The share of residents turning to food stamps has risen in nearly every state nationwide in the past year even as unemployment has moderated.
After a temporary plateau in February, the number of Americans receiving food stamps ticked up again in March. Nearly 44.6 million received food stamps in March, up more than 11% from the same time a year ago, the Department of Agriculture said Tuesday.
The share of the population receiving food stamps nationwide has also risen as households struggle with high unemployment and stagnant wages. Some 14.4% of Americans relied on food stamps in March, up 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier.
All but three states reported a larger share of the population relying on food stamps compared to March 2010. And those states that saw the largest increases in recipiency were scattered across the country.
New Mexico reported the largest jump: 19.9% of the state’s population relied on the program in March, up 2.6 percentage points from a year earlier. In Delaware, 14.9% of residents tapped into the program, up 2.5 points from a year earlier. And in Florida, 16.3% of the population used food assistance, up 2.4 points from a year ago.
The number of people on food stamps rose in every state. But in some areas the population are growing at a faster rate than the number of people on food stamps. The only percentage declines took place in North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming. The biggest drop occurred in North Dakota — which had the lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.3% as of April — but even there the decline was slight. Just 9% of the state’s residents relied on food stamps in March, down 0.3 point from a year earlier.
(Source: WSJ)
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4 Responses
Just my opinion: Welfare has turned into a sorely abused-easy-way-out type of an epidemic. When it first started it was really meant to help folks get back on their feet. But now with all the monies being easily handed out by the American Gov’t its hard for people to avoid abusing it.
Conclusion: WHen the end comes to the welfare state, its going to hit a lot of people really hard. America is in debt with their trillion $ national debt, which only grows daily, and the prospect of them ever clearing it is like NILCH, and the problem is not going to go away, and eventually its gonna all crash, the first thing to go will be the free lunch.
Reply to #1. On the contrary I would be happy to see the lunch program go. Its a shanda to see the abuse its being given. the schools do not even give the minimum required.
#1 and #2 would prefer to have malnourished Americans, many of them poor Jews.
#3:
If the “poor Jews” consist of those who choose to not work or educate themselves in order to learn and let their wives be the sole breadwinner, then its nobody’s fault but their own. If you want such a lifestyle, you must be prepared to live with the consequences, or not have 12 children. It is not MY responsibility as a taxpayer to subsidize those who are VOLUNTARILY poor.