Recent Posts

Number of Food Stamps (SNAP) Participants Continues to Rise (USDA, Food and Nutrition Service, December 2, 2010)

The most recent year for which data are available (2010) shows the highest number of participants in the Food Stamp (now called SNAP) program’s history, at 40.3 million participants on average per month.  The average monthly number of SNAP participants has grown by 234% since 2000.     http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htm  

The Number of People Receiving Food Assistance Continues to Rise (USDA, Food and Nutrition Service, September 4, 2009)

The monthly number of people receiving SNAP (formerly known as Food Stamps) has risen in almost every month since February 2007, from 26.2 million to 35.1 million in June 2009.   The number of households receiving SNAP has increased from 11.6 million to 15.9 million during the same time period. In just the past year (since June…

Read More

A Patchwork of Aid Provides Uneven Support to the Needy in the US (New York Times, May 11, 2009)

Research on US programs for the needy (i.e., welfare, unemployment, housing assistance, Food Stamps and health insurance), published by the New York Times, reveals that as millions of people seek aid, they are finding a complex system that reaches some and rejects others.

One in Five Americans Receives Food Assistance (USDA Economic Research Service, April 2009)

The USDA’s Economic Research Service has recently released an illustrated guide to research findings on nutrition assistance programs, food insecurity, food prices, food spending, global food security, healthy eating, agriculture, and more.  Some of the graphs from the report are excerpted below.