Stamp Of Disapproval

More and more Americans are using food stamps these days.  In some places in the country, the number of people on food stamps has doubled in just two years.  The biggest growth in food stamp usage?  It's not the inner city, folks.  It's the suburbs hit hardest by the housing depression.

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.

In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. 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.

America.  The great country of free markets and innovation and "rising tides lifting all boats" can't even afford to feed itself.  The shocking part?

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. Mr. Concannon urged lagging states to do more to enroll the needy, citing a recent government report that found a sharp rise in Americans with inconsistent access to adequate food.

That's right: only two-thirds of people actually eligible for food benefits receive them. Remember that this holiday season.
Here in Kentucky, to get food benefits you have to be a U.S. citizen with a job (or on SS) and you can't have any drug convictions.  They've made it quite difficult as a matter of fact to get EBT here.  You also can't have more than $2000 in the bank.  For a family of four, the income limit is $28,665.

And still, here in Boone County, the number of people who are on food benefits are up 43% from 2007 (map).  Kenton County next door, up 24%, Campbell County up 21%, and across the river Hamilton County Ohio, where Cincy is, has seen its rolls jump by 41%.

Check that map link above to see how your county is faring.  Times are tough, folks.  They will only get tougher.