Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Vermont, a Medicaid nursing-facility resident’s Personal Needs Allowance (the state uses different terminology; see below) is $79.93/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. Vermont Agency of Human Services / Dept. for Children and Families, Economic Services Division, Bulletin No. 25-04, Manual Reference P-2740A “SSI/AABD Payment Maximums” states the figure directly.
Why Vermont’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. Vermont has done exactly that, setting $79.93/Month, effective January 1, 2025 (unchanged from the 1/1/24-12/31/24 figure shown in the same table).
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
Vermont’s official table does not use the phrase “personal needs allowance”; it is the combined SSI + state AABD supplement “payment maximum” for the “Long-term Care” living arrangement, the mechanism that functions as the nursing-home PNA (SSI recipients in a nursing facility are limited to this amount for personal use).
One exception or caveat worth knowing
No Vermont primary-source page located that pairs this $79.93 figure with the literal phrase “personal needs allowance.”
| Citation | Vermont Agency of Human Services / Dept. for Children and Families, Economic Services Division, Bulletin No. 25-04, Manual Reference P-2740A “SSI/AABD Payment Maximums” |
| What it says | “Long-term Care Individual $30.00 $49.93 $79.93” |
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.