More Americans Relying on Food Stamps
[Guest post by DRJ]
The New York Times reports more Americans are relying on food stamps, including an estimated 6 million of them who don’t have any other income:
“About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.”
A deputy secretary for the Department of Children and Families says this shows “[t]he program is doing what it was designed to do: help very needy people get through a very difficult time.” Advocates for the poor say it proves “the safety net is torn”:
“The food-stamp program is being asked to do too much,” said James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington advocacy group. “People need income support.”
There was a time when advocates for the poor believed people need jobs. Now the critics of dependency seem to be few and far between:
“The expansion of the food-stamp program, which will spend more than $60 billion this year, has so far enjoyed bipartisan support. But it does have conservative critics who worry about the costs and the rise in dependency.
“This is craziness,” said Representative John Linder, a Georgia Republican who is the ranking minority member of a House panel on welfare policy. “We’re at risk of creating an entire class of people, a subset of people, just comfortable getting by living off the government.”
Mr. Linder added: “You don’t improve the economy by paying people to sit around and not work. You improve the economy by lowering taxes” so small businesses will create more jobs.”
In fairness, some Americans are jobless and want to work, but the Obama Administration either doesn’t have a clue how jobs are created or doesn’t care. In the meantime, people need food.
— DRJ
Well I am not quite at food stamps yet, but I am close.
That’s what I get for wishing for Obama’s failure, no job and nothing on the horizon.
So all you liberals rejoice, this stupid high school grad was making 100K+ for many years, until the government set it all straight.
Hope and change baby, get used to it.
ML (f060a0) — 1/2/2010 @ 9:33 pmMaybe I’m not looking at this the same way, but I don’t think we should be focused on responding to reports of explosives in underwear one week and in a collar of a coat the next, etc., Nor do I expect every TSA agent to know the latest details from “Popular Bombmaking”.
To know they will use planes as missiles, not just hijack is important. To know people are trying to smuggle chemical components to make a bomb is important. To know people are trying to smuggle explosives is important. But to focus on specific designs I think is less important, because I don’t think we will always have intel on what form the next attack will come.
I’m still more concerned on how a person who should have been under scrutiny got a pass.
Had the bomb gone off, and we have info that links the bomb to an ex-Gitmo person, any place for a wrongful death claim against those responsible for letting him out?
MD in Philly (d4668b) — 1/2/2010 @ 9:40 pmIt is more like Obama is actively killing jobs. That is a LOT easier than creating them. This year, as he ramps up payroll taxes, income taxes and capital gains taxes — not to mention green taxes, health taxes and surtaxes — he will accelerate the killing of jobs. FDR could do this and survive in a nation with nothing but closely controlled radio for information. Don’t see how the Democrats ever recover from what they are Obama will wreck before 2012.
Just hope the country can recover.
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 1/3/2010 @ 12:40 am“The federal government employs over 2,700,000 workers and hires hundreds of thousands each year to replace civil service workers that transfer to other federal government jobs, retire, or leave for other reasons. Average annual salary for full-time federal government jobs now exceeds $79,197. The U.S. Government is the largest employer in the United States, hiring about 2.0 percent of the nation’s work force and the workforce is expanding significantly under the Obama administration. Federal government jobs can be found in every state and large metropolitan area, including overseas in over 200 countries. The average annual federal workers compensation in 2008, including pay plus benefits, was $119,982 compared to just $59,909 for the private sector according to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis.” – source, federaljobs.net
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 1/3/2010 @ 2:31 amThis is several years old, but I expect a version still holds true:
Richard Aubrey (f6f8d1) — 1/3/2010 @ 5:08 amIn my town, food stamps could be sold for 70 cents on the dollar.
Which meant that the seller wanted seventy cents worth of non-food more than he wanted a dollar’s worth of food, which you don’t do if you’re hungry.
Which meant he shouldn’t have been getting them in the first place.
Does anyone know the qualifications to obtain food stamps? Does it vary by state?
Old Coot (d2bd0f) — 1/3/2010 @ 6:24 amHow much will Duh One be paying his proposed brown shirt army of thugs? That will lower the unemployment rate for sure. Right.
Can the libtards who frequent this board kindly explain just why they think Obama is good for the country in any way at all? Has anyone been able to get an explanation for mindless adoration of this administration? Has LGF’s Johnson ever explained his own conversion?
I have a relative on SSI disability who collects $14 a month in food stamp benefits to go with the $1000 a month SSI. She lives rent free with her parents and pays $429 a month for a new Corolla at usurious rates. Had managed to go through two bankruptcies in past nine years.
aoibhneas (6d7589) — 1/3/2010 @ 6:48 amThe unions would not like it, but why use prisoners and healthy people on various aid programs to build and repair our decaying infrastructures?
