Remember, food stamps are not intended to be the total allotment for people but supplement it. Yours truly does not get the full benefit of $200 a month as a single person because of a pension and no real expenses for rent and utilities (can't afford to even get my own place).
In 2008, at the onset of the recession, 28.2 million people were enrolled in SNAP. While the official jobless rate, which peaked at 10 percent in 2009, had dipped slightly to 7.7 percent as of February this year, the SNAP program has continued to grow. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that food stamp usage will drop only marginally, to 43.3 million people, by 2017. Even this estimate is predicated on the unemployment rate dropping to 5.6 percent over the next four years.
The number of people using food stamps roughly corresponds to the number of Americans living in poverty, which rose to just below 50 million people in 2011. Utilizing the Supplementary Poverty Measure (SPM), which factors in expenses for food, clothing, shelter, health care and other essentials, the US Census Bureau estimates that nearly one in six people in the US is living in poverty.
The average monthly benefit per person receiving SNAP benefits was only $133 last year. In order to qualify, a household’s income cannot be more than 130 percent of the poverty level, which is about $25,000 for a family of three, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
The assholes in Congress want to cut this necessary program even more while they don't do jack shit about restoring the economy.
That's because their ideology says a desperate population is a desirable population in order to destroy living standards to third world levels.
Our "Democratic" president also believes in this philosophy as well despite flowery language to the contrary.
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