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A Little-Known Benefit for Aging Veterans

By SUSAN SELIGER
As veterans age, many are unfamiliar with a benefit that can help pay for care at home or in assisted living or a nursing home.
Ricardo Arduengo/Associated Press
As veterans age, many are unfamiliar with a benefit that can help pay for care at home or in assisted living or a nursing home.
Here’s a riddle: When is a government benefit that pays for caregivers, assisted living and a nursing home not a benefit? When hardly any people know they’re entitled to it.

That seems to be the story with a Department of Veterans Affairs benefit called the Aid and Attendance and Housebound Improved Pension benefit, known as A&A, which can cover the costs of caregivers in the home (including sons and daughters who are paid to be caregivers, though not spouses) or be used for assisted living or a nursing home.

The benefit is not insignificant: up to $2,019 monthly for a veteran and spouse, and up to $1,094 for the widow of a veteran.

Surprised that you’ve never heard of it? You’re not alone.

“It’s probably one of the lesser-known benefits,” said Randal Noller, a Veterans Affairs spokesman in Washington. Of the 1.7 million World War II veterans alive as of 2011, who were in need of caregiving assistance and thus eligible, only 38,076 veterans and 38,685 surviving spouses were granted the A&A benefit that year, according to Mr. Noller.

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