January 03, 2010

About 6 million Americans receiving foods stamps report that they have no other income. They describe themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid -- no welfare, unemployment insurance, pensions, child support, or disability pay. Their numbers were increasing before the recession due to tougher welfare laws which made it more difficult for poor people to get cash aid. But the numbers have increased even more after the recession -- there has been a 50% increase over the past two years. Now about 1 in 50 Americans live in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food stamp card (this includes 1.2 million children).

"Members of this straitened group range from displaced strivers like Ms. Bermudez [who had a job selling Gulf Coast homes and made a six-figure salary, but lost it all because of the housing bust. She is looking for work, but facing a lot of rejection] to weathered men who sleep in shelters and barter cigarettes. Some draw on savings or sporadic under-the-table jobs. Some move in with relatives. Some get noncash help, like subsidized apartments. While some go without cash incomes only briefly before securing jobs or aid, others rely on food stamps alone for many months."

Some experts say the lack of cash support shows the safety net is torn. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (the main cash welfare program) has scarcely expanded during the recession. Unemployment insurance has grown but still doesn't cover half of the unemployed. For many people, food stamps are the most reliable. Food stamps have taken on a greater role in the safety net because there is more support for food stamps. Food stamps have more political support because the benefits buy only food so there is less suspicion of abuse. Furthermore, the federal government pays for the whole benefit, which results in states being more likely to maximize enrollment -- compared to programs where states have to share the costs. The president of the Food Research and Action Center said, "The food-stamp program is being asked to do too much. People need income support."

John Linder, a Republican Representative from Georgia, who serves on the House panel on welfare policy, said, "We're at risk of creating an entire class of people, subset of people, just comfortable getting by living off the government. " How "comfortable" does he thinks these people's lives are? Living off of food stamps certainly does not sounds like a comfortable existence to me. In June 2009 the average monthly food stamp benefit was $133 per person. And that only covers your food; you can't purchase other things with that money. That does not sound like a cushy existence to me. Furthermore, as the article points out, this population isn't made up of people that fit this image Linder envisions -- lazy people living off food stamps and purposely not working. In reality, this population includes people looking for work but are unsuccessful, people that are only temporarily in a position of no income, or people that are living off of their savings. It's not that this entire group consists of people that have come up with this plan to resign themselves to doing absolutely nothing and living off government funding (which, even still, isn't a very comfortable existence). I can't imagine those people make up a large percentage of the group. (Full Story)