Yesterday I was looking at the job loss stats for last month and Obama's statement on the Job loss numbers and I wanted to find out what the numbers are looking like for government programs - such as food stamps to get an idea of what is REALLY going on in this economy.
The numbers are disturbing to say the least when you put them into context and I wanted to share what I've found.
As of the month of April 2008, 28,063,229 - (28 million people) received Food Stamp benefits. That is up 184,241 from March 2008. That is 1,781,696 more than we had receiving food stamps in April 2007 and 2,047,362 more than we had in April 2006. (Taken from FNS website data report)
To truly put this into perspective, reports show that approximately 480,000 jobs have been lost in the first half of this year. The number of people that are receiving food stamps for the first half of this year (from the December figure of 27,561,755) HAS RISEN 501,474.
The entire population of the United States is estimated to be 304,543,397. Given that the USDA estimates that one in 3 people who should or could receive food stamps are missed, they estimate that there are now approximately 37.4 million people who are facing hunger in this country right now.....and that is by very conservative estimates.
Basically 12.3% of America's entire population is unable to afford to buy food - not gas, not clothing, not other essentials - but FOOD.
Although Congress did include additional funding for the food stamp program in the new farm bill, one has to wonder exactly how much more strain the system will be able to endure while the bottom continues to drop on the job market. (which they anticipate will continue through 2009)
As of April 2008, it cost $2,835,324,360 (that is 2.84 BILLION DOLLARS) to cover the approximately 28 million people receiving benefits.
I write this in the hopes that someone in the campaign will take notice - and will see that although Obama plans to offer tax incentives and rebates, etc are a good idea, that they are a benefit that people will not see until tax season next year - and these families need solutions that will get them through the months that fall between now and then. Hopefully this information will spur Obama and the rest of Congress to reevaluate entertaining the views of the oil speculator lobbyists that are currently preventing firm legislation from going through on regulating speculative practices as the fuel prices are directly resulting in the thousands upon thousands of jobs that are being lost - which is putting a severe strain on our government's ability to provide food subsidies - among other things - to sustain people.
We need action - and we need it yesterday - if speculation is not the culprit - as the lobbyists claim, then a little regulation into their practices should not be an issue. The fact that they are actively and adamantly campaigning against having to answer to the CFTC for their actions is not reassuring.
Source for numerical information: http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/34fsmonthly.htm
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