Below is an image that has some statistics on those who are on Food Stamps, 1 in 7 households and many have children and of course seniors make up a large group as well. Food banks are already preparing to help where they can with the upcoming shortage and many of those centers are already overwhelmed. Some are just barely getting by and now we can add hunger to the other problems we have in the US. If you want to look at the economic side, this also means less income for grocery stores. I don’t know if you have watched the news about grocery stores profits have fallen and they are closing up shop in Chicago and Cerberus, a private equity firm is looking to buy them and all the company executives are selling out their stock, so multiply that out against many grocery stores and this does not help at that end either. Safeway is also looking to sell their Canadian stores.
Meanwhile the GOP in Congress wants to look at cutting even further and remove more people from the food stamp rolls by attaching a work clause to the benefits but in some areas of the country people still can’t get jobs, so you end up with jobless hungry people. There are bills in both the House and the Senate. States could even act on their own to further reduce benefits.
The Vets get hit again as well as 900,000 former military personnel lived in households with food stamp benefits. This is not going to do much for healthcare either as people will eat more junk and not have the same focus on healthy eating if they can’t afford it and we all know it’s costs more to eat healthy these days. Money that was there for doctor’s visits will now be used to eat and for other basic needs. Four million families in California will be affected. Again it is always the poor that are affected. BD
That is when Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits are set to fall for more than 47 million lower-income people -- 1 in 7 Americans -- most of whom live in households with children, seniors or people with disabilities. Barring congressional intervention, the maximum payment for a family of four will shrink from $668 a month to $632, or $432 over the course of a year.
That amounts to 21 meals per month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The cuts will leave participants in the program, better known as food stamps, with an average of $1.40 to spend on each meal. The amount people get could sink even more if Congress makes deeper cuts later this year when House and Senate lawmakers try to hammer out a farm bill.
Another group with lots of members in SNAP: Veterans. U.S. Census Bureau data show that, in 2011, some 900,000 former U.S. military personnel lived in households that used food stamps.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57609936/millions-on-food-stamps-facing-benefits-cuts/
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