Transparency: The Growth of Food Stamps
- Posted by: GOOD , Gavin Potenza
- on August 25, 2009 at 5:00 am
While some economists are declaring the recession over, and although the stock market continues to rise, those on the bottom of the economic ladder are seeing fewer improvements to their day-to-day lives. The number of Americans who receive assistance from the government in the form of food stamps continues to rise—the total number of food stamp recipients is now up to more than 10 percent of the total population. Here is how many people have been using food stamps for the nine months from September, 2008, to last May.’
CORRECTION: The piece originally indicated that the number of people on food stamps were instead the number of dollars spent on food stamps. We have corrected the piece. You can view the uncorrected piece here.
A collaboration between GOOD and Gavin Potenza.
DISCUSSION: 5 Comments
Interesting, but not surprising, graphic. My questions is, what can we do about it? As normal citizens? As the 90% who don’t get food stamps? How can we help? Surely ew can do more than just give food to the local food bank.
My question is this: what caused the expansion? Is it that more people need it? Or have the rules of the program been modified in a way that more people now qualify? If it is the latter, then the graphic needs to be changed to include this information as it is misleading. If the former, then wow.
Damon129 – It’s the former.
This is an eye opening look at what is really going on in America. Also, on a good note, people are getting the help they need. I am on food stamps for the first time in my life; and as a single tax payer who has never been on government programs before, aside from Unemployment this past December, it lets me know that my government does care about my survival. I don’t think this recession is on the re-bound, and agree with the author, because sadly, there are too many people in need.
[...] It’s a bull market for food stamps [...]