Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia all rolled out plans this year to stop food-stamp shoppers from using their benefits on soda and candy. A federal court in Washington threw out all five bans in June, and more than two months later, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s own tracking page still shows the same…

A surviving military spouse who searches for the maximum VA Survivors Pension payment will run into two different numbers depending on where they look. Several benefits and elder-law websites list $19,453 as the top rate for 2026. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ own current rate table lists $18,697 as the maximum for a surviving spouse…

A wartime veteran who can no longer bathe, dress or eat without help can qualify for a VA pension add-on worth $29,093 a year on top of the base pension, money aimed squarely at the cost of long-term care. The same veteran can lose the entire benefit if countable net worth tops $163,699, a ceiling…

When a service member dies from a service-connected cause, or a veteran carried a total disability rating for years before dying, the Department of Veterans Affairs pays their surviving spouse a monthly benefit called Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, or DIC. As of December 1, 2025, the base DIC payment for a surviving spouse is $1,699.36…

A veteran who carries a total disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs will not have to prove they worked, trained, or volunteered to keep their Medicaid coverage once the program’s new work test takes hold. Neither will someone who spends their days caring for a child who hasn’t turned 14. Those are two…

A new federal Medicaid rule requires most working-age adults on the program to prove 80 hours a month of work, job training, schooling or community service to keep their coverage, starting no later than January 1, 2027. Buried inside that rule is a second, far simpler way to clear the same bar: show at least…

Every fall, the U.S. Department of Agriculture resets the income lines that decide who qualifies for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and this year’s update includes a number that catches a lot of households off guard. Starting in October, a person living alone who is 60 or older or who has a qualifying disability can…

Starting October 1, some food stamp households will need a bigger swing in their monthly income before they are required to report it to their state. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Administration has raised the dollar figure that triggers a mandatory report of a household income change from $125 to $150, effective…

Every household that receives Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will see its ceiling move higher starting October 1, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual cost-of-living adjustment takes effect. For a two-person household in the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., that ceiling climbs from $546 to $562 a month, a $16 increase tied to…

When one spouse moves into a nursing home and applies for Medicaid to cover the bill, federal law is supposed to stop the other spouse from being wiped out along with the savings account. Every year, the dollar figures behind that protection change, and this summer they changed again: as of July 1, 2026, a…