[naniwaduni]

The 2024 FPL figure is $15060 + 5380 per additional person family member past the first. $12k/head/year comes up a bit short for an individual, but it's not that far off—expenses involved in holding down a job probably actually account for the difference anyway.

It also becomes clearly tenable with households of more than 1. Supporting a family of 2-3 on $24k-36k is like, yep, I've met married international grad students. Of course they'll spring for supplemental income where available, but as a baseline it is tenuously "enough".

[Misdicorl]

The goal can't be to solve every desperation case. But if the program wouldn't allow individuals living in dangerous and exploitative situations to confidently leave them (financially) Id argue the program was a failure