Medicaid Personal Needs Allowance in Minnesota ($132.00/Month)

Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Minnesota, a Medicaid nursing-facility resident’s Personal Needs Allowance (the state uses different terminology; see below) is $132.00/Month; the amount of their own income they keep for personal use each month, with the rest going to the facility as the patient-pay amount toward the cost of care. That is well above the $30/month federal floor set in 1988 and never raised since. Minnesota Health Care Programs Eligibility Policy Manual, Appendix F: Standards and Guidelines, Minnesota DHS states the figure directly.

Why Minnesota’s figure isn’t the federal floor

Federal Medicaid law requires only a $30-a-month personal needs allowance as a floor; a state is free to set its own, higher figure by statute, regulation, or agency policy. Minnesota has done exactly that, setting $132.00/Month, effective January 1, 2026 – December 31, 2026.

What the allowance covers, and what it doesn’t

The personal needs allowance pays for the things a facility’s daily rate doesn’t cover: clothing, haircuts, snacks, a phone or television, small personal purchases. It is deducted before the rest of a resident’s income is applied to the facility bill as the patient-pay (or post-eligibility treatment of income, PETI) amount. It is not extra money on top of what Medicaid already pays the facility; it is the one slice of a resident’s own income that Medicaid rules guarantee the resident, not the facility, keeps.

A note on the name

Minnesota’s line item is the “Clothing and Personal Needs Allowance,” applied to LTC enrollees not eligible for a more specific LTC needs allowance; the figure that applies to a typical single nursing-home resident.

One exception or caveat worth knowing

Confirmed from the agency’s own page text rather than from the underlying source document.

Figures verified against Minnesota DHS Appendix F, 42 U.S.C. 1396a(q) and 42 CFR 435.725; the 1988 date of the federal floor was not re-checked on September 30, 2026.

Every citation on this page was read directly from the state’s own Medicaid agency, administrative code, or official eligibility manual this session. General information, not legal or financial advice; a figure this specific can change with a budget cycle or a rule amendment, and a facility or state caseworker has the final say on any individual case.