Archive
1/3 Population of Puerto Rico Gets Food Stamps from U.S. Gov’t — $2 Billion in 2012
” The federal government spent more than $2 billion to provide food stamps to Puerto Rico in 2012, up to 25 percent of which is untraceable because it is distributed in cash and there is “no way to verify that funds are spent on food,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The funds are used to supply more than one-third of the population of Puerto Rico with food stamps.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Nutrition Assistance Program (NAP) for Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, received $2 billion in Nutrition Assistance Block Grants in fiscal year 2012.
Part of that total includes funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), popularly known as the “economic stimulus,” which passed in 2009 — $165 million in economic stimulus funds went to food stamps in Puerto Rico in FY 2012.”
Via CNS News
The More Illegal Immigrants That Go On Food Stamps The More Money JP Morgan Makes
“Recently uncovered documents prove that the Obama administration has been working with the Mexican government to increase the number of illegal immigrants on food stamps, and when more illegal immigrants go on food stamps JP Morgan makes more money. As you will read about below, JP Morgan has made at least 560 million dollars processing Electronic Benefits Transfer cards. Each month, JP Morgan makes between $.31 and $2.30 for every single person on food stamps (and that does not even include things like ATM fees, etc). So JP Morgan has a vested interest in seeing poverty grow and the number of people on food stamps increase. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been aggressively seeking to expand participation in the food stamp program. Under Obama, the number of people on food stamps has grown from 32 million to more than 47 million. And even though poverty in America is absolutely exploding, that apparently is not good enough for the Obama administration. It has now come out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided the Mexican government with literature that actively encourages illegal immigrants to enroll in food stamps. One flyer contains the following statement in Spanish: “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.” The bold and the underlining are in the original document in case you were wondering. Overall, federal spending on food stamps increased from 18 billion dollars in 2000 to 85 billion dollars in 2012, and at this point one out of every five U.S. households in now enrolled in the food stamp program. When people illegally or fraudulently enroll in the food stamp program, it makes it harder for those that desperately need the help to be able to get it.”
USDA to Mexico: Illegal immigrants can have food stamps
“With food stamp spending in the United States skyrocketing since the beginning of the recession, the Department of Agriculture is paying to promote food stamp usage to illegal immigrants for the sake of their American children, according to documents obtained by a government watchdog.
“The promotion of the food stamp program, now known as “SNAP” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance,” Judicial Watch announced today. “Emphasized in bold and underlined, the statement reads, ‘You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.’””
Food stamp participation has swelled by 70% under obama
WSJ: Food Stamps Swell as Economy Improves
“In an article titled, “Use of Food Stamps Swells Even as Economy Improves,” the Wall Street Journal reports that “The financial crisis is over and the recession ended in 2009. But one of the federal government’s biggest social welfare programs, which expanded when the economy convulsed, isn’t shrinking back alongside the recovery.”
The report continues, “Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as the modern-day food-stamp benefit is known, has soared 70% since 2008 to a record 47.8 million as of December 2012. Congressional budget analysts think participation will rise again this year and dip only slightly in coming years.”"
Why should food stamps pay for junk food?
“Kudos to The Post’s Eli Saslow for a vivid story in Sunday’s paper about the burgeoning federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and its impact on struggling Woonsocket, R.I. Because of the 2008-09 recession and new eligibility rules, SNAP enrollment has expanded to 47 million people, including a third of Woonsocket’s 40,000 residents. SNAP’s total cost in 2012 was $78 billion, triple the 2003 level.
I read Saslow’s story with mixed feelings: pride in a generous nation that spends such sums to fight hunger; shame that economic conditions make it necessary to do so; and worry about the long-term consequences of dependency on SNAP.
What really caught my attention, though, were the photographs that showed what some SNAP recipients bought with their government-funded debit cards: Cheetos Puffs, a one-ounce handful of which contains 10 grams of fat; a box containing two dozen 12-ounce cans of Fanta Orange soda, each of which contains 44 grams of sugar; a carton of six-ounceCapri Sun drink pouches, each of which contains 16 grams of sugar.
