The Department of Agriculture has quietly finalized a number that decides whether hundreds of thousands of older households can keep more in savings without losing food assistance. Starting October 1, the resource limit that determines Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility for a household with someone 60 or older, or with a disability, rises from $4,500 to $4,750. Every other household’s limit stays frozen at $3,000. The change comes from an official cost-of-living adjustment memo the agency issued in August, and it applies for the full federal fiscal year that begins next month.
The Asset Test Most Households Never Notice
SNAP eligibility runs on two separate tests: how much a household earns and how much it has saved. The resource, or asset, test caps countable savings, and it treats older and disabled households differently from everyone else. Under the Food and Nutrition Administration’s current fiscal-year rules, a household with no elderly or disabled member can hold no more than $3,000 in countable resources and still qualify, while a household with at least one member age 60 or older, or living with a disability, can hold up to $4,500, according to the agency’s SNAP Cost-of-Living Adjustment page. That higher ceiling for older and disabled households has existed for years precisely because those households are more likely to depend on modest savings to cover medical costs, home repairs, or a gap year in income.
The federal government adjusts both numbers annually, though not always by the same amount, and this cycle widened the gap between the two categories rather than closing it. A signed guidance memo dated August 21, 2026, and addressed to all state SNAP agencies, states plainly that the asset limit for households with a member 60 or older, or disabled, “will increase to $4,750,” while the limit for every other household “will remain unchanged” at $3,000. The increase takes effect October 1, 2026, the first day of federal fiscal year 2027, and stays in place through September 30, 2027.
For a household sitting close to the old $4,500 ceiling, the extra $250 is not abstract. A retiree with a modest emergency fund, a small certificate of deposit, or cash set aside for a car repair has more room to hold onto that money without triggering a disqualification review. States apply the resource test at both initial application and recertification, so the new figure matters most for households renewing benefits after October 1 or applying for the first time under the new fiscal year’s rules.
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What Counts as a Resource, and What Doesn’t
Not every dollar a household owns counts toward the limit. A home and the land it sits on are excluded entirely, regardless of value, and so are the resources of anyone in the household already receiving Supplemental Security Income or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, according to the Food and Nutrition Administration’s special rules for elderly and disabled households. Most retirement and pension accounts are also excluded from the resource count, though a withdrawal from one of those accounts can count as income depending on how often it is taken.
Vehicles are the trickiest category. A licensed vehicle is not counted as a resource at all if it is used for work, needed for a long commute, used to transport a household member with a disability, or would sell for less than $1,500, among other exceptions. For vehicles that don’t qualify for an exclusion, only the fair market value above a set threshold, or the vehicle’s equity value if that is higher, counts toward the resource limit. Most households end up with at least one vehicle excluded outright, which keeps a car or truck from tipping a family over the asset ceiling even before the elderly or disabled exception applies.
The resource test also interacts with a household’s income test in a way that favors elderly and disabled applicants twice over. Most SNAP households must meet both a gross income limit and a net income limit to qualify. A household with an elderly or disabled member only has to meet the net income test, skipping the gross income screen entirely. Combined with the higher resource ceiling, that means the same household gets more room on savings and an easier income calculation in the same application.
A Routine Process With a Widening Gap
The dollar figures move every year because federal law requires it. The Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 directs the agency to recalculate SNAP’s maximum benefit amounts, deductions, and eligibility standards at the start of each federal fiscal year based on the cost of a nutritious diet and general cost-of-living movement. That is the same annual process that produced this year’s $4,750 figure, alongside adjustments to income limits, the standard deduction, and the excess shelter deduction that all take effect the same October 1.
What stands out in this cycle is that the two resource limits did not move together. The $3,000 ceiling that applies to a household with no elderly or disabled member has not budged, while the elderly and disabled ceiling has climbed from $4,500 to $4,750, a widening of $250 that leaves the gap between the two categories larger than it was the previous fiscal year. Because the increase applies only to the category built around age and disability, its practical effect falls almost entirely on retirees, people receiving disability benefits, and the households that care for them, rather than on the broader SNAP caseload.
The change also lands at a moment when SNAP’s income and work-requirement rules are shifting elsewhere for different reasons, tied to a separate 2025 law rather than this annual cost-of-living cycle. The resource limit increase carries no such controversy attached to it: it is the kind of routine, formula-driven adjustment that happens every October, verified in advance by a federal agency’s own guidance memo rather than announced as news. For an older household weighing whether to draw down a savings account before a benefits recertification, though, the routine number is the one that actually decides the outcome.
This article was drafted with AI assistance and edited for accuracy.
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