Are you on food stamps yet?
New data shows that 41 million Americans, in 19 million households, participated in food stamp programs in June, 2010.
Red bars show the number of Americans using food stamps from October, 2004 to June, 2010. The blue shading shows the percentage of unemployed Americans from October, 2004 to August, 2010.
SoldAtTheTop
As a logical consequence of the prolonged economic downturn it appears that participation in the federal food stamp program is continuing to rise.
In fact, household participation has been climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed the last peak set as a result of the immediate fallout following hurricane Katrina.
The latest data released by the Department of Agriculture shows that, on a year-over-year basis, household participation has increased 20.28% while individual participation, as a ratio of the overall population, has increased 16.50% over the same period.
The June results confirm that participation is continuing to climb, likely as a result of the jump in total unemployment, driving the nominal benefit costs up an lofty 17.73% on a year-over-year basis to $5,504,541,352 for the month.
Add/view comments on this post.
------------------------------
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on the link above.