For a single person in the 48 contiguous states, the federal poverty guideline in 2026 is $15,960 a year, but that number alone doesn’t answer how much is low income for a single person in the United States. Each assistance program draws its line at a different multiple of the poverty guideline, and housing programs skip the poverty guideline entirely in favor of what people around you earn. So the honest answer depends on which benefit you’re checking and where you live.
The 2026 Federal Poverty Guideline and the Multiples That Matter
The Department of Health and Human Services publishes new poverty guidelines in the Federal Register each January, adjusted for inflation. For 2026, a one-person household hits the guideline at $15,960 in the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. Alaska is set higher at $19,950, and Hawaii at $18,360.1HHS ASPE. 2026 Poverty Guidelines
Almost no program uses 100% of that guideline as its cutoff. Agencies work in multiples. For a single person in the contiguous states in 2026, the multiples you’ll see most often translate to these annual figures:2Federal Register. Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guidelines
- 130% of poverty: about $20,748
- 138% of poverty: about $22,025
- 150% of poverty: about $23,940
- 200% of poverty: about $31,920
- 400% of poverty: about $63,840
Which multiple applies to you depends on the specific benefit.
Income Limits by Program
Medicaid
In states that adopted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, a single adult under 65 qualifies if their modified adjusted gross income sits at or below 133% of the federal poverty level. A built-in 5-percentage-point disregard effectively pushes the ceiling to 138%, or roughly $22,025 for one person in 2026.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1396a – State Plans for Medical Assistance In states that haven’t expanded, single adults without dependents often face much lower limits or no eligibility path at all.
SNAP
Food assistance uses a two-part income test. A single-person household must have gross monthly income at or below 130% of the poverty level, which for fiscal year 2026 is $1,696 a month (about $20,352 a year) in the contiguous states. There is also a net income test at 100% of poverty after allowable deductions. Alaska’s monthly gross limit runs higher at $2,118. The maximum monthly allotment for one person is $298, and getting that full amount requires essentially no countable net income.4USDA Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP FY 2026 COLA Memo5USDA Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP Eligibility
Single able-bodied adults aged 18 to 54 without dependents also have to meet work requirements (20 hours a week of work, volunteering, or job training) to keep benefits beyond a limited period.
ACA Marketplace Subsidies
Premium tax credits for health insurance bought through the marketplace are available to a single person with household income between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level, meaning roughly $15,960 to $63,840 in 2026.6Internal Revenue Service. Eligibility for the Premium Tax Credit In expansion states, anyone under 138% of poverty is expected to enroll in Medicaid rather than claim marketplace subsidies. In non-expansion states, people below the poverty line sometimes fall into a coverage gap: too poor for marketplace credits, too well-off (by state rules) for Medicaid.
LIHEAP
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program helps with heating and cooling bills. Federal law caps eligibility at 150% of the poverty guidelines (about $23,940 for one person), and states can’t set a cutoff below 110% of poverty.7LIHEAP Clearinghouse. LIHEAP Income Eligibility for States and Territories Benefit amounts vary widely by state, from around $250 to more than $12,600 a year depending on your energy costs and income.8LIHEAP Clearinghouse. LIHEAP Benefit Levels for Heating, Cooling, and Crisis
Supplemental Security Income
SSI provides monthly cash payments to people who are 65 or older, blind, or disabled and have very limited income and resources. The federal payment for an eligible individual in 2026 is $994 a month.9Social Security Administration. SSI Federal Payment Amounts for 2026 Some states add a supplement; six states add nothing.
HUD Uses Area Median Income, Not the Poverty Line
Housing programs work on a different measure entirely. HUD looks at Area Median Income, the midpoint of income in your specific metro area or county, and then sets three tiers:10HUD USER. Income Limits
- Low income: at or below 80% of area median income
- Very low income: at or below 50% of area median income
- Extremely low income: at or below 30% of area median income, or the poverty guideline if higher
These tiers govern Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, public housing, and various community development grants. Because everything is pegged to local income, the dollar cutoffs swing enormously. A single person making $60,000 might count as low income in an expensive coastal metro and be well above the cutoff in a rural county. HUD’s online lookup tool publishes the current numbers for every metro area and county each year.
The EITC and Filing Taxes on a Low Income
The Earned Income Tax Credit is one of the few refundable credits a single person without children can claim, though the amount is small. For the 2025 tax year, filed in 2026, a single filer with no qualifying children can receive up to $649. The credit phases out entirely once earned income exceeds $19,540, and investment income above $11,950 disqualifies you regardless of wages.11Internal Revenue Service. Earned Income and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Tables
The standard deduction for a single filer in tax year 2026 is $16,100.12Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 Total income below that generally means you aren’t required to file. Filing anyway makes sense if you qualify for the EITC or another refundable credit, since the only way to receive the money is to submit a return. About half of states run their own EITC on top of the federal one, calculated as a percentage of the federal amount and ranging from 5% to over 100%.
How Income Is Counted
Most programs measure gross income, meaning total earnings before taxes or deductions: wages, self-employment profit, interest, dividends, Social Security benefits, pension distributions, alimony, and unemployment compensation. Reporting take-home pay instead of gross is one of the most common ways applicants get denied when they would have qualified on the correct figure.
Self-employment income is counted as net profit (revenue minus legitimate business expenses), not gross receipts. Every deductible expense lowers the number that gets compared against the eligibility line, so clean records help.
Some kinds of money aren’t counted at all. HUD’s income rules exclude:13HUD.gov. HOTMA: Determining Income
- Loan proceeds (borrowed money is not income)
- Student financial aid applied to tuition and fees
- Foster care payments received on behalf of foster children or adults
- Nonrecurring one-time payments like lottery winnings or insurance settlements (periodic insurance payments received for over a year do count)
- Growth inside retirement accounts (distributions from those accounts do count)
- ABLE account distributions
These exclusions apply directly to Section 8 and public housing. SNAP and Medicaid keep their own lists that overlap but aren’t identical, so check the specific program rather than assume one program’s rules carry over.
Asset Limits
Some programs also cap what you can own. SNAP limits countable resources (bank balances, cash, certain other liquid assets) to $3,000 for most households, or $4,500 if a member is 60 or older or has a disability. Your home and most retirement accounts generally don’t count.4USDA Food and Nutrition Service. SNAP FY 2026 COLA Memo
SSI has the strictest asset test of any major program: a single person can hold no more than $2,000 in countable resources, a figure that hasn’t been adjusted for inflation in decades.14Social Security Administration. 2026 Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Fact Sheet
Medicaid expansion and ACA marketplace subsidies use no asset test at all. Eligibility rests only on modified adjusted gross income. That difference matters in practice: a single person with $50,000 in the bank but modest annual income could qualify for Medicaid while being denied SNAP or SSI.
Where You Live Changes the Number
The poverty guidelines already reflect Alaska and Hawaii separately, and SNAP follows suit with higher gross income ceilings in those states. The bigger geographic swing is in HUD’s limits, which move with local median income rather than a national line. State-level choices layer on top of that: whether the state expanded Medicaid, whether it runs its own EITC, and whether it supplements federal SSI. Two single people earning the same salary can find very different safety nets depending on which side of a state line they’re on.