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2009 POVERTY GUIDELINES
(Used for 2010 until further notice by HHS)
The 2009 Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States
and the District of Columbia
| Persons in family |
Poverty guideline |
| 1 |
$10,830 |
| 2 |
14,570 |
| 3 |
18,310 |
| 4 |
22,050 |
| 5 |
25,790 |
| 6 |
29,530 |
| 7 |
33,270 |
| 8 |
37,010 |
| For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for
each additional person. |
2009 Poverty Guidelines for Alaska
| Persons in family |
Poverty guideline |
| 1 |
$13,530 |
| 2 |
18,210 |
| 3 |
22,890 |
| 4 |
27,570 |
| 5 |
32,250 |
| 6 |
36,930 |
| 7 |
41,610 |
| 8 |
46,290 |
| For families with more than 8 persons, add $4,680 for
each additional person. |
2009 Poverty Guidelines for Hawaii
| Persons in family |
Poverty guideline |
| 1 |
$12,460 |
| 2 |
16,760 |
| 3 |
21,060 |
| 4 |
25,360 |
| 5 |
29,660 |
| 6 |
33,960 |
| 7 |
38,260 |
| 8 |
42,560 |
| For families with more than 8 persons, add $4,300 for
each additional person. |
SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 73, No. 15, January 23,
2009, pp. 3971–3972
The separate poverty guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii reflect Office of Economic
Opportunity administrative practice beginning in the 1966-1970 period.
Note that the poverty thresholds — the original version of the
poverty measure — have never had separate figures for Alaska and
Hawaii. The poverty guidelines are not defined for Puerto Rico, the
U.S. 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. 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. guidelines for those jurisdictions or to follow
some other procedure.
The poverty guidelines apply to both aged and non-aged units. 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.
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 Food Stamp Program, the National School
Lunch Program, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and the
Children’s Health Insurance Program. 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. The Earned Income Tax Credit program also does NOT use
the poverty guidelines to determine eligibility.
The poverty guidelines (unlike the poverty thresholds) are designated by
the year in which they are issued. For instance, the guidelines issued
in January 2009 are designated the 2009 poverty guidelines. However,
the 2009 HHS poverty guidelines only reflect price changes through calendar
year 2008; accordingly, they are approximately equal to the Census Bureau
poverty thresholds for calendar year 2008. (The 2008 thresholds are
expected to be issued in final form in August 2008; a preliminary version
of the 2008 thresholds is now available from the Census Bureau.)
