What is the 2025 federal poverty guideline amount for a household of two in the 48 contiguous states and D.C.?
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Executive summary
The 2025 HHS federal poverty guideline for a household of two in the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia is $21,150 per year, as published in the HHS/ASPE guidance and echoed in secondary summaries (ASPE/USCIS) [1] [2]. That figure is the baseline “poverty guideline” used by many federal programs and is effective for 2025 updates announced by HHS [3] [4].
1. What the number is and where it comes from
The Department of Health and Human Services issues the annual poverty guidelines that many federal programs use to set income eligibility; for 2025 HHS lists the annual poverty guideline for a two-person household in the 48 contiguous states and D.C. as $21,150 [1] [2]. The guidelines are produced by taking Census Bureau poverty thresholds and adjusting them for inflation using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, then rounding and standardizing the resulting figures — the formal update for 2025 reflects a 2.9% price increase applied in that process [3] [4].
2. How this figure appears across official documents
The $21,150 amount is visible in HHS/ASPE tables and is replicated in related federal guidance: for example, USCIS refers to the HHS poverty guidelines when setting affidavit-of-support thresholds and directs users to the same HHS source for the 2025 figures effective early in the year [5] [6]. Court administrative tables that publish 150% of the guidelines also confirm the arithmetic: 150% of the two-person guideline is listed as $31,725 annually, which implies the base guideline of $21,150 when the multiplier is reversed [7].
3. What the number means in practice — program use and caveats
This guideline is a statutory baseline used by many but not all programs to determine financial eligibility; different programs (SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, SSI, etc.) may use specific percentages of the guideline, other income definitions, or state adjustments when deciding eligibility [5]. HHS itself warns that the phrase “federal poverty level” can be ambiguous and that programs sometimes round or apply different rules, so the $21,150 figure should be understood as the federal guideline for policy reference rather than a singular eligibility rule across every program [4].
4. Regional exceptions and how to read the table
The HHS guidelines publish separate, higher figures for Alaska and Hawaii because of their different cost-of-living adjustments; the $21,150 value applies specifically to the 48 contiguous states and D.C., and users should consult the Alaska/Hawaii lines if relevant [1]. The HHS Federal Register notice explains the technical method for producing the uniform intervals between family sizes and notes rare rounding effects that can slightly alter year-to-year changes for some household sizes [3].
5. Secondary confirmations and common shorthand
Multiple non‑government summaries and county-level program materials reproduce HHS’s table and the common rule of thumb that each additional household member adds roughly $5,500 to the 2025 guideline, which aligns with the standardized increments HHS published [8] [9]. Those reproductions are consistent with the primary HHS/ASPE source, but practitioners must still rely on the original HHS/ASPE table for official determinations [2] [4].
6. What remains beyond this reporting
The cited documents establish the 2025 guideline amount and method but do not—and should not—be read here as a universal eligibility verdict for any specific program or jurisdiction; program offices have discretion to choose effective dates, rounding rules, and whether to apply contiguous‑states guidelines to territories, as HHS notes [3] [5]. For a legal or benefits determination, the original HHS/ASPE table and the administering program’s guidance are the correct primary authorities [2] [6].