Federal Poverty Level and Living Wage Statistics (2026)

The federal poverty level for 2026 is $15,960 a year for a single person and $33,000 for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. Each additional person adds $5,680, so a household of eight has a guideline of $55,720. These are the HHS poverty guidelines, published by the Department of Health and Human Services in the Federal Register on January 15, 2026.

"Federal poverty level" or FPL is the everyday name for these guidelines. HHS itself advises against the term where precision matters, because people use it for both the HHS guidelines and the Census Bureau's poverty thresholds, which are different numbers. When an application for Medicaid, marketplace insurance or SNAP asks about the poverty level, it means the HHS guideline.

Monthly, the 2026 guideline works out to $1,330 for one person and $2,750 for a family of four, the same figures USDA lists as SNAP's net income limits (USDA FNS).

Alaska and Hawaii have their own, higher guidelines. In 2026 Alaska's is $19,950 for one person and $41,250 for four, with $7,100 for each additional person. Hawaii's is $18,360 for one person and $37,950 for four, with $6,530 for each additional person (HHS ASPE).

For a family of four, that puts Alaska's guideline 25% above the contiguous-states figure and Hawaii's 15% above it, a Walnut calculation from the HHS table. Every program that uses a percentage of the guidelines applies that percentage to the state's own figure, so a 138% Medicaid limit in Alaska is $56,925 for four, against $45,540 in the other 48 states (also a Walnut calculation).

HHS updates the guidelines every January by taking the latest Census poverty thresholds and raising them by the change in consumer prices. The 2026 notice reflects a 2.63% price increase between calendar years 2024 and 2025, then rounds the result so each extra person adds the same amount. The notice took effect January 13, 2026, though an agency running a program can choose a different start date.

ASPE notes that the October 2025 consumer price index was never published because of the federal government shutdown, so the 2025 average was computed from the 11 months that were. Over a decade the family-of-four guideline has risen from $24,300 in 2016 and $26,200 in 2020 to $32,150 in 2025 and $33,000 in 2026 (ASPE prior guidelines). The 2016-to-2026 rise is 35.8%, a Walnut calculation.

The Census Bureau's poverty thresholds are the statistical version of the poverty line, used to count how many people are poor. HHS derives its guidelines from them and calls them "a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for administrative purposes" (ASPE). The thresholds vary by family size, the number of children and whether the householder is 65 or older, giving 48 separate figures; the guidelines use one number per household size and the same step for each added person.

For 2025 the Census thresholds range from $16,749 for a single person under 65 and $15,440 for one 65 or older, to $32,649 for a family of two adults and two children (Census P60-290). Census also publishes weighted averages as a rough summary of the poverty line: $16,330 for one person and $32,970 for four. These averages are not used to count poverty.

The two series line up closely because one is built from the other. The 2026 guideline for four ($33,000) is $30 above the 2025 weighted-average threshold for four, while for one person the guideline sits $370 below the average threshold.

Many federal programs set eligibility at the poverty guideline or a multiple of it. ASPE lists Head Start, SNAP, the National School Lunch Program, LIHEAP and CHIP among them, and the 2026 notice adds Medicaid, the Hill-Burton free care program and USCIS Form I-864, the affidavit an immigration sponsor signs (Federal Register). TANF cash assistance, SSI and the Earned Income Tax Credit generally do not use the guidelines.

For a household budget, the useful number is usually a multiple. A family of four earning $45,540 is at 138% of the poverty level, the Medicaid expansion line. At $61,050 it is at 185%, the cutoff for reduced-price school meals and WIC. At $132,000 it reaches 400%, the last dollar of income that qualifies for an ACA premium tax credit. The table below converts the common cutoffs into dollars for one to four people.

Living costs are covered in more depth on Walnut's cost of living statistics page; this page is about the income lines that decide which help a household gets.

In states that adopted the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion, nearly all adults with incomes up to 138% of the poverty level qualify. KFF, a health policy research organization, counts 41 states including DC that have adopted the expansion and 10 that have not. The limit is 133% in law; a standard 5% income disregard brings it to 138%.

Medicaid and CHIP use current-year guidelines: HealthCare.gov says 2026 income is used to check Medicaid and CHIP eligibility. At 138% of the 2026 guidelines, the limit is $22,025 for one person, $29,863 for two and $45,540 for four, a Walnut calculation. For 2025 KFF put the single-adult figure at $21,597.

