Food Stamps feed one quarter of American children- from the NYT

A decade after food stamp users were scorned as welfare queens and Congress was slashing benefits from the program, food stamp use is at an all-time high, and the stigma has gone the way of the actual food stamp. (Now, recipients swipe cards.) A New York Times analysis of food stamp data shows that as foreclosures and unemployment rates have soared, food stamp use has risen along with it. The program now helps feed one in eight Americans and one of every four children. More than one-quarter of blacks, 15 percent of Latinos, and 8 percent of white Americans help fill their pantries with food stamps. The Times analysis found a surprising level of diversity among food stamp recipients, from chronically poor inner-city families to newly unemployed suburban moms to fixed-income seniors. Even conservative areas where residents tend to disdain public assistance are seeing an increase in the number of food stamp recipients. States are eager to enroll people in the program because, unlike unemployment insurance, food stamps are funded entirely by the federal government. Because many people who qualify for unemployment benefits don't get them, food stamps are the only form of assistance some people get. Or, as the Times calls it, "the safety net's safety net."

This comes to me right after reading the "One Dollar Diet Project" blog. (http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/) The actual diet project was done in September 2008, if you want to go back and read the archives. Hubby and I got to talking about it, and while we won't go so drastic as to try and live on $1 each, we will try a derivation of it - how well can we eat on the Food Stamp (SNAP) benefit budget? I looked around the 'net last night and found out that the 2008 SNAP benefit average in NV was $97.88 per person in the household per month. For our household of 3, that becomes $293.64 or $$73.41 per week, based on a 4 week month.

We're not going to start this immediately - we have to set out the "rules" for our project. Does food already in the pantry count? If not, then we will spend the month of December eating out of the pantry, in order to make room for the new food. What type of "free food" is allowed? Costco samples? Other grocery samples? Unlike the One Dollar people, here in NV there aren't many if any fruit trees on public land where we could pick lemons and oranges. That idea won't fly for us.

Also, our budget will be ever so slightly higher - families receiving SNAP assistance don't pay sales tax. So we get to spend a bit more to cover the sales tax. Our current rate is somewhere around 8%. It used to be 7.5%, but has recently gone up. Also, we will be including the kiddo's lunches - we don't qualify for totally free lunches, obviously, so we'll look at as if we're a family that would qualify for reduced price lunch, but can't quite scrape the money for that together either. She's pretty easy to please for lunch anyway.

If you have any ideas or questions or whatever, leave a comment! I'd love to hear what you all (what, 3 readers? LOL) think.