Food Stamp Usage up 64% in Last Four Years, Cost up 114% in Same Period; SNAP Charts, Facts and Figures
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/08/food-stamp-usage-up-64-in-last-four.html
Mish
Food Stamp Usage up 64% in Last Four Years, Cost up 114% in Same Period; SNAP Ch
By Mish Follow Mon, 27 Aug 2012, 10:45am 5,342 views 49 comments
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My people (unknown, see chart linked to above) are over represented on the foodstamp roles.
Can any one explain why bringing up the increasing cost of foodstamps is considered racist?
I judge them on the content of their character not the color of their skin, but I do judge them.
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The real question is what are all of the displaced workers to do to earn food instead of being given food?
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Mish:
Please just do us a favor and admit that you are a closeted Republitarian whose goal is to have yourself installed in the white house.
rooemoore says
You've been caught! Or, have you?
Survey says
http://save.lovetoknow.com/Welfare_Statistics
These numbers are from 2008. I would have found some more recent stats, but I really don't give a shit enough to do so.
I agree with rooemoore; I'm sure that you timed your post to coincide with Hurricane Ivan, which is the event that's most prominent in the news. Everyone knows that a disproportionate amount of black people were displaced by Hurricane Katrina 5 years ago and became impoverished as a result.
Please admit that you have a hurricane machine, and that you are also responsible for the droughts, floods, and tornados of late. All of these events have created more poverty, which in turn has created an artificial need for food stamps (SNAP).
Excuse me, I've got to go take more meds. It all makes alot more sense when I do.
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Aaaaand a poster from SF somehow turns a completely unrelated thread into an Obama-defense tirade. Shocking! "Racism is implied because dates were mentioned with which I can draw a spurious connection to something unrelated to further my partisan agenda!"
From the end of Mish's article:
"In the last four years the number of participants increased by 64.7%
In the last four years the program cost is up by 114.4%
Since 2000, the number of participants is up 170%
Since 2000, the program cost is up by 395%"
So the article itself does cover 12 years. Doing a little math, the last 4 years don't seem to be any better or worse than the 8 that preceded them, in terms of growth in welfare usage (any growth in usage is bad, but growth seems to have been steady for 12 years). Why is this notable? Guess what happened 4 years ago, that was far more important than Obama's election? Our entire financial system damn near gave up the ghost. I think that evaluating the number of government hand-outs since that landmark event is very relevant. Who got inaugurated around that time is largely irrelevant since the near-collapse of our economy has a lot more bearing on welfare benefit expenses.
So if anything, it is some sort of testament to Obama that the growth rate of food stamp users & costs didn't increase under Obama, despite the economic collapse of 2008, compared to 2000-2008. Growth in the use of the system is still BAD as it indicates growing economic malaise, but the numbers in Mish's article in fact show that Obama is certainly no worse than his predecessor. Buuuut, let's not let that get in the way of a good super liberal partisan victim-session!
For the record, I support neither the dems or republicans. They are both a cancer on our society that will ultimately lead to incredible wealth disparity and general misery for most Americans. They just have different packaging.
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rooemoore says
Pretty poor that this nation has come this far that the only political group consistently lobbing against bailouts and favors for special interests, demanding the return to the rule of law and the constitution, applying existing laws and regulations and prosecuting rampant fraud and corruption in the financial industry (instead of generating more bureaucracy), returning the troops home from useless wars in every shit-hole corner of the world to save lives and money and use the money for their own people and infrastructure instead, repealing unconstitutional laws infringing on personal liberty and safety such as the patriot act and the federal drug laws, that this group is being called and labeled extremist..
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Curious, going back to original post....:
p>•Since 2000, the number of participants is up 170%
•Since 2000, the program cost is up by 395%
Food price increase due to commodities pinheads?
I'm not surprised food assistance is up. It's one of the invisible assistance programs masking this Depression from public notice. Nobody sees people standing in soup lines, because they can take a plastic card and buy food at the store.
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mell says
Because they are extremist.
You are an excellent example of why this movement is so screwed up. You want:
mell says
but you also want........
mell says
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Squatting in East CoCo says
It's damn hard not to judge people who are on welfare. However, being on welfare isn't the fun it's made out to be. It's barely enough to keep going.
People who qualify for food stamps can only buy food, not toilet paper, tampons, toothpaste, shampoo, etc. They truly don't receive that much and aren't eating high on the hog. People whose jobs are gone in this horrible recession have had to suffer through a demeaning process of unemployment (which isn't enough to maintain their standard of living), being turned down for jobs, applying for benefits (they only qualified for food stamps after their unemployment ran out), losing their homes, their families, etc.
