

The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure. There are two slightly different versions of the federal poverty measure: poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines. Department of Health and Human Services under the authority of 42 U.S.C. The poverty guidelines may be formally referenced as “the poverty guidelines updated periodically in the Federal Register by the U.S. (The 2022 thresholds are expected to be issued in final form in September 2023 a preliminary version of the 2022 thresholds is now available from the Census Bureau.) However, the 2023 HHS poverty guidelines only reflect price changes through calendar year 2022 accordingly, they are approximately equal to the Census Bureau poverty thresholds for calendar year 2022. For instance, the guidelines issued in January 2023 are designated the 2023 poverty guidelines.

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.
