- The Trump administration has eliminated an office within the Department of Health and Human Services that calculates the federal poverty guidelines every year. That figure, required by law, helps determine eligibility for dozens of safety-net programs, including Medicaid and food, heating and legal assistance. “This is the worst possible time to be dealing with that vacuum,” said one economist.
The office that calculates eligibility criteria for dozens of social safety net programs has reportedly been dismantled.
President Donald Trump’s cuts at the Health and Human Services Administration (HHS) have eliminated the team that calculates the federal poverty guidelines, KFF Health News first reported. The small office of technical experts set a number every year that must be updated for inflation. The number helps determine who is eligible for programs that help tens of millions of Americans—including Medicaid, food stamps, WIC, and heating assistance.
Robin Ghertner, the former director of the Division of Data and Technical Analysis, which oversaw the guidelines, told KFF Health News that the firings had happened without warning. Everyone in his office was told they would be put on administrative leave until June 1 and would lose their jobs soon after, he told the outlet.
The federal poverty guidelines “guide the distribution of tens of billions of dollars through dozens of programs in every state and territory in the United States,” Indivar Dutta-Gupta, a visiting fellow at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, told Fortune.
"This is another absurd example of a reduction in force that’s senseless and will not save money but does risk creating problems for not just the federal govt and state and local governments, but tens of millions of Americans who depend on this calculation being adjusted every year," he said.
The federal poverty level for a family of four this year is $32,150. By law, the figure must be updated annually to adjust for inflation and other factors, and HHS is required to use the number to determine who is eligible for a range of programs.
“There’s literally no one in the government who knows how to calculate the guidelines,” Ghertner told KFF. “And because we’re all locked out of our computers, we can’t teach anyone how to calculate them.”
The Census Bureau establishes a poverty level every year; HHS adjusts it by household size, to account for inflation, and for higher cost of living in Alaska and Hawaii.
If the figure isn’t adjusted, “people will be harmed by either increased complexity, which will keep them from being eligible or from successfully completing applications for benefits, or because the threshold will not be adjusted for Alaska or Hawaii,” Dutta-Gupta told Fortune.
The wrong poverty guideline could leave millions of people out of programs they’re legally entitled to, while leaving it up to the states to establish eligibility could create inequities that break the law, Ghertner told KFF Health News.
“As part of Secretary Kennedy's vision to streamline HHS to better serve Americans, the Department will merge the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to create the Office of Strategy to enhance research that informs the Secretary’s policies and improves the effectiveness of federal health programs,” an HHS official said in a statement. ASPE is the office that housed the team that set the poverty guidelines, KFF Health News reported.
“Critical programs within ASPE will continue in this new office. HHS will continue to comply with statutory requirements, and as a result of the reorganization, will be better positioned to execute on Congress’s statutory intent,” the spokesperson said.
HHS did not answer a question about whether updating the poverty guideline counts as a critical program. The agency plans to cut 10,000 workers, on top of another 10,000 who have already left.
“This is the worst possible time to be dealing with that vacuum of leadership and expertise,” said Ismael Cid Martinez, an economist in the Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Dozens of programs rely on official poverty guidelines to determine who is and isn’t eligible. Food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, covered 40 million people last year, who were deemed eligible based on their income relative to the poverty guidelines. Medicaid, the largest health insurance program in America with 72 million adult members, relies on a formula that uses the poverty level; so do programs including free school lunch, Head Start, legal aid for the poor, and low-income taxpayer assistance clinics, which help millions of taxpayers file their taxes at no cost. The Affordable Care Act allows people to get subsidies for private health insurance—as long as they earn up to 400% of the poverty line.
“These programs keep millions of people out of poverty every year,” Martinez, the economist, told Fortune.
“The point we should be at right now is having conversations about how to expand the access to and adequacy of these programs, as opposed to gutting them and restricting access,” he added. Republicans in the House and Senate are teeing up deep cuts to the benefits paid out through Medicaid, SNAP and other programs, which many conservatives claim is rife with waste and fraud. A budget blueprint passed by the House predicts $2 trillion in cuts, largely through programs that help the poor, veterans, and older Americans.
