As required by Section 673(2) of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1981 (42 U.S.C. 9902(2)), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) updates the poverty guidelines at least annually and by law these updates are applied to eligibility criteria for programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). These annual updates account for the increase in the Census Bureau’s current official poverty thresholds by the relevant percentage change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI–U).
The 2025 guidelines reflect the 2.9 percent price increase between calendar years 2023 and 2024. After this inflation adjustment, the guidelines are rounded and adjusted to standardize the differences between family and household sizes. For a family or household of 4 persons living in one of the 48 contiguous states or the District of Columbia, the poverty guideline for 2025 is $32,150. Separate poverty guideline figures are developed for Alaska and Hawaii, and different guidelines may apply to the Territories. The guidelines can be found at https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2025-01377/annual-update-of-povertyguidelines. To determine eligibility for Medicaid and CHIP, states generally use a percentage multiple of the guidelines (for example, 133 percent or 185 percent of the guidelines).