A new analysis of county-level SNAP (Food Stamps) usage across the country shows widespread change. With more than 36 million recipients, the program is expanding at a rate of about 20,000 people per day.
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The SNAP program (Food Stamps) now helps feed 1 in 8 Americans and 1 in 4 children across the United States. Nonetheless, there are wide disparities across states in the percentage of eligible people receiving aid.
A new report by the USDA Economic Research Service highlights the prevalence of food insecurity in households with children and the characteristics food insecure households.
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…
Data collected in the Children’s HealthWatch sample shows an increase in food insecurity among families with young children from 18.5% in 2007 to 22.6% in 2008. They also find that children who are food insecure are 30% more likely to be hospitalized, 90% more likely to be in fair or poor health, and nearly twice as likely to have iron deficiency anemia.
Children utilizing the School Breakfast Program tend to be among the most vulnerable, yet some 38% of food insecure children do not participate. The program appears to enhance food security among families at the margin and increases the probability that low-income children will eat breakfast.
The number of households receiving food assistance in Michigan grew steadily from 2006 to 2008
America’s Second Harvest network provided emergency food aid for an estimated 1,083,100 different people in Michigan in 2005. Approximately 165,700 different people in Michigan received emergency food assistance in any given week.
The USDA studied communities with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. They found that a relatively small percentage of households lack access to a supermarket or large grocery store: 2.3 million households in the United States (2.2%) live more than a mile from a supermarket and do not have access to a vehicle.
Statistics recently published by the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank reveal that the demand for emergency food assistance continues to increase, up 31 percent in the past year.