I know that most posters here on patnet have $; at least they have enough to sustain them. They have computers and the interwebs, and enough $ to live on. But there are people who don't qualify for benefits, who move into crappy little places and panhandle or are barely making ends meet.
There are many people out of work, and it's difficult not to feel superior to them because we have jobs. But we're not better than them, we're just a lot luckier that our jobs still exist.
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Vicente says
RACIST! It is as clear as day that you are condescending African Americans. Why do you insist on the continued oppression of an already disenfranchised people!? The numbers in the article say it all. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, which is 145 years before 2008. Mish's article lists the number 114.4%, which also have a 1 and 4 in them, JUST LIKE 145! RACIST!
Am I doing it right?
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elliemae says
Great post. I agree that a lot of people don't fully understand WHO is using welfare assistance programs and only see aggregated statistics and inflammatory media hit-pieces showing the worst possible specimens in that system as if they are representative of anything more than statistical outliers. Most people on welfare / assistance are decent hard working people that are living with an unfortunate combination of bad luck, bad timing, and in some cases an unfortunate decision or two.
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bmwman91 says
Oh, hell yeah!
Also in the news:
http://photos.msn.com/slideshow/photo/kitten-cuties/23wn0dqc
Not one black kitten in the bunch. RACISTS!!!
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I was raised on foodstamps and welfare.
I remember. It was the early 70's and we lived in the low income housing projects. We were bussed to the "white" school for purposes of racial integration.
One of our neighbors, a man with 4 kids and a wife, tried to get off the dole. He took a taxi driving job and made almost as much as welfare paid but his kids were no longer eligible for mediCal.
My parents didn't seem to try.
I remember each of my 3 young siblings and I standing in line at the supermarket with an 11 cent can of tomato paste (cheapest food item) and a 50 cent food coupon (lowest denomination) so that my father could gather up enough change to buy cigarettes. We had a lot of tomato paste in the cupboard.
Welfare discourages people. Food stamps don't always help.
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What is the alternative... Have people starve?!
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bmwman91 says
Years ago I had a public agency job denying benefits after forcing applicants to place 40 job applications a month. The agency forced these people to wait in line in the desert heat for a full day, only to have to return the next day. Didn't matter if they didn't have a place to stay in the meantime. Certainly, it didn't matter if they had any money for food or even water while they waited in line. Workers were judged on the amount of denials they processed.
It was a horrible job, doing a horrible misdeed to people who needed help. We should have just told them they weren't going to get their benefits - instead, we tortured them first.
I got up and walked out one day. It was a very well-paying job, but the worst place I ever worked.
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Squatting in East CoCo says
No, but they do help. The system helped you to the point that you were determined to break the cycle of poverty. I hope it did, anyway.
BoomAndBustCycle says
Exactly. We help many people with these programs. Some people game the system, but we help them too. The alternative is to not help anyone.
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Can we take this horseshit out of the real estate section?
Biff
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Without reading Mish's take, wage growth crumbled, more families became eligible.
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Biff Baxter says
Is it taking up too much real estate?
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BoomAndBustCycle says
Change the system!
Have soup and bread kitchens for those who can't afford food.
Have clean safe showers and cots for people that don't have a place to live.
Voluntary treatment instead of mandatory jail time for substance abusers.
Fire the bureucrats and employ the workers.
Healthcare not insurance reform.
Education not indoctrination.
Peace not war.
Love not hate.
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One of the reasons food stamps have proliferated is that we have stopped applying assets testing in a lot of states.
People who fully own their homes, have decent portfolios and low incomes are now eligible. The qualifying incomes would be low for someone paying rent or a mortgage and living with almost no savings. But they would be quite adequate for someone with significant assets.
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Patrick,
This topic is inappropriate for the real estate forum. Can you please move it?
Biff
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Department of Agriculture runs SNAP. Why???
Because food stamps benefit farmers/ranchers greatly and Iowa has the first primary.
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I have heard in the span of a week, first an article on CNN.com claiming there's too much food waste around the world. That we throw away perfectly edible rotten or blemished fruits and veggies. We grow way too much food, and if it was all managed better, and less food was grown.
Then food would be cheaper around the world. Then yesterday NPR parroted that same opinion passed off as a study.
Which of course was all a huge pile of lying horse shit. Where do these people get off, I guess they aren't raping people enough.
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rooemoore says
Race was NEVER implied, nor was Obama. Go back and READ the years, it goes back to 2000... also, the FACTS are that more WHITES are on food stamps then BLACKS....
But, we don't want to let a few FACTS get into your liberal controlled mind.... funny, when the FACTS come out you get very quiet.....
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Mish@7,
Hell! This is Spin Central.
Write in HEY YOU. I'm as qualified (dumb) as any of the candidates.
