Federal Poverty Level - FPL

The Federal Poverty Level, or FPL, is the official “poverty line”: the income level for individuals and families as determined by the U.S. government.

These levels are updated annually to keep up with inflation. The amount is considered the minimum amount of income needed for life’s basics: food, clothes, housing, and transport, among other things.

If you’re below the Federal Poverty Level, in the poverty zone, you can qualify for certain federal benefits and programs. The Federal Poverty Level is also used in other ways. For instance, Americans trying to bring in foreign family members through certain visas must prove that they have income over the poverty level, assuring the U.S. Government that they can pay for the people they want to bring in (so they don’t come in and just start “mooching” off the system).

Not just people, but also agencies use Federal Poverty Levels. For instance, the Department of Health and Human Services uses the FPL and information from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual report on poverty levels to help them determine who should be eligible for what benefits. Qualifying for Food Stamps, Medicaid, and other federal programs all start with the basics. And tons of wiggle room exists in these determinations. Think about how expensive "life" costs in Silicon Valley or Manhattan versus Des Moines. Yet here we are setting a vague national number for what poverty level actually means.

So we take all of the data with a grain or three of salt, potentially buy-able with food stamps.

Related or Semi-related Video

Econ: What are Wage Rates?5 Views

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And finance Allah shmoop What are wage rates Oh all

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right You probably think about wage rates as it relates

00:10

the compensation all the time When you pick a major

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you check out the wage rates for the potential jobs

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and then run screaming away as fast as you can

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from majoring in English and history and philosophy When you

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search for a job wage rates are among the first

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things you look for right Quite simply a wage rate

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represents the amount of money Ah worker gets paid per

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unit of time and usually that unit is an hour

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or well Maybe it's a yearly wage or a monthly

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wage Some like that So you make twenty bucks an

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hour Or maybe your deal with your employers is that

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you get paid forty grand a year Well your wages

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could also come in other varieties like some people make

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a monthly wage or a weekly wage or a daily

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wage right The point is that you earn a certain

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amount for a certain amount of work performed in economic

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terms The way Drake equates to the price of labor

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It's Aki cost for any business So economists look att

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the wage rate as Aki input to production Right Because

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high wages mean the producers have to raise prices keep

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the same profit margin So think about that From the

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company's perspective it's a direct relation and productivity or how

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productive they are in producing profits for shareholders You look

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at it from the other side the cheaper the cost

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to produce something the higher the productivity of that company

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or at least the capital deployed in it Also the

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wage rate impacts the amount that consumers have to spend

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So the wage rate plays into consumer spending in the

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economy as well and kind of tickles inflation there every

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now and then right So they have tons of wages

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and they're willing to spend that extra dollar on conveniences

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like home delivered whoopee cushions Well yeah whoopee cushion delivery

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Alright well like the price for anything else The price

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for labor gets determined by market forces generally supply and

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demand So the wage rate for any profession and set

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by the supply of people willing and able to do

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that job and by the need for that job to

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be done all right in the subtext there is if

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a job isn't really needed And like St Blowers and

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it turns out the minimum wage is twenty eight dollars

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an hour Well taxpayers probably happily live with leaves all

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over their street rather than pay a fortune for people

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to blow him off And I'll just wait for the

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next windstorm right You don't really need that job but

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no fireman you know you need them and a surgeon

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in the hospital Yeah you need them Well the amount

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of people are number of people who can do the

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job represent the supply supply of Labour The need for

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the job represent the demand for it That's why people

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who design advanced algorithms for offshore tax optimized emerging market

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bond trading make so much money It's a really hard

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boring job You need to go to school for a

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really long time probably speak a few languages and well

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frankly not many people can get through all the rigorous

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training to do that job Well extremely low supply and

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demand is massive Right sky's the limit Well Meanwhile the

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pay rate for side of the road windshield squeegee professionals

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is very low Pretty much anyone with arms Khun do

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it and no one is really looking to get it

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done Economists also look att wage levels on a broad

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scale looking at a national or societal level Think about

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the price for labor like the price for it Well

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pretty much anything else If there's a lot of labor

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available prices will be lower at least notionally low If

