What are the “Poverty” Guidelines?

The guidelines are a set of numbers published annually by the federal government. They are used by many benefit programs as one of several factors to determine whether you are financially eligible to receive help.
In certain cases, a program may use the guidelines as a base for setting their own guidelines. For example, the Legal Aid Bureau uses the figure of 125% of the poverty guidelines as part of its decision to decide if you can receive free legal help. Since many other factors are also used and sometimes the financial guidelines are higher, if your income is near the guidelines limit or even twice as much, you should still call for help.

The current poverty guidelines can be found at the Department of Health and Human Services website.

More information on the guidelines - The poverty guidelines reflect price changes throughout the previous calendar year. The Census Bureau will publish the figures in the late summer of the following year and the cost of living changes are announced by the individual programs later in the year.

There are two slightly different versions of the federal poverty measure. They are updated each year by the Census Bureau.

• Poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure and are used mainly for statistical purposes, i.e., annual estimates of Americans in poverty.
• Poverty guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds used for administrative purposes, i.e., determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs.

More information is available on-line at:

On Poverty Guidelines--US Department of Health & Human Services: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/07poverty.shtml

On Poverty Guidelines, Research & Measurement: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/

For more information on people in poverty and Census Bureau (statistical) poverty thresholds: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html

 Last date reviewed no legal content 01/11/08 (PLL/M.A.J)

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