Report: SNAP participation remains high because unemployment is high
July 30, 2013 | 08:09 AM
The number of people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits remains high because the number of people without jobs remains high, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said in a report issued Monday.
Critics have charged that the number of people receiving SNAP benefits, better known as food stamps, has risen and stayed above 47 million because the Obama administration and the states have made it too easy to gain access to the program.
But Robert Greenstein of CBPP said the number of people who are eligible remains high even though the unemployment rate has come down because “the percentage of adults who are employed has barely budged from where it was when the recovery hit bottom” and because “the share of the unemployed who are long-term unemployed — a poorer group, more of whom are eligible for SNAP — remains far above its level in any prior economic downturn since World War II.”
The report also notes that the number of unemployed people who aren’t receiving unemployment benefits is higher now than at any previous time in the economic downturn.
Critics have charged that the number of people receiving SNAP benefits, better known as food stamps, has risen and stayed above 47 million because the Obama administration and the states have made it too easy to gain access to the program.
But Robert Greenstein of CBPP said the number of people who are eligible remains high even though the unemployment rate has come down because “the percentage of adults who are employed has barely budged from where it was when the recovery hit bottom” and because “the share of the unemployed who are long-term unemployed — a poorer group, more of whom are eligible for SNAP — remains far above its level in any prior economic downturn since World War II.”
The report also notes that the number of unemployed people who aren’t receiving unemployment benefits is higher now than at any previous time in the economic downturn.