In the 10 non-expansion states, adults without children generally cannot get Medicaid on income alone. Limits for children, pregnant women and parents are set state by state and are often higher than 138%.

Marketplace premium tax credits go to households with income from 100% to 400% of the poverty level (HealthCare.gov). The marketplace uses the prior year's guidelines, so 2027 coverage, sold in the open enrollment that began November 1, 2026 in most states, uses the 2026 figures: $15,960 to $63,840 for one person and $33,000 to $132,000 for a family of four (KFF).

The enhanced premium tax credits, which had extended help above 400% of the poverty level, expired in 2026, and households above 400% no longer qualify for any credit (KFF). KFF reports that marketplace plan selections fell by 1.2 million from 2025 and that effectuated enrollment was down 12%, or 2.6 million people, to 19.2 million by February 2026. Benchmark silver premiums rose 26% on average from 2025 to 2026 and a further 13% for 2027.

What a subsidized household pays is set as a share of income. For 2027 the IRS sets it at 2.15% of income below 133% of the poverty level, rising through 4.30% at 150%, 6.78% at 200% and 8.66% at 250%, to 10.22% from 300% to 400% (IRS Rev. Proc. 2026-26). The 2026 table ran from 2.10% to 9.96% (Rev. Proc. 2025-25). A family of four at $120,000, or about 364% of the poverty level, would be expected to pay $12,264 a year toward the benchmark plan in 2027, a Walnut calculation at 10.22%.

Cost-sharing reductions, which lower deductibles on silver plans, apply from 100% to 250% of the poverty level, $39,900 for one person in 2027. More on coverage costs is on Walnut's health insurance statistics page.

SNAP has two income tests. Gross monthly income must be at or below 130% of the poverty level and net income, after deductions, at or below 100%. For applications from October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027, the gross limit is $1,729 a month for one person, $2,345 for two, $2,960 for three and $3,575 for four, and the net limit is $1,330, $1,804, $2,277 and $2,750 (USDA FNS). Households with an elderly or disabled member only have to meet the net test.

The maximum monthly SNAP allotment for a family of four is $1,023, and $306 for one person. Benefits are calculated on the assumption that a household spends 30% of its own net income on food, so the allotment is the maximum minus 30% of net income. Countable resources are capped at $3,000, or $4,750 if a member is 60 or older or disabled, though most states use broad-based categorical eligibility to relax these limits.

School meals use the same guidelines for the 2026-27 school year, which began July 1, 2026: free meals at 130% and reduced-price meals at 185%, rounded up to the next whole dollar (USDA FNS). For a family of four that is $42,900 and $61,050. WIC uses the reduced-price meal standard, 185% of the guidelines (USDA FNS).

The official US poverty rate was 10.2% in 2025, down 0.5 percentage points from 2024, the third consecutive annual decline and one of the lowest rates on record. There were 34.5 million people in poverty (Census Bureau). The Census Bureau released the figure on September 15, 2026, alongside its income report, which put median household income at a record $87,460, up 2.6% (Census P60-289).

The 2025 rate was not statistically different from the 10.5% of 2019, the previous low. The official measure compares pretax money income with the thresholds, so it leaves out tax credits, SNAP, housing assistance and other noncash help, as well as taxes and medical bills. The estimate has a margin of error of 0.3 percentage points and comes from the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which sampled about 88,000 addresses in 2026.

Child poverty fell 1.0 point to 13.4% in 2025, a historic low for a series that starts in 1959. The rate was 9.2% for adults 18 to 64 and 9.8% for people 65 and older. The Hispanic rate fell 1.2 points to a historic low of 13.9%; the Black rate was 17.3%, the non-Hispanic white rate 7.5% and the Asian rate 7.7% (Census Bureau).

Family type makes a large difference. People in married-couple families had a poverty rate of 4.4%, against 21.9% in families headed by a woman with no spouse present and 19.0% for people living alone or with nonrelatives. Women's rate was 11.1% and men's 9.2%.

