A four-person household in the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. can bring in as much as $3,575 a month in gross income and still qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program once the federal fiscal year turns over on October 1. That figure is a ceiling, not a payment amount — it decides whether a family gets into SNAP at all, separate from how much any approved household actually receives. The U.S. Department of Agriculture just moved that ceiling higher for the second year running, and for a family whose paycheck sits close to the line, a few dollars either way can be the difference between an approved application and a denial letter. The number touches far more households than the term “food stamps” might suggest, since a family can be working full-time, own a car, and still fall under the new limit.
USDA’s FY2027 Memo Pushes the Gross Income Ceiling to $3,575
The new number comes from a memo the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service sent to every state SNAP agency on August 21, 2026, laying out the cost-of-living adjustments for fiscal year 2027. The underlying threshold is not USDA’s own invention; it is pegged to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ federal poverty guidelines for household size, which is why the SNAP figure moves every fall in step with a separate government measure rather than an internal USDA benchmark. That structure is also why the dollar figure changes for every household size — a two-person household, a six-person household and a four-person household each get their own gross income ceiling calculated off the poverty guideline for that specific size.
The memo sets the gross income limit at 130 percent of the federal poverty guideline, which comes to $3,575 a month for a household of four in the 48 states and D.C., effective October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027. A year earlier, the same office set the equivalent figure at $3,483 a month for fiscal year 2026 — a roughly $92 increase tied to USDA’s annual recalculation of what a modest diet costs. For a family living close to the edge of eligibility, that gap alone can decide whether next month’s application clears the first test before a caseworker even looks at housing costs or child care expenses.
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The Asset Limit Climbs Too, to $3,000 or $4,750
Gross income isn’t the only ceiling a household has to clear. The same August memo also raises SNAP’s resource, or asset, limits: $3,000 in countable resources for most households, and $4,750 for a household with a member who is 60 or older or has a disability, both effective October 1. That elderly/disabled figure is up from $4,500 the year before under the fiscal year 2026 rules, another increase built into the same annual adjustment. Countable resources generally mean cash and money sitting in checking or savings accounts; a household’s home, most retirement accounts and, in nearly every state, its vehicle don’t count against either limit. Under USDA’s special rules for elderly and disabled households, a household with a qualifying member skips the gross income test altogether and is measured only on net income and assets — a distinction that can change which test an entire multigenerational household is judged against. That matters in practice for the growing number of households where a grandparent or an adult with a disability lives with working-age relatives and children: adding that one person to the SNAP case can trade a stricter gross income test for a more forgiving net-income-only review, even though the household’s total income hasn’t changed at all.
States Can Raise the Line Through Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility
The federal $3,575 ceiling is a floor for how strict a state can be, not a cap on how generous it can be. Under a standing policy option called broad-based categorical eligibility, USDA’s own eligibility guidance confirms states may raise the gross income test as high as 200 percent of the federal poverty guideline, and many pair that with dropping the asset test for most applicants. In practice, that means a family of four earning meaningfully more than $3,575 a month can still qualify for SNAP depending on which state they live in, even though the identical household would be turned away under the strict federal 130 percent line. The number in USDA’s memo is the eligibility line that applies automatically nationwide; the real ceiling in the states that use this option is set by each state’s own policy layered on top of it.
Clearing the Gross Income Test Still Leaves a Second Hurdle
Passing the gross income test only gets a household to the next step. Federal rules also require most households to clear a tighter net income test — gross income minus a set of allowed deductions — set at 100 percent of the federal poverty guideline under USDA’s standing eligibility standards. Only households with an elderly or disabled member skip the gross test and are evaluated on net income and assets alone; every other household has to clear both. A family earning close to $3,575 a month in gross income still has to show that its income, after deductions for costs such as housing, child care and, for some households, medical expenses, falls under the lower net threshold before a state approves the case. The gross figure decides who is allowed to apply those deductions in the first place; it doesn’t decide who ultimately receives a payment. That two-step design is deliberate: it screens out households whose gross pay is clearly too high before a caseworker spends time itemizing every allowable expense, while still giving households with high housing or medical costs a real chance to qualify even when their gross pay sits close to the ceiling. USDA applies the new $3,575 gross ceiling, along with the $3,000 and $4,750 asset limits, automatically in every state SNAP office starting October 1, 2026, with no separate application or paperwork required from households already enrolled.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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