The poverty guidelines (unlike the poverty thresholds) are designated by the year in which they are issued. For a more detailed list of programs that do and don’t use the guidelines, see the Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs). The Earned Income Tax Credit program also does NOT use the poverty guidelines to determine eligibility. Note that in general, cash public assistance programs (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income) do NOT use the poverty guidelines in determining eligibility. Programs using the guidelines (or percentage multiples of the guidelines - for instance, 125 percent or 185 percent of the guidelines) in determining eligibility include Head Start, the Supplemental Nutition Assistance Program (SNAP), the National School Lunch Program, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The guidelines have never had an aged/non-aged distinction only the Census Bureau (statistical) poverty thresholds have separate figures for aged and non-aged one-person and two-person units. The poverty guidelines apply to both aged and non-aged units. guidelines for those jurisdictions or to follow some other procedure.

In cases in which a Federal program using the poverty guidelines serves any of those jurisdictions, the Federal office which administers the program is responsible for deciding whether to use the contiguous-states-and-D.C. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau. The poverty guidelines are not defined for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Note that the poverty thresholds - the original version of the poverty measure - have never had separate figures for Alaska and Hawaii. The separate poverty guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii reflect Office of Economic Opportunity administrative practice beginning in the 1966-1970 period. The following figures are the 2018 HHS poverty guidelines which are scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on January 18, 2018.Ģ018 POVERTY GUIDELINES FOR THE 48 CONTIGUOUS STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIAįor families/households with more than 8 persons, add $4,320 for each additional person.įor families/households with more than 8 persons, add $5,400 for each additional person.įor families/households with more than 8 persons, add $4,810 for each additional person. See also the discussion of this topic on the Institute for Research on Poverty’s web site.5 Key differences between poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines are outlined in a table under Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). The poverty guidelines are sometimes loosely referred to as the “federal poverty level” (FPL), but that phrase is ambiguous and should be avoided, especially in situations (e.g., legislative or administrative) where precision is important. The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for administrative purposes - for instance, determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs. They are issued each year in the Federal Register by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The poverty guidelines are the other version of the federal poverty measure. For an example of how the Census Bureau applies the thresholds to a family’s income to determine its poverty status, see “ How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty” on the Census Bureau’s web site. (In other words, all official poverty population figures are calculated using the poverty thresholds, not the guidelines.) Poverty thresholds since 1973 (and for selected earlier years) and weighted average poverty thresholds since 1959 are available on the Census Bureau’s Web site.

The thresholds are used mainly for statistical purposes - for instance, preparing estimates of the number of Americans in poverty each year. They are updated each year by the Census Bureau.

The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure. There are two slightly different versions of the federal poverty measure: Federal Poverty Guidelines Used to Determine Financial Eligibility for Certain Federal Programs

Federal register 2017 tdiu changes