Official Site of The State of New Jersey

For Immediate Release:
May 7, 2026

TESTIMONY FROM LAURIE FACCIAROSSA BREWER New Jersey Long-Term Care Ombudsman — re: Bill A2691
—Assembly Aging and Human Services Committee, May 7, 2026

Thank you, Chairwoman Speight, and committee members for considering this bill to increase the personal needs allowance (or PNA) for the tens of thousands of New Jersey nursing home residents who are covered by Medicaid.

Let’s put it bluntly: The $50-a-month PNA is a bad joke. The cost of living is high these days, for all of us. Residents are not immune to what is happening outside their nursing home walls. Their costs go up just like ours.

I think many people have a misguided notion that the PNA is just pocket money that we give the residents.

The truth is, they earned it. It is their money. Nursing home residents on Medicaid have given up everything they ever worked for — pensions, Social Security, you name it. They are forced to spend down their hard-earned life savings and assets, in most cases to $2,000, just to get on Medicaid in the first place. All they retain of their own money is a paltry $50 a month.

This brings us to another myth — namely, that nursing homes provide everything the residents need. This is simply false.

Residents have always had to pay out-of-pocket for necessities such as clothes and shoes. They also have to pay for haircuts and hair care products. And now, in an age when nursing homes spend less and less to improve the residents’ quality of life, the PNA must go farther. Many nursing homes spend only a few dollars a day to feed each resident, for instance. Residents may not get enough to eat. What they do get often ranges from bland and unappealing to downright inedible. And if residents want any outside food, it comes out of their PNA.

Residents often choose to spend PNA money to replace poor-quality toiletries and personal care products provided by the nursing home. They also use the PNA to fund their hobbies and passions. Whether they love reading, music, knitting, crafting, puzzling, what have you, the residents must pay for it.

These are not frivolous things. Our interests and hobbies — those things we choose to do — are what make us who we are.

Taking all of this into account, how long would $50 last for you? I think I might make it a few days.

Residents have been fighting for a higher PNA since 2017, and it’s long past due. The beauty of Bill A2691 is that it would increase the PNA to $140 a month and enact annual cost-of-living adjustments so that residents don’t need to fight for this again in a few years.

In closing, thank you, Madam Chair, for sponsoring the legislation and for taking the time to meet with residents and hear their voices. I want to thank the many other legislators who have also taken meetings with residents and signed on as sponsors and co-sponsors.

I know there are budgetary pressures on the state Legislature and the Sherrill administration. The federal government is cutting Medicaid and changing policies in a way that will make it increasingly difficult for New Jersey to make ends meet while continuing to provide for the many who need our assistance. I get all that.

Yet I also know that we find the money for the things that matter. This is one of those things.

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