Connecticut Community Spouse Protected Amount: A Greatest-of-Four Rule in a Manual Page Last Transmitted in 2009

Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: Connecticut does not use the phrase community spouse resource allowance at all. Its Uniform Policy Manual calls the protected figure the Community Spouse Protected Amount, and sets it as follows: “Every January 1, the CSPA shall be equal to the greatest of the following amounts: a. the minimum CSPA; or b. the lesser of: (1) the spousal share calculated in the assessment of spousal assets (Cross Reference 1507.05); or (2) the maximum CSPA; or c. the amount established through a Fair Hearing decision (Cross Reference 1570); or d. the amount established pursuant to a court order for the purpose of providing necessary spousal support. 4. For the purpose of calculating the amount to be deemed, the community spouse’s total available non-excluded assets include only those assets which are: a. owned solely by the community spouse; and b. owned jointly with any other person except the institutionalized spouse. Assets owned jointly with the IS are treated as being owned by the IS, as described in UPM 4010. 5. When the calculation results in a zero of lesser amount, the Department does not deem any portion of the community spouse’s assets to the institutionalized spouse.” The page carrying that rule is stamped “CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICESPRIVATE UNIFORM POLICY MANUAL ______________________________________________________________________________ Date: 1-7-09 Transmittal: UP-09-04 4025.67 ______________________________________________________________________________ Section: Type: Treatment of Assets POLICY ______________________________________________________________________________ Chapter: Program: MAABD Deemed Assets _______________________________________________________________ Subject: MCCA Spouses ______________________________________________________________________________ 4025.67 A.” which is a fact this page reports rather than works around.

What Connecticut actually sets out

How it works in practice

• Connecticut runs the protection backwards from the way most states describe it, and the difference is worth understanding before reading any figure. Most manuals ask what the spouse at home may KEEP. Connecticut asks what is DEEMED ACROSS to the applicant: “The Department calculates the amount of assets deemed to the institutionalized spouse from the community spouse by subtracting the Community Spouse Protected Amount (CSPA) from the community spouse’s total available non-excluded assets. 2. The Department calculates the community spouse’s total available non- CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES UNIFORM POLICY MANUAL ______________________________________________________________________________ Date: 1-1-07 Transmittal: UP-07-11 4025.67 page 2 ______________________________________________________________________________ Section: Type: Treatment of Assets POLICY ______________________________________________________________________________ Chapter: Program: MAABD Deemed Assets _______________________________________________________________ Subject: MCCA Spouses ______________________________________________________________________________ 4025.67 D. 2. Deeming Methodology (Continued) excluded assets by subtracting the value of the following assets from the total value of the assets owned by the community spouse: a. inaccessible assets; and b. excluded assets. 3. Every January 1, the CSPA shall be equal to the greatest of the following amounts: a. the minimum CSPA; or b. the lesser of: (1) the spousal share calculated in the assessment of spousal assets (Cross Reference 1507.05); or (2) the maximum CSPA; or c. the amount established through a Fair Hearing decision (Cross Reference 1570); or d. the amount established pursuant to a court order for the purpose of providing necessary spousal support. 4. For the purpose of calculating the amount to be deemed, the community spouse’s total available non-excluded assets include only those assets which are: a. owned solely by the community spouse; and b. owned jointly with any other person except the institutionalized spouse.” The protected amount is a subtraction, not an award.
• The trigger is stated as an excess: “As described in section 4025.67 D., the CS’ assets are deemed to the IS to the extent that such assets exceed the Community Spouse Protected Amount. 2. Any assets deemed from the CS are added to the assets of the IS and the total is compared to the Medicaid asset limit for the IS (the Medicaid asset limit for one adult).” Below the protected amount, nothing crosses. Above it, the surplus is treated as the applicant’s and has to be dealt with before eligibility.
• The four limbs are ranked by a “greatest of” test, and limb (b) is itself a “lesser of”, which is where readers most often go wrong. The spousal share from the assessment is compared DOWN against the maximum, and only then is the result compared UP against the minimum, the fair-hearing amount and any court order.
• What the spouse at home owns for this purpose is defined narrowly. The manual counts assets “owned solely by the community spouse; and b. owned jointly with any other person except the institutionalized spouse.” Anything held jointly with the applicant is treated as the applicant’s, which can move a large joint account entirely onto the wrong side of the calculation.
• A negative result is not a debt. The manual provides that “When the calculation results in a zero of lesser amount, the Department does not deem any portion of the community spouse’s assets to the institutionalized spouse.” A spouse at home whose own assets already sit below the protected amount does not have anything attributed to the applicant from that side.

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 Connecticut.

What this page does not settle

• The dates on this document are the honest limit of this page, and they are the reason no dollar figure from it appears above. The manual page carries “CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICESPRIVATE UNIFORM POLICY MANUAL ______________________________________________________________________________ Date: 1-7-09 Transmittal: UP-09-04 4025.67 ______________________________________________________________________________ Section: Type: Treatment of Assets POLICY ______________________________________________________________________________ Chapter: Program: MAABD Deemed Assets _______________________________________________________________ Subject: MCCA Spouses ______________________________________________________________________________ 4025.67 A.” — a transmittal from January 2009. The STRUCTURE it states is the operative structure and has not been superseded by anything this page found; any minimum and maximum printed on a page of that vintage are not the figures in force now, and this page does not reproduce them.
• This page reads one source: Connecticut Department of Social Services Uniform Policy Manual section 4025.67, Transmittal UP-09-04, dated 1-7-09. 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

• Connecticut Department of Social Services Uniform Policy Manual section 4025.67, Transmittal UP-09-04, dated 1-7-09

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.