Newt Gingrich has come under fire recently for his statement that Barack Obama is the "Food Stamp President." In response to Gingrich, the left makes three claims:
1. Racist!
2. It's Bush's fault
3. Well yes, but the population has increased too so Obama can't be blamed.
It is this last claim that I wanted to take a look at and see if population growth could account for the increase of people on food stamps.
The U.S. civilian population estimate on the first day of *FY2010 was 307,518,237 [2]. SNAP participation for FY2010 was 40,302,000 [3]. The percentage of people on food stamps was 13%.
The U.S. civilian population on the last day of FY2011 was 310,800,403. [4] FY2011 saw 44,709,000 [3] people receiving SNAP benefits. This represents 14.3% of the population. So while the population did increase, so did the percentage of people on food stamps!
There's more.
The population increased by 1% during this time. However, food stamp particitpation increased by almost 11%! Increases in the population does not account for the increase in food stamp usage.
Lastly, the stimulus changed the SNAP program. First, it increased funding by almost $20 billion [5]by increasing monthlybenefit levels [6]. It also changed the amount of time that an able-bodied adults without dependents. The restrictions placed on benefits by the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 were rescinded [7].
Seems like Obama is much more culpable for the increase in SNAP than I thought.
*The reason why I chose FY2010 is because that is the first fiscal year in which Obama was the president throughout.
