. Check whether another mandatory pathway reaches you first, as a parent or caretaker relative at your state's standard, or on the basis of disability, and then apply through your state agency anyway: only the agency can make the determination, and our guide to applying for Medicaid by state has the route for yours.

Wisconsin is the exception, and it is routinely lumped in with the other nine by mistake. Wisconsin has not adopted the expansion, but it covers low-income adults up to the poverty level anyway, so it has no coverage gap.21 A childless adult in Wisconsin and a childless adult in Mississippi are in genuinely different situations.

The aged-and-disabled limit varies for a more technical reason. In most states, known as 1634 states, getting SSI automatically enrolls you in Medicaid. A handful of states use the same SSI financial rules but require a separate application, and a small group of "209(b)" states are allowed to apply at least one income or asset rule stricter than SSI's, so some SSI recipients do not qualify for Medicaid there.16 Read alongside the income-cap and medically-needy split above, that gives three structural choices which together decide your number: a hard income cap you need a trust to cross, a medically-needy standard you spend down to, and a 209(b) rule stricter than SSI's.16,14 States mix them, which is why two states quoting the same federal percentage land families in different places, and why your state's page is the one that counts.

States also set their own asset limits and the rules for a married couple, especially when one spouse needs long-term care. Those, too, live on your state's guide.

Learn More

Find personalized help figuring out which Medicaid pathway and income limit applies to 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.