Work is the strongest dividing line. Among adults 18 to 64, 1.6% of those who worked full-time all year were in poverty, against 11.8% of those who worked less than that and 27.3% of those who did not work. By education, 23.8% of adults 25 and older without a high school diploma were poor, against 4.0% of those with at least a bachelor's degree.

Many more households sit just above the line than below it. In 2025, 16.6 million people (4.9%) had income below half of their poverty threshold, often called deep poverty. Counting everyone below 125% of the threshold brings the total to 45.9 million (13.6%), below 150% to 58.2 million (17.2%), and below 200% to 84.3 million, or 24.9% of the population (Census Table 14).

Children are the most exposed: 32.3% lived in families below twice the poverty threshold, against 21.6% of working-age adults and 27.2% of people 65 and older. Several program cutoffs sit between 130% and 250% of the poverty guideline, the range where these households fall.

Walnut's living paycheck to paycheck statistics page covers how households above these lines still run short each month.

The official rate was 22.4% in 1959, the first year measured, and fell to 11.1% by 1973 (Census Table 3). It rose to 15.2% in 1983 and 15.1% in 1993, fell to 11.3% in 2000, and climbed back to 15.1% in 2010 after the Great Recession. It then declined through the 2010s to 10.5% in 2019, rose to 11.5% in 2020 and has fallen each year since 2022, to 10.2% in 2025.

The number of people in poverty peaked at 46.66 million in 2014 and was 34.51 million in 2025. Poverty among people 65 and older has changed most over the long run: it was 35.2% in 1959 and 24.6% in 1970, and has stayed between 8.7% and 10.3% since 2010. Child poverty was 27.3% in 1959 and 22.0% in 2010.

The Supplemental Poverty Measure, produced by the Census Bureau with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, adds noncash benefits and tax credits to income and subtracts taxes, work expenses, child care and out-of-pocket medical costs. Its thresholds are based on recent spending on food, clothing, shelter, utilities, phone and internet, and they vary with local housing costs and whether a family rents or owns. The SPM was 13.1% in 2025, or 44.4 million people, not statistically different from 2024 (Census P60-290).

The SPM ran 2.9 points above the official measure in 2025. The gap was largest for people 65 and older, at 15.4% on the SPM against 9.8% officially, because medical expenses are subtracted on the SPM. For children the two measures met at 13.4%. By housing, renters had an SPM rate of 24.0%, against 6.0% for owners with a mortgage.

SPM thresholds are higher than the official ones. For two adults and two children in 2025, the SPM threshold was $41,701 for renters, $41,323 for owners with a mortgage and $34,326 for owners without one, against an official threshold of $32,649. The SPM was 7.7% in 2021, with child SPM poverty at 5.1%, the lowest in the series, and rose to 12.1% in 2022 (Census Table 8). BLS corrected coding errors in the SPM thresholds in July 2026, so all 2019 to 2024 SPM figures were revised.

Social Security is the largest antipoverty program. Removing it would raise the 2025 SPM rate by 8.5 points and put 28.8 million more people in poverty, 20.9 million of them 65 or older; for that age group alone it lowers the poverty rate by 32.1 points (Census Table 5). More on the program is on Walnut's Social Security statistics page.

Refundable tax credits, the EITC and the refundable part of the Child Tax Credit, kept 6.1 million people out of poverty, 3.3 million of them children, and cut the SPM rate by 1.8 points. On its own the EITC moved 4.0 million people and the refundable CTC 2.3 million. SNAP lifted 3.1 million, SSI 2.2 million, housing subsidies 2.1 million and school lunch 1.2 million (Census Table 6).

Expenses work in the other direction. Out-of-pocket medical costs pushed 7.7 million people into poverty and raised the rate by 2.3 points, and 3.8 points for people 65 and older. Payroll taxes added 4.5 million people, work expenses 4.0 million and federal income tax 1.4 million. Census estimated median weekly work expenses at $42 in 2025.

Averaged over 2023 to 2025, Louisiana had the highest official poverty rate at 19.6%, followed by Mississippi (17.6%), New Mexico (16.0%) and Alabama (15.2%). New Hampshire had the lowest at 5.4%, then Utah (6.9%) and Maryland (7.2%). The national 3-year average was 10.7% on the official measure and 13.0% on the SPM (Census Table 17).

