What Is the Poverty Line Income? 2026 Amounts by Household Size

The federal poverty line income for 2026 starts at $15,960 a year for a single person in the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia, and rises by $5,680 for each additional person in the household. A family of four sits at $33,000. Those figures come from the poverty guidelines that the Department of Health and Human Services publishes each January, and federal benefit programs build their income limits on top of them.¹

2026 Poverty Line by Household Size

For the 48 contiguous states and D.C., the 2026 guidelines are:¹

1 person: $15,960
2 people: $21,640
3 people: $27,320
4 people: $33,000
Each additional person: add $5,680

The 2026 guidelines took effect on January 13, 2026, and were published in the Federal Register two days later.² Individual programs can specify a different start date for their own eligibility purposes.

Alaska and Hawaii

Alaska and Hawaii get separate, higher figures because of their elevated costs of living. In Alaska, the guideline is $19,950 for one person and $41,250 for a family of four, with $7,100 added for each additional person. In Hawaii, the figures are $18,360 for one person and $37,950 for a family of four, with $6,530 per additional person.³

How to Count Your Household and Income

Before you compare your earnings against the guideline, you need to know who counts as part of your household and what dollars count as income. Both answers depend partly on which program you’re applying to.

For the Census Bureau’s official poverty measure, a household is people living together who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption. All related family members in the same home have their incomes added together, and the total is compared against the figure for that family size. Roommates and unrelated individuals living in the same residence are generally not part of your count; if you live with people you aren’t related to, your own income is compared against the one-person figure independently.⁴

The HHS guidelines themselves don’t define “family” or “household.” The Federal Register notice that publishes them leaves those definitions to each program’s own legislation or regulations.² Medicaid, SNAP, and the ACA marketplace may each count your household slightly differently, so check the rules for the specific program you’re applying to.

Income works the same way. The Census Bureau uses gross cash income before taxes, which includes wages, salaries, tips, self-employment earnings after business expenses, Social Security benefits, unemployment payments, pensions, interest, dividends, and rental income.⁴ Non-cash government benefits are excluded: SNAP, WIC, public housing subsidies, energy assistance, and refundable tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit don’t count. Counting government aid as income would create a circular problem where receiving help disqualifies you from that same help.

Individual programs sometimes define income differently. The ACA marketplace uses modified adjusted gross income, which adds untaxed foreign income and tax-exempt interest but excludes Supplemental Security Income.⁵

Benefit Programs and Their Poverty Line Cutoffs

The poverty line on its own doesn’t grant or deny benefits. What matters is the percentage of the guideline that each program sets as its income ceiling. When you see “130% of FPL” or “200% of FPL” on an application, that’s a program setting its cutoff at a multiple of the HHS figure. At 200% of FPL, a family of four in the contiguous states has an income ceiling of $66,000 for 2026.

The major federal programs:

SNAP food assistance: gross income must fall below 130% of the poverty guidelines for most households.⁶
Medicaid in expansion states: adults under 65 qualify if household income is below 138% of the poverty guidelines. The statute says 133%, but a built-in calculation method effectively raises the threshold to 138%.⁷
ACA marketplace premium tax credits: for 2026, you qualify if household income falls between 100% and 400% of the poverty guidelines. The enhanced subsidies that temporarily removed the 400% cap expired at the end of 2025.⁸
CHIP children’s health insurance: income ceilings vary widely by state, ranging from 100% to over 300% of the poverty guidelines depending on the child’s age and the state’s program design.
LIHEAP energy assistance: states set their own income limits, typically around 150% of the poverty guidelines, though some apply thresholds up to 200% for certain components like weatherization.

For a family of four in the contiguous states, 130% of the 2026 guideline works out to $42,900, and 400% reaches $132,000. Households earning well above the poverty line itself can still qualify for certain benefits.

Immigration Sponsorship Income Requirements

The poverty guidelines also govern who can financially sponsor a green card applicant. If you’re sponsoring a family member, you file Form I-864 (Affidavit of Support) and must show income of at least 125% of the poverty guidelines for your household size. Active-duty military members sponsoring a spouse or child face a lower bar of 100%.⁹

For 2026, the 125% requirement for a sponsor in the contiguous states with a household of four (counting yourself, the immigrant, and any dependents) is $41,250. For a household of two, it’s $27,050.⁹ USCIS updates these figures each March after the new poverty guidelines are published. If your income falls short, you can use a joint sponsor or include the value of certain assets to bridge the gap.

Guidelines vs. Thresholds: Which Number to Use

The federal government maintains two versions of the poverty line, and mixing them up is a common mistake.

Poverty thresholds are the original statistical measure, maintained by the Census Bureau. The Bureau uses them to count how many Americans are living in poverty each year, drawing on Current Population Survey data. Thresholds break out into a detailed matrix by family size, number of children, and age of the householder, and they don’t vary by geography. The Census Bureau publishes them in the fall to describe the previous year’s poverty data.⁴

Poverty guidelines are the simplified administrative version HHS publishes in January. Instead of dozens of threshold cells, they use a single base amount plus a fixed per-person increment, so agencies can update eligibility right away rather than waiting for the Census Bureau’s fall release. When a program says you must earn below a certain percentage of “the federal poverty level,” it’s almost always referring to the HHS guidelines.¹⁰ For any eligibility question, the guideline figures at the top of this article are the numbers you want.

The Benefits Cliff When Income Rises

One consequence of tying eligibility to fixed poverty-line percentages is the benefits cliff. A small raise at work can push your income above a program’s cutoff and cause you to lose benefits worth more than the additional pay. A single parent earning $15 an hour who gets bumped to $15.50 might lose enough in combined benefits to experience a net decrease in household resources of 25% or more.

This happens because programs use different cutoff points and don’t coordinate. You might stay eligible for Medicaid at 138% of FPL but lose SNAP at 130%, and a larger raise could knock out ACA subsidies at 400%. Each cliff compounds. Some states have experimented with gradual phase-outs instead of hard cutoffs, but the federal guidelines themselves don’t build in any phase-out mechanism. Whether you experience a cliff depends on how each program applies the guidelines.

1
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. 2026 Poverty Guidelines – 48 Contiguous States
2
Federal Register. Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guidelines
3
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. 2026 Poverty Guidelines – Alaska and Hawaii
4
United States Census Bureau. How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty
5
HealthCare.gov. Federal Poverty Level (FPL) – Glossary
6
USDA Food and Nutrition Service. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Income Eligibility Standards FY 2026
7
HealthCare.gov. Medicaid Expansion and What It Means for You
8
Internal Revenue Service. Eligibility for the Premium Tax Credit
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. HHS Poverty Guidelines for Affidavit of Support
10
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. History of Poverty Thresholds