Clofine Predicts Maximum CSRA Will Rise More Than $7,000 in 2022

Clofine Predicts Maximum CSRA Will Rise More Than $7,000 in 2022With the September 2022 Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) announced October 13, Pennsylvania ElderLawAnswers member Robert Clofine has made his now-annual prediction of next year’s Medicaid’s spousal impoverishment figures.

In an email to his colleagues in the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Clofine forecasts that the 2022 maximum community spouse resource allowance (CSRA) should be $137,400 (compared to this year’s $130,380) and the minimum CSRA should be $27,480 (this year it is $26,076). The maximum monthly maintenance needs allowance should rise to $3,435 (from $3,259.50). The income cap for waiver should be $2,523 (this year’s is $2,382).

We’ll confirm Clofine’s calculations as soon as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issues the official figures, as well as report Medicaid's home equity limits. His predictions have been right on the money in years past, with a small blip in 2020, when the estimates for that year differed slightly from the official figures.  Clofine discovered that he and CMS had been using different rounding methods all along, but that was the first year it had made a difference.