The SPM reorders the map because it accounts for housing costs. California's rate rises from 10.7% officially to 17.8% on the SPM, a gap of 7.1 points, the widest of any state. Florida rises 5.1 points to 16.4% and New York 4.2 points to 15.1%. In lower-cost states the SPM is often below the official rate: New Mexico falls 2.8 points to 13.2% and Maine 1.0 point to 6.4%, the lowest SPM rate in the country.

A living wage is the hourly pay a full-time worker needs to cover a household's basic needs where it lives. The best-known estimate is MIT's Living Wage Calculator, a research tool created in 2003 as an alternative to federal poverty standards (MIT). Its data was last updated February 15, 2026, and covers counties, metro areas and states for 12 family types. MIT does not publish a national living wage.

In Texas a single adult with no children needs $21.77 an hour, or $45,290 a year before taxes. The budget behind it is $14,679 for housing, $9,013 for transportation, $3,888 for food, $3,100 for medical costs, $1,512 for internet and phone, $2,583 for civic engagement, $4,067 for other necessities and $6,449 in taxes (MIT, Texas). For two working adults with two children it is $24.45 an hour each and $101,697 a year, including $19,178 for child care and $18,418 for housing.

The figure varies widely by state. A single adult needs $20.69 an hour in Mississippi (MIT), $21.00 in Ohio (MIT) and $30.48 in California, where the family-of-four budget reaches $151,355 with $31,234 for housing and $30,686 for child care (MIT). Child care costs are covered on Walnut's childcare cost statistics page.

The Economic Policy Institute, a research organization, publishes a Family Budget Calculator for 10 family types in all 3,143 US counties and 613 metro areas. Its 2026 edition is in 2025 dollars and covers housing, food, transportation, health care, child care, other necessities and taxes, and aims at what EPI calls a "modest yet adequate" standard of living.

Across the 100 largest metro areas, the median annual budget for two parents and two children is $116,454, a Walnut calculation from EPI's data file. It ranges from $83,444 in McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, to $231,305 in San Francisco. For a single adult the median is $53,625, from $40,837 in McAllen to $91,359 in San Jose.

In the largest metros, the family-of-four budget is $102,944 in Houston, $114,454 in Dallas, $115,305 in Chicago, $119,593 in Atlanta, $143,972 in Los Angeles, $165,820 in Boston and $167,483 in New York. Child care is the largest single line in the median big-metro budget, at $20,520 a year, just ahead of housing at $20,406.

United For ALICE, a research organization, counts households that earn above the poverty level but not enough to cover a local survival budget. It calls them ALICE, for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Of 131.9 million US households in 2024, 16.5 million (13%) were below the poverty level and 38.0 million (29%) were ALICE, so 54.5 million (41%) were below the ALICE Threshold (United For ALICE).

The 13% of households in poverty on the ALICE count is a household share, and is not the same statistic as the Census person-level rate of 10.2%. ALICE calculates the cost of household essentials, its Household Survival Budget, for every US county and for several household sizes and compositions, so its threshold moves with local prices. The national poverty guideline is the same in every one of the 48 contiguous states.

MIT's single-adult living wage in Texas, $45,290 a year, is 2.8 times the $15,960 poverty guideline, and the family-of-four figure of $101,697 is 3.1 times the $33,000 guideline (Walnut calculations). EPI's median big-metro family budget of $116,454 is 3.5 times the guideline. MIT expresses the poverty line as a "poverty wage" of $7.67 an hour for a single adult, just above the $7.25 federal minimum wage.

A full-time job at $7.25 pays about $15,080 a year over 2,080 hours, a Walnut calculation, which is below the poverty guideline for one person. The minimum wage statistics page covers that comparison and the state minimums in detail.

Programs use the poverty guideline to set eligibility. For a household, the practical question is where its income sits as a percent of the guideline in a given year: just under 138%, 200% or 400% can mean thousands of dollars in Medicaid, school meals or marketplace subsidies, and the 2027 marketplace again ends all credits at 400%. Living wage estimates from MIT, EPI and ALICE put the cost of a basic budget at two to three and a half times the poverty line.

For households that keep savings in a brokerage account, Walnut, an AI investing app, can read a connected account and show how that money is doing. The statistics on this page describe poverty lines, program rules and cost estimates; they are not advice on any benefit, plan or investment decision.