How much did the 2026 poverty guidelines increase or change percentage-wise from 2025 for each household size?
Executive summary
The Department of Health and Human Services updated the 2026 poverty guidelines by applying a 2.63% inflation adjustment based on the CPI-U change between 2024 and 2025 (the official rulemaking cites a 2.63 percent price increase) [1][2]. Because HHS starts from the Census poverty thresholds, applies that CPI factor, then rounds and standardizes intervals between family sizes, individual household-size changes can differ slightly from the headline CPI adjustment [2][3].
1. What the rule says: a 2.63% baseline adjustment
The formal HHS notice explains that, as required by statute, the agency increased the latest published Census Bureau poverty thresholds by the applicable percentage change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers — which for the 2026 guidelines was 2.63 percent — and then rounded and standardized the results to set the official guidelines [1][2].
2. Why percentage changes can vary by household size
HHS explicitly warns that rounding and the standardization step can produce small deviations so that some household sizes change by amounts slightly different from the CPI factor; in rare cases where the mechanical rounding would reduce a guideline despite non‑negative inflation, HHS holds that household size at the prior year’s level instead of lowering it [2]. The January 2026 guidelines were also computed using an 11‑month 2025 CPI average because October 2025 CPI was not published after the federal shutdown, a technical quirk that shaped the year‑over‑year calculation [3].
3. Two concrete, sourced comparisons: one‑person and four‑person households
Using figures published in the reporting: the published 2025 guideline for a single person in the contiguous U.S. was $15,650 (the 2025 FPL), and HHS’s 2026 guideline for a single person is reported as $15,960; that is an increase of $310, or about 1.98% ((15,960−15,650)/15,650 = 0.0198), a smaller rise than the 2.63% CPI factor [4][5]/[6]. For a household of four, the 2025 guideline (derived from the 2025 schedule of +$5,500 per additional person) was $32,150 and the reported 2026 guideline is $33,000, an increase of $850 or about 2.64% ((33,000−32,150)/32,150 = 0.02644), which closely matches the 2.63% CPI adjustment [4][5].
4. Interpreting the discrepancy between household sizes
The single‑person increase (≈1.98%) falling short of 2.63% while the four‑person increase (≈2.64%) tracks the CPI illustrates the practical effect of HHS’s rounding/standardization rules: the agency sets the same interval between sizes after inflation adjustments and sometimes anchors an affected size at the prior year’s level if rounding would otherwise produce a reduction — outcomes the Federal Register text explicitly describes [2]. The technical note about the missing October CPI (and the use of an 11‑month average) is an additional layer that can produce tiny deviations from the headline inflation rate when translated into rounded dollar thresholds [3].
5. Limits of the available reporting and what cannot be asserted
The sources provided give the CPI adjustment and specific example values for the single‑person and four‑person 2026 guidelines, but do not publish the full 2026 table for every household size in the materials supplied here, so precise percentage changes for household sizes 2, 3, 5 and above cannot be computed from these sources alone without introducing figures not contained in the cited documents [1][4][5][2]. HHS’s method implies most sizes will be close to +2.63%, but rounding/standardization can yield small departures in either direction for particular household sizes [2][3].
6. Bottom line
The official nationwide CPI factor applied for the 2026 poverty guidelines is 2.63% [1][2]; using sourced published dollar figures, a one‑person household rose from $15,650 to $15,960 (≈+1.98%) while a four‑person household rose from $32,150 to $33,000 (≈+2.64%) — the latter essentially matching the CPI adjustment and the former showing the modest effect of HHS rounding/standardization [4][5][6]. For exact percentage changes for other household sizes, the official 2026 table published by HHS should be consulted; the rulemaking explains why those exact changes may deviate slightly from the 2.63% headline [2][3].