In short, this immense nutrition program pays for a lot of stuff that is the opposite of nutritious.”
Via Washington Post
Foodstamp Recipients Hit Record, Alongside Record Dow Jones And Record Debt: 20% Of Eligible Americans On EBT
“Record Dow Jones, record US debt ($16,701,846,937,879.74), and now, once more, record number of Americans on foodstamps. According to the USDA, an all time high of 47,791,966 Americans closed 2012 in possession of the highly desired Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, managed by who else but JPMorgan. And with a civilian non-institutional population of 244.4 million in December, this means that a record 19.56% of eligible Americans are on Foodstamps.
In December an additional 109,924 Americans became reliant on foodstamps for their poverty-level needs, bringing the total to 47.8 million.”
Via Zero Hedge
46,609,072 People on Food Stamps in 2012; Record 47,791,996 in December
“On Friday, the United States Department of Agriculture quietly released new statistics related to the food stamps program, officially known as SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The numbers reveal, in 2012, the food stamps program was the biggest it’s ever been, with an average of 46,609,072 people on the program every month of last year. 47,791,996 people were on the program in the month of December 2012.”
Is It Fair For People On Food Stamps To Buy Prime Rib And Lobster While Working Families Barely Survive?
“Should we all quit working and jump on board the Obama gravy train? Of course I am being facetious, but when you are barely surviving does there come a point when it just becomes easier to give up and totally rely on the government? Today, the federal government runs nearly 80 different means-tested welfare programs, and many state and local governments have their own welfare programs on top of that. If you become an expert on those programs and you learn how to game the system, can you live more comfortably than someone that lives honestly and works as hard as they can and yet still makes less than 10 dollars an hour? Now, right from the outset of this article, let me make it abundantly clear that I do not believe that most people are abusing the system. As I have written about over and over, the number of Americans living in poverty is rapidly increasing because there are not enough jobs. There are not enough jobs because we are shipping millions of them out of the country to the other side of the globe, and we are also losing millions of jobs to technology. There have always been those that need our help, and because of the foolish decisions that we have made as a nation, the ranks of the poor will continue to expand. But it is also true that there are some people out there that are very brazenly abusing the system. For example, is it really fair for people on food stamps to buy prime rib and lobster while many working families barely survive? People like that are taking advantage of their fellow Americans, and they are making it harder for the people that really need the help to be able to get it.”
Households On Foodstamps Rise To New Record
“While hardly presented by the mainstream media with the same panache dedicated to the monthly ARIMA-X-12 seasonally-adjusted, climate-affected, goal-seek devised non-farm payroll data, the three month delayed Foodstamp number is according to many a far greater attestation to the “effectiveness” of the Obama administration to turn the economy around. And far greater it is: since his inauguration, the US has generated just 841,000 jobs through November 2012, a number is more than dwarfed by the 17.3 million new foodstamps and disability recipients added to the rolls in the past 4 years. And since the start of the depression in December 2007, America has seen those on foodstamps and disability increase by 21.8 million, while losing 3.6 million jobs. End result: total number of foodstamp recipients as of November: 47.7 million, an increase of 141,000 from the prior month, and reversing the brief downturn in October, while total US households on foodstamps just hit an all time record of 23,017,768, an increase of 73,952 from the prior month. The cost to the government to keep these 23 million households content and not rising up? $281.21 per month per household.”
Via Zero Hedge
First Term: Food Stamp Recipients Increased 11,133 Per Day Under Obama
“During President Obama’s first term, the number of persons taking federal food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), increased by approximately 11,133 persons per day.
When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the number of SNAP recipients was 31,939,110. By October 2012, the latest month reported, they had jumped to 47,525,329.
That means the food stamp program grew by an of approximately 11,133 recipients per day from January 2009 to October 2012.
CNSNews.com reported earlier this month that the federal government spent a record $80.4 billion on the food stamp program during fiscal year 2012, which was a $2.7 billion increase from FY 2011.”
Via CNS News
