How Florida Protects Spouses with Medicaid Income Allocation

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]A lot of times historically, um, especially with my older clients, uh, 70s, 80s, 90s, over 100, historically, uh, men worked more in the old days, and they have higher social security, higher pensions than their wives, because in the old days, uh, men did, you know, work more than in today's world where women work just as much as men now.

[00:00:22]So, we we're seeing more of an equalization of, uh, monthly pension and social security amounts for married couples now. But, I've seen a number of situations, let's say the wife only gets $500 a month in social security, and let's say the husband has $3,000 a month in income. Well, the family's been living off of both of those incomes, uh, to pay for everything in the community.

[00:00:46]So, if the wife is only left with $500 a month, you know, she's going to have to apply for food stamps and other, you know, public benefits herself. So, the government here in Florida, uh, uses something called income allocation or income diversion. So, what the the government is going to do is is if that spouse in the community has low income, they're going to be entitled to keep some or all of the Medicaid recipient's income. So, that's, uh, another really nice, uh, benefit potentially.