What is the exact 2024 HHS poverty guideline dollar amount for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states?
Executive summary
The 2024 HHS poverty guideline for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states (including the District of Columbia) is $31,200 per year, a figure that follows from HHS’s published one‑person baseline of $15,060 and an increment of $5,380 for each additional household member (15,060 + 3×5,380 = 31,200) [1] [2]. This value appears in the HHS/ASPE release of the 2024 Poverty Guidelines and in related federal guidance documents used by programs such as Medicaid [3] [2].
1. The official dollar amount and how it’s shown in HHS documents
HHS’s published materials and companion federal guidance list the 2024 poverty guideline for the contiguous 48 states and D.C. as $31,200 for a four‑person household, consistent with the agency’s one‑person figure of $15,060 and a per‑additional‑person increase of $5,380 [1] [3]. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in an informational bulletin, repeats the 48‑state guideline for 2024 as $31,200 when describing eligibility thresholds for program rules and calculations [2]. Those parallel publications confirm the exact numeric figure used across federal program guidance in 2024.
2. How HHS arrives at the guideline and where the number is published
HHS’s poverty guidelines are an annual update derived by adjusting Census Bureau poverty thresholds for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI‑U), then applying standard rounding and increment rules; the 2024 notice reflects the CPI‑U change used in the January 2024 update [4]. The Department’s detailed 2024 tables and computation notes are posted by ASPE (HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation) in the 2024 Poverty Guidelines documents and spreadsheets that list the baseline and incremental values for household sizes [3] [5]. State agencies and program administrators commonly cite those ASPE materials when implementing eligibility rules [3].
3. Why this single number matters in practice
The $31,200 figure is more than a headline; federal programs and state administrators use the HHS poverty guidelines as building blocks for eligibility cutoffs, fee waivers, benefit sizes, and cost‑sharing safe harbors across dozens of programs—Medicaid policy guidance, marketplace subsidy rules, and other program instructions reference the poverty guidelines or multiples thereof [2] [6]. Because many programs apply percentages (e.g., 138% of FPL for Medicaid in some contexts) or program‑specific rounding rules, the $31,200 baseline for a family of four feeds into many consequential downstream calculations that determine access to services [7].
4. Caveats, rounding differences and program variation
While $31,200 is the HHS guideline for a four‑person household in the 48 contiguous states for 2024, agencies and programs sometimes round, adjust, or apply different rules: some programs apply standardized rounding of multiples of the guideline, others define household or family size differently, and territories, Alaska, and Hawaii use separate figures [3] [7]. The Federal Register notice explains that the update is formulaic and that in the rare case of a negative year‑over‑year change or specific rounding effects, some household sizes might be fixed at prior levels—details that matter when agencies translate the guidelines into eligibility thresholds [4]. Where a user needs an exact program cutoff (for example, Medicaid income limits or fee waiver standards), the underlying HHS guideline must be combined with the specific program’s multiplier and rounding rules as published by that program [7] [6].
5. Bottom line
The exact 2024 HHS poverty guideline for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states and D.C. is $31,200, as shown in HHS/ASPE releases and echoed in CMS guidance; users should treat that number as the baseline for further program‑specific calculations and check applicable agency rules for rounding or multiplier differences [1] [2] [3].