2020 Federal Poverty Level Guidelines Published

The 2020 Federal Poverty Levels (FPLs) have been announced and are effective January 15, 2020. The new figures are somewhat higher than last year’s guidelines. PHLP updated its chart showing income and resource limits for Medicaid and other health programs to include the 2020 amounts. Click here to view this resource. 

The poverty guidelines are used to set income limits for public health programs such as Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare Part D Extra Help and Marketplace Premium Tax Credits.   

In addition to the change in income limits for these programs, the federal government also released updated information about 2020 resource limits for the Medicare Savings Programs and Medicare Part D Extra Help.

Because the federal poverty level increased at a slightly higher rate than the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increase for 2020, most Social Security recipients enrolled in public health insurance programs should continue to be income eligible for those programs despite the increase in their monthly Social Security benefit.  County Assistance Office caseworkers are prohibited from counting someone’s Social Security COLA immediately at the beginning of each year. For 2020, Medicaid will start to count the Social Security COLA in March.  If you are aware of someone who was denied or lost Medicaid because their COLA was counted in January or February when it should not have been, please have them appeal quickly and contact PHLP’s Helpline at 1-800-274-3258.