Food Stamp Use at Record Levels in the United States

Nationwide, food stamps reach about two-thirds of those eligible, with rates ranging from an estimated 50 percent in California to 98 percent in Missouri.

There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times.

The counties are as big as the Bronx and Philadelphia and as small as Owsley County in Kentucky, a patch of Appalachian distress where half of the 4,600 residents receive food stamps.

From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.
In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children. In the Mississippi River cities of St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, half of the children or more receive food stamps. Even in Peoria, Ill. — Everytown, U.S.A. — nearly 40 percent of children receive aid.

While use is greatest where poverty runs deep, the growth has been especially swift in once-prosperous places hit by the housing bust. There are about 50 small counties and a dozen sizable ones where the rolls have doubled in the last two years. In another 205 counties, they have risen by at least two-thirds. These places with soaring rolls include populous Riverside County, Calif., most of greater Phoenix and Las Vegas, a ring of affluent Atlanta suburbs, and a 150-mile stretch of southwest Florida from Bradenton to the Everglades.

Like many states, Ohio has campaigned hard to raise the share of eligible people collecting benefits, which are financed entirely by the federal government and brought the state about $2.2 billion last year.

A recent study by Mark R. Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, startled some policy makers in finding that half of Americans receive food stamps, at least briefly, by the time they turn 20. Among black children, the figure was 90 percent.

Across the country, the food stamp rolls can be read like a scan of a sick economy. The counties of northwest Ohio, where car parts are made, take sick when Detroit falls ill. Food stamp use is up by about 60 percent in Erie County (vibration controls), 77 percent in Wood County (floor mats) and 84 percent in hard-hit Van Wert (shifting components and cooling fans).

By contrast, in the federal cash welfare program, states until recently bore the entire cost of caseload growth, and nationally the rolls have stayed virtually flat. Unemployment insurance, despite rapid growth, reaches about only half the jobless (and replaces about half their income), making food stamps the only aid many people can get — the safety net’s safety net.

Almost 90 percent of beneficiaries nationwide live below the poverty line (about $22,000 a year for a family of four). But a minor tempest hit Ohio’s Warren County after a woman drove to the food stamp office in a Mercedes-Benz and word spread that she owned a $300,000 home loan-free. Since Ohio ignores the value of houses and cars, she qualified.

Food Stamp Use by County



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http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm
As of Oct. 1, 2008, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the new name for the federal Food Stamp Program. The new name reflects the changes we’ve made to meet the needs of our clients, including a focus on nutrition and an increase in benefit amounts. SNAP is the federal name for the program. State programs may have different names.

To see if you might be eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamp) benefits, visit our pre-screening tool.

For Households in the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia Oct. 1, 2008 through Sept. 20, 2009. To get SNAP benefits, households must meet certain tests, including resource and income tests:



Resources



Income



Deductions



Employment Requirements
Special Rules for Elderly or Disabled



Immigrant Eligibility
Resources:

Households may have $2,000 in countable resources, such as a bank account, or $3000 in countable resources if at least one person is age 60 or older, or is disabled. However, certain resources are NOT counted, such as a home and lot, the resources of people who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the resources of people who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, formerly AFDC), and most retirement (pension) plans.
Licensed vehicles are NOT counted if they are:
used for income-producing purposes,
annually producing income consistent with their fair market value,
needed for long distance travel for work (other than daily commute),
used as the home,
needed to transport a physically disabled household member,
needed to carry most of the household's fuel or water, or
if the household has little equity in the vehicle (because of money owed on the vehicle, it would bring no more than $1,500 if sold).
For all other vehicles, the fair market value over $4,650 or the equity value, whichever is more, is counted:
one per adult household member, and
any other vehicle a household member under 18 drives to work, school, job training, or to look for work.

For all other vehicles, the fair market value over $4,650 or the equity value, whichever is more, is counted as a resource.
Income:

Households have to meet income tests unless all members are receiving TANF, SSI, or in some places general assistance. Most households must meet both the gross and net income tests, but a household with an elderly person or a person who is receiving certain types of disability payments only has to meet the net income test. Households, except those noted, that have income over the amounts listed below cannot get SNAP benefits.

(Oct. 1, 2009 through Sept. 30, 2010)

Household size


Gross monthly income
(130 percent of poverty)


Net monthly income
(100 percent of poverty)

1
$1,174 $ 903

2
1,579 1,215

3
1,984 1,526

4
2,389 1,838

5
2,794 2,150

6
3,200 2,461

7
3,605 2,773

8
4,010 3,085

Each additional member
+406 +312