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Call it Crazy says
I'm not getting quiet, although the Mish seems to have gotten quiet after my last post.
Why did the headline say past 4 years? Where in the article does it say that more whites are on food stamps?
Listen, maybe you just don't understand how politicians play the game. Maybe you're too young to remember Willie Horton and the douchebag Lee Atwater. Playing the race card doesn't mean you come out and say something racist. It means you point out something that angers or scares the voting block your going after by using race.
In this case, posts like Mish's, along with the bs welfare attack ads by Romney are aimed at infuriating struggling white middle and lower middle class voters. That is playing the race card in the same way Obama plays the class card when he goes after the very wealthy. You don't get that?
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Biff Baxter says
Mish is so lazy he doesn't even bother to post in the correct forum. Just trying to get traffic to his blog.
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Squatting in East CoCo says
Hey they say Liberals have a UTOPIAN view complex :)
All kidding aside, I agree with all of the above... But the swiftness with which the recession/depression hit our economy. None of the above could have been accomplished in such a short amount of time. I was shocked by how quick Obama got his bastardized healthcare passed. And that still doesn't start going into effect until 2014...
How many uninsured have needlessly died or gone bankrupt from 2008-2014?
Our welfare system is messed up sure, but it's a stop gap measure that when presented with the alternative of huge increases in crime and poverty... I think it's the best option for now.
Soup lines and bread kitchens present a HUGE image problem for any president... Not to mention, keeping the masses at home going on with there "normal" consumeristic lives keeps an uprising/revolution from occurring.
Crime has not risen much in the past 4 years... And that's directly a byproduct of our current welfare system.
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BoomAndBustCycle says
Is this REALLY true? I theorize from anecdotal evidence that the crime rate is being suppressed by the lack of reporting. To many people in the hood the police seem just as bad as the thugs they have to live with.
The police make it really hard to file a report. After dealing with the bureau once, many do not want to do it again.
I see the broken safety glass in the street; sign of another crime. 2 times ago when I was burglarized I called the police because I HAD to have a police report for the school district keys that were stolen (I am a teacher). I had to wait for 2 hours before the police arrived. The last time I was burglarized I just replaced what was lost and moved on, never reporting the crime.
In the hood the police is the enemy. They are just as likely to steal your money (Ticket + court fees) as help you. Why report a crime when you are not going to get anything but a "sorry this happened" and hours of lost time?
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Sometimes I feel like we are living in the last days of the Roman Empire. Free bread and circuses for the masses while the underlying system crumbles from corruption and "special" interest. The barbarians are at the gate just waiting for the inevitable.
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I tuned out rooemoore's far-left trolling a long time ago. Just like I tuned out Abe & Bap's far-right trolling a long time ago. The ignore feature is a beautiful thing. Use it!
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Squatting in East CoCo says
Absolutely.
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freak80 says
Far left trolling?? I do admit to sometimes being intentionally provocative with some of the more conservative posters (all in good fun!), but my comments in this thread are simple political analysis. As I said above, Obama has been playing the class card and the Republicans are using the race card.
Playing the race/class card or exploiting voters fears and anger is as old as politics itself. How is my identifying it "trolling?"
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freak80 says
The Roman empire lasted 1,500 years...bread and circuses worked. Currency debasement and financial mismanagement is what killed the empire.
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BTW, on Mish's blog this 75 word "article", has generated far more comments than his 5 other recent posts combined.
The top comment?
Mish knows full well what he is doing.
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SNAP is run by the Dept of Agriculture.
SNAP, ethanol, WIC are all programs to create demand for corn farmers and cattle ranchers.
The first presidential primary is in Iowa.
Connect the dots people.
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The US conducted forced Malinvestment over the past 2 decades.
NAFTA - even with warnings of "Job Sucking" and minimum wage masses
CRA - Housing never goes down, even with widespread warning of future bubbles
Fewer Engineering Degrees in US - US engineering schools enrollments heavy foreign.
Emergence of Chindia - High percentage of Science Degrees, outsourcing
So all of these major economic events caused the loss of jobs, and increased dependance. But yet our Politburo does not discuss the root causes.
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C Boy says
Why does a presidential primary matter to a sitting president? Do you mean that Iowa is a swing state?
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rooemoore says
Re-election is never a shoe in even if you are President. Most recently in 1992 when Buchanan embarrassed GWB in New Hampshire.
Also, Ted Kennedy 1980 running against Carter. 1976, Ronald Reagan trying to upset Ford.
All weak presidents that lost the bid for re-election.
I think Obama is very weak as well and am very surprised how poorly Romney is polling.
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C Boy says
What the hell are you talking about? Obama wasn't challenged by anyone in the primaries. You said "follow the dots" but you didn't have any dots to follow.