Poverty Line Act of 2025
The Poverty Line Act of 2025 would overhaul how the federal poverty line is calculated for purposes of the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program. It would replace the current official poverty line with a new, more expansive calculation that incorporates a broader set of basic needs, regional cost variations, and household economies of scale, with the goal of expanding eligibility for federal assistance and better reflecting what it costs a household to meet basic living needs. The new poverty line would be updated at least annually (with flexibility to update more often if feasible) and would be regionally variant, using data from multiple federal sources to capture differences in housing costs, childcare, health care, and other essential expenses. The bill also sets guardrails for state use, data transparency through a public lookup tool, a transition plan, and regular evaluation to ensure the measure better supports social and economic mobility. Key elements include: a multi-part formula for household sizes 1–8 (and an average incremental cost for larger households), incorporating food, clothing, communications, housing, childcare, and health care costs; regional data at the state/county/rating-area level; a minimum “other basic goods” factor (not less than 1.2) to account for other essential spending; provisions for simplified variants for administrative use; a public lookup tool, and a 3-year delayed effective date. It also allows states operating a CSBG block grant to use a poverty line up to 125% of the official new poverty line, provides safe harbors for mobility between regions, and requires transition reporting and ongoing evaluation by federal agencies.
Key Points
- 1Comprehensive redefinition: The poverty line becomes a nationally updated, regionally adjusted measure that includes a broad set of basic needs (food, clothing, telephone/internet, housing, childcare, health care costs, and related out‑of‑pocket costs), using data from federal sources and adjusted for inflation.
- 2Data sources and geographic detail: The calculation uses state-level data (and county-level or geographic rating-area data when available) to produce area-specific poverty line variants, with a floor for the “other basic goods” factor set no lower than 1.2.
- 3Household size and cost structure: The formula covers household sizes from 1 to 8, plus an average incremental cost for households larger than 8, and applies multipliers to reflect economies or diseconomies of scale as households grow.
- 4Accessibility and admin tools: The Director of HHS must provide a public lookup tool on the department’s website so states, counties, and the public can determine a household’s poverty line based on the factors in the statute; the Director may permit simplified variants for administrative purposes as long as they incorporate the required costs.
- 5State and transition provisions: States administering CSBG block grants may revise the poverty line up to 125% of the official poverty line for CSBG purposes; the bill includes safe harbors for moves (poverty status not reduced for 2 years after relocation) and a transition/reporting requirement to Congress within one year, plus ongoing evaluation every four years.