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labour is scarce prices will be higher Okay let's look

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at a few historical examples Europe Just after the black

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death people go months without taking a bath And well

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if you get out of line you might get burned

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as a witch Meanwhile somewhere between a third or half

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the entire population just died of a disease that caused

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the black bulb to grow throughout your groin Bottom line

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thanks to the plague Well there were not many workers

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around so wages skyrocketed changes so momentous that it basically

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undermines feudalism forever Okay now the opposite example America In

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the late eighteen hundreds immigrants are pouring in from Europe

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Meanwhile agricultural efficiencies air making farm workers way less necessary

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like machines do the work of ten workers So people

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are moving from countries side There he is like that

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into city side areas Well there's lots of labour available

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and as a result wage rates are very low so

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low that people can barely live on them They live

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in these crowded tenement things or company towns Ah whole

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political movement gets created Teo Try to make life better

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for those workers toiling away Lawmakers passed the minimum wage

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the eight hour work day child rights protection thing so

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kids don't have to work all day and not go

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to school And other protections happened to okay so let's

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look at the demand side of the equation Fast forward

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about a hundred years or sell America in the second

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decade of the twenty first century Automation computers and robots

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have taken over a lot of professions will Meanwhile cheap

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shipping costs and improve communications make it possible to outsource

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unskilled labor toe overseas locations like China There's not much

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demand for certain kinds of workers in the U S

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Till wages don't increase Even though consumption goes up We

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don't need a CZ many American workers to produce more

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stuff It's also important Keep in mind that the way

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compensation takes place has changed over time In the robber

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baron days of old Well Worker got his twenty five

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cents for a fourteen hour day and then had to

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fend for himself for pretty much everything else like socking

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away money for retirement health care benefits and other things

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like that Yeah well nowadays most companies offer a wide

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range of benefits like cash salary But then it cost

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the company more money to pay for health insurance and

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awesome more money toe add for a one K contributions

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and they give other perks and other add ons These

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don't figure in tow wage rates but they do figure

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into company labor costs to remember the next time some

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government worker quotes you that they only make forty eight

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grand a year asked them how much they get in

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pension and health care and all that and it's likely

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something like another fifteen or twenty grand a year so

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they don't really make forty eight grand a year They

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make more like sixty eight or seventy grand a year

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and you can feel less sorry for Well the wage

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rate can also be influenced by regulatory factors The most

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obvious of these is the minimum wage Remember those slums

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from one hundred years ago Well in order to avoid

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those situations governments will often set a minimum wage A

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business can't offer a wage legally below this level So

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as of two thousand eighteen federal minimum wage was seven

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and a quarter an hour But many areas have much

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higher threshold For example Washington D C Has a minimum

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wage of twelve fifty an hour while Washington State had

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a floor on its hourly wage in eleven fifty Well

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the impact of minimum wages aren't always predictable They raise

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some people's overall wages above a living level But they

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also encourage businesses Teo turn toward automation or just shrink

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the workforce like think about a restaurant is barely breaking

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even and now suddenly the minimum wage as fifteen percent

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of labor costs And so instead of having ten workers

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maybe they can get away with nine or eight And

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they just put the ipads up at every table so

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people can just order their dinner through clicking on their

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iPad And they can fire a worker well Meanwhile changes

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in wage rates impact other economic indicators as well Specifically

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higher wages can feed into inflation as workers get paid

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more cos look to make up the additional expense They

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raise prices for customers which feeds the overall increase in

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inflation And as a result an overall increase in wage

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rates don't always equate to a one to one benefit

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for workers if the higher wages lead to increased inflation

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While the buying power of the increased income might not

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be all it's cracked up to be another factor When

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considering a wage while bonuses versus salary that's another thing

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It's another structure Many jobs come with a base salary

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which might be nominally pretty low but they come with

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commissions or bonuses based on performance And those Khun B

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Way more meaningful than the salary Well if you're looking

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to become a gold two salesmen you might not get

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a big guaranteed salary But wow the commissions can be

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huge So as you think about your career in the

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type of wage rates or wage structures you're looking for

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remember it's not the money It's all about what that 00:08:22.203 --> [endTime] money can buy

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