The number of Americans receiving food stamps will reach an all-time high of 28 million in the coming year, the Congressional Budget Office projects.
The spike in recipients in many states is a result mainly of the recent economic slowdown, along with rising prices for basic goods.
The Budget Office cited an expected growth in unemployment in predicting that federal benefit costs will rise to $36 billion and recipients will number 28 million in the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, up from 27.8 million in the current fiscal year and 26.5 million in 2007.
“People sign up for food stamps when they lose their jobs, or their wages go down because their hours are cut,” Stacy Dean, director of food stamp policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told the New York Times.
Dean disclosed that 14 states had seen their food stamp rolls reach record numbers by December, including Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan.
In Michigan, one in eight residents now receives food stamps. In West Virginia, it’s one in six, according to the Charleston Daily Mail.
From December 2006 to December 2007, more than 40 states had a rise in the number of food stamp recipients, and in six states, the one-year growth was 10 percent or more.
In New York, recipients numbered 1.86 million in January — about one in 10 New Yorkers.
The federal government foots the bill for food stamp benefits, while the states pay most administrative costs.
Recipients must have near-poverty incomes to qualify for benefits, which average $100 a month per family member.
A complex formula is used to determine eligibility, but in general recipients must have few assets and incomes below 130 percent of the poverty line, or less than $27,560 for a family of four, the Times reported.
Low-income Americans spend a higher share of their incomes on basic needs like food and fuel, and have been hit hardest by the rising prices of basic commodities.
The current food stamp program was inaugurated in 1964.
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