Kentucky Spousal Protected Resource Amount: A Regulation Still Printing Its 1988 Figures

Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: Kentucky calls it the spousal protected resource amount, and its regulation states “The spousal protected resource amount shall be the greater of: a. The spousal share which shall not exceed a maximum of $60,000 to be increased for each calendar year in accordance with 42 U.S.C. 1396r-5(g); or b. The state spousal resource standard.” Both figures in that text are the original 1988 statutory bases. The $60,000 carries an indexing instruction and has grown far beyond it; the $20,000 state standard carries none and now sits below the federal floor.

What Kentucky actually sets out

How it works in practice

• Read the two figures against their own instructions and the regulation makes sense. The spousal share “shall not exceed a maximum of $60,000 to be increased for each calendar year in accordance with 42 U.S.C. 1396r-5(g)”. That indexing clause is the operative part: $60,000 was the 1988 ceiling and the indexed figure for 2026 is far higher. The number printed in the text is a starting point the statute then moves.
• The state spousal resource standard is the one to be careful with. “The state spousal resource standard shall be set at $20,000.” No indexing clause attaches to that sentence. Taken at face value it is a floor below the 2026 federal minimum, which federal law does not permit a state to fall under. This page states what the regulation says and does not resolve the conflict, because resolving it is the agency’s job and not a web page’s.
• Neither figure should be used as a current number, and this page prints none. What the regulation gives a reader is the shape of the test — the greater of an indexed spousal share or a state standard, with hearing and court routes above both — and that shape is stable even when the figures are not.
• There are two routes above the arithmetic. “For an individual, the spousal protected resource amount may be a higher amount established by a hearing officer or a higher amount transferred under a court order as specified in paragraph (c) of this subsection.” A hearing officer and a court can each set a larger protected amount.
• The transfer is permitted in spite of the general prohibition, which is the point. “An institutionalized spouse may, without regard to the prohibition against disposal of assets for less than fair market value, transfer to the community spouse, or to another for the sole benefit of the community spouse, an amount equal to the spousal protected resource amount to the extent the resources of the institutionalized spouse are transferred to, or for the sole benefit of, the community spouse.” Moving resources to the spouse at home up to the protected amount is not a disqualifying transfer.
• There is a timing instruction rather than a deadline. “The transfer shall be made as soon as practicable after the initial determination of eligibility, taking into account the time necessary to obtain a court order under paragraph (c) of this subsection.” The regulation contemplates that a court order may be needed and builds the time for it into the standard.

What the allowance is for, and why protecting the spouse at home is a federal requirement rather than a state kindness, is explained on the community spouse resource allowance page. The date the couple’s resources are counted is its own subject, on the snapshot date page, and the monthly income allowance that runs alongside it is on the MMMNA page. This page is the record for Kentucky.

What this page does not settle

• Both spouses are entitled to be told how the figure was reached. Among the items the notice must state is the “Method of computing the amount of the community spouse resources allowance; and” A couple who cannot follow the arithmetic from the notice they received is entitled to ask for it.
• This page reads one source: 907 KAR 20:035, Eligibility determination for the institutionalized spouse of a community spouse (Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services). It is the state’s own publication on this rule, but no state puts its whole treatment of a couple’s resources in a single document, and a detail that decides your case may sit in one this page did not read.
• The resource rule is one hurdle. The income rules for the spouse at home are separate and are decided on their own numbers, the level-of-care test is separate again, and the transfer-of-assets look-back is separate from all of them. Clearing this rule does not clear any of the others.
• Every quotation here was read against the source on August 27, 2026. The federal minimum and maximum figures are reset each January, and a state can revise its own rule without the page around it changing. Open the source before you rely on a number.

Eligibility is decided by the state agency on the whole file, not by one rule on one page. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should move, retitle or spend a couple’s savings on the strength of a web page.

Sources

• 907 KAR 20:035, Eligibility determination for the institutionalized spouse of a community spouse (Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services)

The source above was retrieved and read against the state text on August 27, 2026. Every quotation on this page was checked against those bytes.