1/31/2012

The HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) has been releasing update of Poverty Guidelines early each year. Based on the HHS Poverty Guidelines, USCIS and DOS have been releasing their implementation dates multiflying by 125% of the HHS Poverty Guideline income figures. USCIS will officially release it as its Poverty Guidelines for immigration on its website, usually followed by the DOS release of the same on its website to implement in the non employment-based immigrant visa processing. 

The USCIS poverty guidelines are crucial for the family-based immigration proceedings since the sponsor of the family-based immigration of their relatives must prove in the form of I-864 Affidavit of Support that they have minimum of such income to execute I-864 and sponsor immigrant petition for their relatives.

Section 673(2) of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of  1981 (42 U.S.C. 9902(2)) requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to update the poverty guidelines at least  annually, adjusting them on the basis of the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). The poverty guidelines are used as an eligibility criterion by the Community Services Block Grant program and a number of other Federal programs. The poverty guidelines issued here are a simplified version of the poverty thresholds that the Census Bureau uses to prepare its estimates of the number of individuals and 
families in poverty.

As required by law, this update is accomplished by increasing the latest published Census Bureau poverty thresholds by the relevant percentage change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). The guidelines in this 2012 notice reflect the 3.2 percent price increase between calendar years 2010 and 2011. After this inflation adjustment, the guidelines are rounded and adjusted to standardize the differences between family sizes. The same calculation 
procedure was used this year as in previous years. (Note that these 2012 guidelines are roughly equal to the poverty thresholds for calendar year 2011 which the Census Bureau expects to publish in final form in September 2012.)

Poverty - Persons in family/household guideline
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.......................................................... $11,170
2.......................................................... 15,130
3.......................................................... 19,090
4.......................................................... 23,050
5.......................................................... 27,010
6.......................................................... 30,970
7.......................................................... 34,930
8.......................................................... 38,890
------------------------------------------------------------------------