How are the federal poverty guidelines calculated and who sets the 2026 figures?
Executive summary
The federal poverty guidelines (also called the Federal Poverty Level, FPL) are annual income standards published for administrative use by federal programs and set by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) based on the Census Bureau’s poverty thresholds and inflation adjustments [1] [2]. For FFY/Coverage Year 2026 the HHS/ASPE-released figures and program-level implementations (for Medicaid, ACA subsidies, LIHEAP, etc.) include specific per-person add-ons and percentage-based tables that states and federal programs began using in early 2026 [1] [3] [4].
1. What the federal poverty guidelines are and who publishes them
The FPL is a simplified, administratively useful set of income thresholds derived from the Census Bureau’s more complex poverty thresholds and published each year by ASPE at HHS; HealthCare.gov and other federal program sites direct users to the HHS guidelines for eligibility rules [1] [2]. ASPE’s role is explicit: it maintains the poverty guidelines API and posts the official figures used by federal agencies to determine financial eligibility for many programs [1].
2. How the guidelines are calculated (methodology in plain terms)
HHS does not invent a new poverty measure from scratch each year; rather ASPE begins with the Census Bureau’s poverty thresholds (a statistical estimate of the cost of basic needs) and updates them for inflation and other administrative considerations to produce the simpler “guidelines” used by programs—this is the recurring, formulaic link between Census thresholds and HHS guidance [1]. Program offices then often express eligibility as percentages of the FPL (for example 100%, 150%, 200%, etc.), and for large households HHS publishes add-on amounts per additional person so programs can scale eligibility [5] [4].
3. Who set the 2026 figures and when agencies began using them
The 2026 figures were set and published by ASPE/HHS; the agency’s poverty-guidelines materials and APIs carry the 2025/2026 data and the Federal Register postings formalize coverage-year thresholds used for ACA affordability and related rules [1] [5]. States and federal programs phase the new numbers into operations on slightly different timetables—Medicaid/CHIP began adopting the 2026 FPL numbers in February–April 2026 in many states, while ACA Marketplace and employer-affordability calculations reference the official published thresholds as specified in guidance [3] [6].
4. Key 2026 numeric details program administrators need to know
Published 2026 guidance includes fixed per-person add-ons for households larger than eight—different documents show slightly different add-ons depending on the context: one reference notes adding $5,380 for each person beyond eight to reach 100% FPL (coverage-year table) [5]; LIHEAP guidance cites $4,994 per additional person at 110% FPL and $6,810 per person at 150% FPL for FFY 2026 [4]. For ACA affordability the 2026 federal poverty-line safe-harbor calculation used a baseline figure ($15,650) that, multiplied by the 2026 affordability percentage (9.96%), produces the monthly safe-harbor employee-share threshold ($129.89/month) referenced by employers [6].
5. How federal programs apply the guidelines (practical implications)
Different programs convert the HHS guidelines into eligibility rules in different ways: Medicaid and CHIP use percentage-of-FPL cutoffs to determine eligibility for adults and children, LIHEAP and other assistance programs may use 110% or 150% thresholds, and the ACA uses FPL percentages for subsidy calculations and employer safe-harbors—ASPE notes that programs sometimes adjust for Alaska and Hawaii with higher tables and that some territories are handled separately by program offices [3] [4] [1] [2].
6. Caveats, variations and where reporting can blur distinctions
Reporting sometimes conflates “poverty thresholds” (Census Bureau statistical measure) with the HHS “poverty guidelines” (administrative tool); program-specific percentage tables, per-person add-ons, and state rollout timing create legitimate variation—official HHS/ASPE materials are the authoritative source for exact 2026 numbers and program offices (e.g., Medicaid, LIHEAP, Treasury/IRS guidance for ACA rules) publish the operational conversions programs must follow [1] [4] [3]. When a specific program cites a per-person add-on or percent-of-FPL cutoff, that figure should be checked against the program’s FFY/Coverage Year 2026 guidance because values differ by use case [5] [4].
7. Bottom line
The 2026 federal poverty guidelines were set and published by HHS’s ASPE based on Census-derived thresholds adjusted for administrative use; program offices then apply those figures as percentage cutoffs or add-on formulas (with some variation by program and geography), and key numerical details for 2026—per-person add-ons and the ACA affordability safe harbor—are available in HHS and program-level guidance [1] [5] [6] [4] [3].