The federal poverty level (FPL) guidelines for 2019 have been published by the Department of Health and Human Services.  These poverty guidelines are important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the Affordable Care Act.  The FPL guidelines are used to determine eligibility for premium assistance and cost-sharing.  

Further, for employer shared responsibility purposes applicable to employers employing 50 or more full-time equivalent employees, use of the FPL guidelines is one of three safe harbor methods that can be utilized to determine the employer’s affordability standard.  Coverage under an employer-sponsored plan is deemed affordable if the employee’s required contribution to the plan does not exceed 9.86% (indexed for 2019; 9.56% in 2018) of the employee’s household income for the taxable year, based on the cost of single coverage in the employer’s least expensive plan. As a reminder, if an employer is using the FPL as its affordability standard, it is allowed to use the FPL guidelines in effect six months prior to beginning of the plan year.

In addition, these FPL guidelines are used to determine eligibility for other federal entitlement programs such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program, certain parts of Medicaid, and subsidies for Medicare Part D prescription benefits. 

These FPL guidelines are effective as of January 11, 2019 (unless an office administering a program using the guidelines specifies a different effective date for that particular program).  Below is a chart reflecting the 2019 and 2018 levels. 

Additional poverty guidelines are available from the HHS Office of The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines.