BIDDY BIDDY BIDDY DOES NOT COMPUTE …
This website has written extensively on food stamp irregularities at the state level – and the explosion of food stamp usage at the federal level.
Why? Because we’re firm believers in the “Coolio Maxim” (a.k.a. “if you don’t work, you don’t eat”) – and also we think focusing on various aspects of our nation’s increasingly costly dependence economy is a worthwhile endeavor.
Anyway, in researching a tangentially related piece on the first-term economy of U.S. President Barack Obama, we stumbled upon a piece in The Wall Street Journal by economist Richard Vedder which raises a much larger, more troubling question about food stamps.
Basically Vedder seeks an explanation to the following query: If unemployment is dropping and economic activity is picking up, why is the unprecedented expansion of the food stamp population continuing apace?
“We would expect the number of people on food stamps to increase with rising unemployment, poverty and falling incomes in late 2008 extending into 2009 and perhaps even into 2010 (even though the recession was officially over in late 2009). But more is going on here,” Vedder writes.
“Compare 2010 with October 2012, the last month for which food-stamp data have been reported,” he continues. “The unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent from 9.6 percent, and real GDP was rising steadily if not vigorously. Food-stamp usage should have peaked and probably even begun to decline. Yet the number of recipients rose by 7,223,000. In a period of falling unemployment and rising output, the number of food-stamp recipients grew nearly 10,000 a day. Congress should find out why.”
We agree …
This isn’t an anomoly, either, this is two years of hard data yielding an unmistakable conclusion: The ongoing “Obama recovery” clearly isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
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29 comments
Good story – but there’s several other benefits that people who receive Government Benefits like Food Stamps (SNAP), Medicaid, Section 8 Public Housing Assistance, TANF and others. Another program is Lifeline where people can qualify for a FREE cell phone and up to 250 minutes of monthly service.
Lifeline Landing is a new service that allows consumers to compare and evaluate different wireless carriers for their FREE Government Cell Phone Service and find the best deal for their individual situation. Visit http://www.lifelinelanding.com to learn more – hope this helps!
Lifeline is just another part of a long term shell game that has been going on since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the telco industry knows how to play not just both sides of the political spectrum, but both sides of the law.
Seriously, I’ve been watching this for 13 years now, it is just the same old tune over and over again.
I can’t believe they are advertising these on the radio
This is not surprising as the statistics are measuring two different groups. The unemployment rate only measures those in the work force. Food stamp usage includes (perhaps to a large extent) people who have dropped out of the workforce. The rise in food stamp usage may actually improve the unemployment rate because a declining number of people in the workforce will reduce the percentage of those “unemployed.”
Sweet Willie was not paid to provide the statistical evidence for a position. He is told what to say and it does not matter if it is true or not. This is not a respectable opinion.
Are you kidding? Food Stamps are the new unearned money. The more the government hands out, the more people there will be in line for the freebie. I thought The Wall Street Journal had swifter people than this.
I don’t suppose anyone stopped to think that many of the ‘new jobs” that are taking people off the unemployment rolls are paying so little that people still qualify for food stamps. My job pays a low wage. If I did not have another source of income or if I had one dependent, I would qualify for (and need) food stamps in order to have enough money to put food on the table.
Exactly. When we destroyed manufacturing and outsourced IT, we sent the good paying jobs overseas, and replaced them with service jobs, that pay less.
X2
Different now, but a USAF Corporal with wife and one child qualified for food stamps in Montana in the mid-60s.
Duh…Obama and the media are LYING to you…
FITS you are one Stupid Some Beech, for someone who fancies yourself a thinker…
Also: Maybe if you’d stop worshiping Coolio…and pick up a Bible…you would not be so blind and confused…
Evil and Hate lead to disaster (see Obama’s presidencey)…
Yet the Idiots think he’s wonderful…
What little t-bagger won’t admit to is his job at
Wal-Mart means he’s eligible for food stamps since Wally World pays so little. And since t-bagger was a draft dodger and refused to serve his country, he’s not a vet. Bawk, bawk, bawk….chickenhawk!
I LOVE to P!$$ off mindless idiots…
Thanks Guero…You prove what I say about Obama voters…
Good point cousin T. you makes us prowd to be Amerikans!
Did the WSJ say that the stockholders at Publix, Food Lion, Piggly mothafucking Wiggly, and Winn-Dixie welcomed the expansion.
X2
“If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
Sounds like a plan, Will. First…you seize all the infants. Next…you pump the formula out of their little stomachs and toss ’em into a corner…put a sock in their mouths if they complain too much. After that…well…not so sure…
Maybe you need to call Howard Rich for further instructions…
Just start sterilizing the parents. We can feed the existing brats.
Sounds like a plan, Dr. Mengele
Do you feel it would be “fair” to require sterilization if a woman asks taxpayers to feed her children? Is one enough? Three too many?
Further proof that Republicans are a mean miserly group. You seem to think people getting these benefits are somehow rich.
I am so happy to have someone on the White house who understands the plight of the poor, the importance of the safety ney, and the miserliness of the GOP.
On any given day, anyone, Dem or Republican, can collapse financially. Death, cancer, unemployment, layoffs, downsizing, a child with a terrible disease like progeria. A terrible tornado or hurricane and not being insured or lacking the right insurance.
Calamity awaits all comfortable people.
While every day is a new opportunity for every American to strike it rich, it is equally possible that the new day brings your downfall from your perch.
…… read and initialed
Further proof that Republicans are a mean and miserly group.” Good point but you forgot to add “stupid” and “unreasonable” to the mix.
Many years ago I owned a small retail establishment. I remember one of these old rright-wing redneck codgers came flittering into my store (around 1996). There was a low key, insightful discussion going on about health care reform amongst myself and a few customers. This old fart piped in that the health care system in America was “the best in the world” and we would be foolish to “tamper with it.” Further inquiry turned out that this guy was self-employed and had no health insurance.
I asked him what he would do if he needed hospitalization and he looked at me like I was an idiot while declaring that he had “NO PLANS TO GET SICK OR INJURED!”
How do you deal with that level of stupidity? Like he can control the passed out drunk who wanders into his lane and hits him head on; or he breaks his back falling off a ladder while cleaning his gutter…How about those nasty germs and viruses hovering all around? Do they skid to a halt and holler: “Beat it guys. THIS GUY AIN’T PLANNING ON US?”
I finally realized this guy was just a complete idiot when he declared that he had not had a phone since 1957 when he cancelled his service after he got in an argument with the phone company over a couple of dollars overcharged on his bill.
Good points, guys!
Don’t produce children you expect taxpayers to support.
Yea, well what will you do when calamity strikes the Federal Government?
The Federal Reserve has been buying the Federal Governments debt in the form of Treasuries, Mortgage Backed Securities.
Oh, and do not forget Zero Interest Rate Policy or the fact that sequestered national defense spending is delayed until March rather than facing entitlement spending on top of the trillions spent to buy our debt.
What you gonna do when the dollar is debased further still creating price inflation for your purchases on top of higher taxes on your income and investments?
Who will pay bail out America when our credit rating is lowered and our currency is worthless?
If you think for one moment that the banking crisis is fixed, and entitlements are evermore forthcoming never to be cut, that higher taxes and a worthless currency will create jobs to “grow” the economy to fix the financial crisis, you are deluded.
Ever hear of Phil Mickelson?
I am Phil Mickelson!
Food stamps are to a Republican like a bone is to a dog.
They simply take it and run with it.Usually,however,there is an amusing anecdote to go along with their general “outrage” at the stats at any given time.
The existence of such things as food stamps just seems to drive the sect crazy.so about once a year or so,we get a food stamp article.
Gee,Im already looking forward to next year!
Oddly enough, no one ever mentions that one of the biggest factions behind the “food stamp” program is the farm lobby.
I don’t this group could be labeled as “left leaning”.
Any publication with Wall Street in in the name shouldn’t talk about a group of people gaming the system. I guess they want a monopoly on that game.