The following change has been made to the 2021 pension rate webpage:

What’s the net worth limit to qualify for a Veterans Pension?

We’ve recently changed the way we assess net worth to make the pension entitlement rules more clear. Net worth is the total of your or your beneficiary’s assets and annual income. Your net worth also includes the net worth of your spouse. You should report all of your net worth. The net worth limit to qualify for a Veterans Pension as of December 1, 2020, is $130,773.

Note: In the future, the net worth limit will increase by the same percentage as Social Security cost-of-living increases. We’ll update the limit here when there’s an increase.

What does this change?  Effectively nothing.

Example:

John’s assets:

$185,000 home – of which the VA will not count.

$40,000 in Money Market

$4,000 in a Checking account

$75,000 in his wife’s 401K

John’s income:

$30,000 Social Security

John’s wife Jane’s income:

$22,000 Social Security

Since you would still set up a caregiver of record account for John and Jane you would still only count $119,000 as their net worth.