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HHS Logo Eagle IconU.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Computations for the 2008 Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia

(1)
Persons in family or household		 (2)
Poverty thresholds for 2006 — published Aug. 2007a/		 (3)
Column 2 multiplied by 1.028 price inflatorb/		 (4)
Difference between successive Column 3 entries		 (5)
Average difference in Column 4c/		 (6)
January 2008 poverty guidelines
1 $10,294 $10,582     $10,400
      $2,954 $3,600  
2 13,167 13,536     14,000
      2,993 3,600  
3 16,079 16,529     17,600
      4,662 3,600  
4 20,614 21,191     21,200d/
      3,874 3,600  
5 24,382 25,065     24,800
      3,267 3,600  
6 27,560 28,332     28,400
      3,747 3,600  
7 31,205 32,079     32,000
      3,669 3,600  
8 34,774 35,748     35,600
Notes:

a/  Column 2 entries are weighted average poverty thresholds from U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, Series P60-233, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States:  2006, Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, August 2007, p. 43.

b/  Price inflation calculated from Table 1A of U.S. Department of Labor, Consumer Price Index press release (USDL-08-0062), January 16, 2008.  (The Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) for all items was 201.6 for calendar year 2006 and 207.3 for calendar year 2007, an increase of 2.8 percent.)

c/  The arithmetic average of Column 4 entries, rounded to the nearest multiple of $20.

d/  Obtained by multiplying the average poverty threshold for a family of four persons for 2006 ($20,614, from Column 2) by the price increase factor from 2006 to 2007 (1.028) and rounding the result upward to the nearest whole multiple of $50.  All other entries in Column 6 are obtained by successive addition or subtraction of the average difference ($3,600) to the size–4 2008 guideline entry ($21,200).

For Alaska and Hawaii, where the cost of living is traditionally believed to be significantly higher than in other states, scaling factors of 1.25 and 1.15, respectively, are applied to the 2008 guideline for a family or household of four for the 48 contiguous states, and the results (if not already a multiple of $10) are rounded upward to the nearest whole multiple of $10.  (These scaling factors were based on Office of Economic Opportunity administrative practice for these two states only beginning in the 1966-1970 period.)  These scaling factors are applied to the average difference for the 48 contiguous states (Column 5) to obtain average differences for Alaska and Hawaii for deriving guidelines for other family or household sizes; these average differences for Alaska and Hawaii are rounded to the nearest multiple of $10.  For families or households with more than 8 persons, add the following amount for each additional person: $3,600 (48 contiguous