Report: Food Stamp Enrollment 'Historically High'

Scores of media outlets including CNN, CBS News and Al-Jazeera America this week reported the results of a new study released by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) lamenting that 1 million food stamp recipients could lose their benefits.

"Some of the country's poorest will be struck from the rolls in 2016 as states reimpose work requirements they had allowed to lapse when the recession struck in 2007," CBS News said in its report.

Left out of CBS and other media accounts was information about the growth of the food stamp program.

As the Washington Examiner reported Thursday, over 46 million people received food stamps in 2014 — 20 million more than before the recession began. A decrease of 1 million recipients from this "historically high" figure amounts to a reduction of about 2 percent, it observed.

According to the Agriculture Department figures, total food stamp costs for 2014 are estimated at $80 billion — more than double the $38 billion cost in 2007 and quadruple the approximately $20 billion spent in 2000 (all in inflation-adjusted dollars).

The increase in ineligibility cited in the CBPP report stems from the fact that able-bodied adults without dependent children are limited to three months of food stamp benefits over a three-year period. The time limit is waived in states with high unemployment rates.

Disabled adults, the newspaper reports, "will not be affected by the time limits. Nor will adults with any dependents. Even those working part-time, at least 20 hours a week, will remain eligible for food stamps. The only enrollees cut off by the time limits are able-bodied people who are not working and do not have dependents to support."

Related Stories:

• Cuts to Food Stamps Will Only Hit 4 States
  
• Record 20 Percent of US Households Now on Food Stamps