It depends on how you define poverty. The actual poverty line is so low that nobody can live on it unless they are able to live with family or get subsidized housing etc. But it's pretty fair to define being poor as living at around 200 percent of the poverty line. For a single person, the current number is $13,590 -- obviously you could not cover all the costs of living in the U.S. with that number. Doubling it would mean you could manage to get by, but you'd definitely still be poor.