Michigan Nursing Home Residents Get $60 a Month for Personal Expenses. They’re Asking for $125.

Lansing, Michigan — For nursing home residents on Medicaid in Michigan, $60 a month is all the state gives them to cover personal expenses. That works out to $2 a day — not enough for a haircut, barely enough for deodorant and body wash, and nowhere near enough to replace worn-out clothes.

Dianna Bennett, a resident at the Isabella County Medical Care facility in Mount Pleasant, has lived there for six years. She enjoys painting, but buying supplies is a stretch. “You have to work with what you can afford,” she said.

Now, a growing movement among Michigan nursing home residents is pushing state lawmakers to change that.

A Push for More Dignity

The effort centers on expanding Michigan’s Personal Needs Allowance (PNA), the Medicaid benefit that gives nursing home residents a small monthly cash allotment for personal items. Residents across the state have organized through their individual nursing home councils and a Statewide Resident Council, and they’re asking lawmakers to raise the PNA from $60 to $125 a month.

Melvin Joslin, a resident at the Marquette County Medical Care Facility in Ishpeming and one of the leaders of the effort, says the increase would give people “more dignity.” In a letter to lawmakers, he wrote that residents are “finding it more challenging than ever to navigate our personal expenses.”

It took Joslin months of saving just to buy a used computer so he could join virtual council meetings.

Michigan’s current $60 monthly allowance lags behind much of the country. According to the American Council on Aging, 28 states already provide nursing home residents with more than $60 a month. Married couples in Michigan fare even worse — each spouse receives just $37 a month.

“Residents often have to make the choice between paying for a cell phone or maybe replacing clothes that have worn out,” said Ahnuh Hayes, an ombudsman who serves as a liaison between the state’s Department of Health and Human Services and nursing home residents. “Buying personal care items that work for their skin types, or even ordering a meal out.”

The Numbers Behind the Ask

Michigan’s Medicaid program covers roughly 168,000 nursing home residents statewide, and the proposed increase would directly affect more than 40,000 of them who rely on Medicaid. Hayes says raising the PNA would require boosting the state’s Medicaid budget from $4 million to $8 million annually — a modest sum in the context of a multi-billion-dollar health program, but one that faces real headwinds.

Michigan is contending with an estimated $1 billion budget shortfall, and few lawmakers have spoken publicly in support of the change. In Washington, a federal bill to raise the national minimum PNA to $60 a month was introduced in the House last October but hasn’t moved since.

State Senator Kevin Hertel, a Democrat from St. Clair Shores who chairs the Senate Health Policy Committee, acknowledged the gap. “We all know that everything’s getting more expensive. So $60 a month, it’s just not enough,” he told the Detroit Free Press.

Looming over all of it is the federal budget picture. The reconciliation law passed last year made sweeping cuts to Medicaid — more than $1 trillion over time — and advocates warn it’s nearly impossible to protect any one group of residents when those cuts ripple through the entire system.

This fight isn’t new, but it’s getting louder. As Michigan grapples with mounting pressure on its nursing home system, residents say they’re tired of being overlooked.

“I think we’re the forgotten generation,” Bennett said. “Say, hey, here we are, don’t forget us.”