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More Americans Relying on Food Stamps | NewsReal Blog (64ad44) — 1/3/2010 @ 6:49 amI am not eligible for food stamps myself. 563 job applications and not a single one has netted me so much as a phone call back. My savings is bleeding too fast, and if I cannot get a descent job soon, my living standard will drop significantly for a second time and again when unemployment runs out. Obama sucks, but I would rather it be him than John McCain any day of my life. Thank god John McCain voted for the bail-out and doomed his chance at victory at the last minute.
astonerii (db1a02) — 1/3/2010 @ 11:53 amRe #6
astonerii (db1a02) — 1/3/2010 @ 11:55 amVaries by state. Texas is income of around $1150/mo for a couple with no children.
You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.
Icy Texan (608536) — 1/3/2010 @ 1:10 pm— Homer Simpson
I think everyone quoted in the piece has other income. The poster girl, who lived on her savings for3 years (which seems so unlikely), Ms. Bermudez, doesn’t seem to have child support, either, which the NYT commenters pointed out. Reporters are so naive–they never seem to think that someone might not be telling them the whole story.
KateC (7f3e3d) — 1/3/2010 @ 2:10 pmI was driving on the LA freeways yesterday and saw lots of green signs touting the Recovery Act–not one iota of road repair, but plenty of green signs. The green sign makers are doing well, very well.
Patricia (b05e7f) — 1/3/2010 @ 2:23 pmI know of hispanic families who have two people working under the table (gardening route and housekeeping) who qualify for everything from the free lunch/daycare to foodstamps. Often they squeeze in with a relative who gets housing authority help.
SteveG (909b57) — 1/3/2010 @ 3:40 pmIt is how things are done here. If you offer stuff for free, don’t complain when people take it.
Well, I do complain.
My wife is from Mexico and she grew up in a hard place. Everyone worked under the table and worked the system there as hard as they could just to survive.
They come to the US and bring that same “take what you can” attitude and there is bound to be more than a few mixed legal/illegal families getting some serious benefits.
How many of them?
I’d guess that in Southern California, there are more than a million “no income” but drawing food stamp extended families living under the same roof.
Some of them are doing pretty well in the economic downturn…
I have been determining eligibility for Food Stamps for nearly 10 years now, in addition to other forms of public assistance, so if it’s not too immodest, I’ll comment here.
Currently, the federal guideline for a household of two is $1215/monthly, which is the Federal Poverty Level. This does vary by state, however; the state I work for cuts that same household off at $2247, using what’s called categorical eligibility, under a now-8-year-old waiver from the feds.
Understanding how, and why, we got here, though, requires one to go a bit further back and understand the workings of federal money and how it gets awarded to states for Food Stamps. There is a federally mandated Quality Control process that every state undergoes, which pulls a representative sample of recipient households’ cases each month. These samples then undergo a fairly rigorous and in-depth review, which includes household visits, credit checks, interviews with family and friends, and so on.
Each year, the US Department of Agriculture, which has responsibility for the Food Stamp program, establishes a national accuracy average report – the average, within about 5 points either way, is what’s “acceptable” accuracy, or in other words, accuracy of the majority. Those states that fall outside and below that limit are assessed penalties that most states don’t usually budget for, which means that penalty money usually comes out of the general fund. Above the limit, and you’re golden – the feds award a highly-publicized bonus to states with high accuracy.
After years of effort at curbing the error problem, which hovered around 12% here for a really long time, the solution was found – rather than try so hard to fix the error problem, we elected to redefine what the problem was. Thus came about (drumroll please) “SIMPLIFIED REPORTING”. In a nutshell, this solution says that other than two very basic things, once we’ve determined you’re eligible for Food Stamps, we don’t want you to tell us anything more until (x) date.
In practice, this dropped my state’s error rate from the “always in penalty” category to the “gosh, you’re doing such a great job, let’s give you more money!!!!” category, from roughly 12% to about 3.5% if I remember right.
The result that this has had is that people come in and apply for Food Stamps after they’ve lost a job, and before they’ve applied for unemployment. We determine their eligibility, give them whatever they get, and then they go on their merry way. If their unemployment doesn’t put them over the reporting limit, guess what? They report $0.00 income for at minimum the next six months, whether they’ve actually got any or not.
Believe me, nobody sees the irony of this more than those of us administering it daily.
wg (aca7a2) — 1/4/2010 @ 1:25 pm