US statistics report food stamps useage down 1 million people

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   jackclee lmposted 6 years ago

   The question is, is this a good sign or bad?
   How many people are on food stamps? What percent of our population depends on it?
   Under Obama, he was called the foodstamp president for a reason. The roll of food stamps increased dramatically under his tenure. Now, in 2017, the number has dropped by over 1 million to 41 million.
   How does this happen? Are these peope no longer hungry?
   
   How do we explain this?

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      promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      A decrease in unemployment means more people have higher incomes. So they no longer qualify for food stamps.
      
      Recessions like the Great Recession under Bush lead to skyrocketing unemployment, which also leads to much higher food stamp usage.

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         jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Nice theory but does not explain why it only went down after election of Trump and a new administration...the recession was over after the first two years of the Obama admin.

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            promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Jack, you really need to stop turning every issue into Obama BS. The attached link from the USDA shows the participation rate started dropping back in 2013 as the unemployment rate went down.
            
            It has actually declined by 6 million people since then.
            
            https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/ … onthly.pdf

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               jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               It was under obama that foodstamps use reach the peak...that is why he is known as the food stamp president. Fact...no BS

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                  promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  Is any part of my post above inaccurate?

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                     jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                     No, but it is not telling the whole story either. Under Obama, foodstamp use was increased dramatically...
                     Checkout this plot...
                     
                     

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                        promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                        You are contradicting yourself. If my statement about food stamps skyrocketing in a major recession is accurate, then yes, they went up at the beginning of the recession when Obama took over and then fell by 6 million as the economy recovered.
                        
                        By the way, your chart comes from someone's amateur blog. It's not accurate or credible.

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                           jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                           If you have a more accurate chart, I like to see it.
                           Why can't you see what a destructive force was unleashed upon the American people?
                           Obama clearly relaxed the food stamp rules and in fact promoted it. I remember seeing PSA ads asking people to apply for SNAP program...
                           Past recessions have come and gone and we had not seen the dramatic rise in food stamp usage until the Obama years. The fact is many food stamp users are abusing this program designed to help the poor and the young. They are selling them for cash 50 cents to the dollar illegally...

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                              promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                              I posted the USDA link with all of the actual numbers. Didn't you look at it?
                              
                              By destructive force, do you mean the Great Recession of George Bush?
                              
                              Do you not understand that food stamp usage goes up during periods of increasing unemployment and much higher during a Great Recession with exceptional unemployment?
                              
                              These are yes or no questions.

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                                 jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                 That does not explain the doubling of food stamps use. It was encouraged under Obama...
                                 Recession is a natural economic cycle, it comes and goes every so many years...
                                 The recession of 2008 was one of the bigger one caused by the housing bubble...
                                 It was not the worst of all recessions. We recovered after 2 years at most. The problem was the slow recovery...as a direct result of economic policies put in place by the Obama admin. Obamacare was a great dis-insentive for small business to hire. Many jobs were converted to P/T due to the 50 person limit and 30 hour work week rules...
                                 Why can't you be objective and understand government policies have real consequences?
                                 Yes, I admit Obamacare helped some people with health insurance but at what cost?
                                 We could have given 20 million people free insurance by expanding Medicaid and still come out ahead overall. Instead, we are given a broken system design to fail in 10 years and with no good options. We are on path to a single payer system like it or not. That is Obama's greatest legacy.

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                                    PrettyPantherposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                    Just want to point out that "Medicaid for all" is a liberal position that had zero chance o getting congressional approval . The ACA was a compromise based on a Republican proposal.
                                    
                                    But, I have a feeling that more conservatives than ever now understand the cost savings of simply expanding Medicaid.

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                                       jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                       Yes, and I am one of those conservatives. I was against the ACA as proposed but now, we have no choice. I am also pragmatic. I believe the only way forward, is a single payer system and hopefully one that is fashioned after Taiwan's successful program.

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                                       wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                       The only "cost savings" are when the comparison is to a failed system designed to spend money, not provide care.  When compared to what was in place before the ACA it is a massive spending program, just like the ACA is.

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      Misfit Chickposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I'm not sure if you have seen me tell the tale about my neighbor lady who was ranting about getting unexpectedly cut off from food stamps toward the end of last year, sometime (while Obama was still in office) - and she ended up getting one more month - because jeez, isn't it nice to know ahead of time that there will be no food source for that month. It supposedly happened to quite a few people...
      
      They told her that since she was physically-capable of working (she has a mental illness including a serious social phobia - I rarely see her); that she HAD to either get a part-time job OR volunteer at one of the approved charities on a list for at least 10 hours a week.
      
      She was livid and having a really hard time making the adjustment. I think she gets food from food banks in the area, now. Seattle has a lot of them, ha!
      
      She used to be an English teacher a couple decades ago. I don't know what happened to her; but she's a nice lady, otherwise. Has lots of plants in her windowsills and a couple cats (Seattle also has a free volunteer vet along with FREE food & litter donations, etc. We seem to have as many people who love animals, as much as people.)
      
      Please don't judge us too harshly, Jack - we mean well, LoL!
      
      Obviously, my neighbor has managed to adjust. I hope all of them have been able to, but its probably unlikely. It might have something to do with the increase in city crime across the nation.

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         jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I love Seattle and have been there on vacation many times to visit my brother in law.
         They have a nice place off lake Washington.
         I just think your city council is cucco...with all the regulations and like and yet allow the homeless to sleep right in front of city hall and under the overpass...
         Your mayor and all the left wing council members need a lesson in economic theory and Milton Friedman. If it wasn't for Microsoft and Google and a few other high tech companies, Seattle will be broke just like a few hundred other large cities...
         Meanwhile, the immigrants have driven the price of housing way up...

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            Misfit Chickposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            They are cucco because they don't turn anyone away (literally, you don't even need ID here - they will make you a picture ID with any name you want on it to use among the shelters and some of the other programs. We have Mickey Mouses & Donald Ducks, etc) - although Seattle has been dealing with cleaning out homeless camps that become entrenched. Its been a pretty messy job; and crime & heroine addiction has been steadily increasing.
            
            I was reading a few weeks ago that the council was rethinking how to handle homelessness - the first priority was to START coordinating efforts among agencies instead of all of them working separately! *facepalm*
            
            Should that not be obvious?! That is actually one of our biggest problems as a country - the programs we do have aren't nearly as affective as they could be (usually because of a lack of funding). In their semi-defense, Seattle does have a lot of independent homeless charities that are not run by the city or government. Still, someone is just now thinking about trying to coordinate them?
            
            That is government for you - any kind of government, it isn't just a 'left' thing. And yeah, all the tech companies cause almost as many problems as they solve. The city of Seattle has been in an UBER-building-boom for a couple of years. Amazon is going nuts. Whatcha gonna do? LoL!

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   jackclee lmposted 6 years ago

   Obama did more... increase the national debt to 20 trillion...
   You want to see the plot of that?

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      promisemposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Do you think Republican tax cuts, two trillion-dollar Bush wars and the Great Recession that vastly cut tax revenue had a little to do with it?
      
      Again, a yes or no question.

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         jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         You are confusing Republicans with conservatives...
         Is Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell conservative in your mind? Not in my...
         Is John McCain and Susan Collins Conservative?
         How about Trump?
         
         Stop confusing things and let the media spin...
         They want you to hate conservatives because they have the only viable solutions...

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   jackclee lmposted 6 years ago

   Here is my article -
   "Solution-to-the-Healthcare-Crisis"
   One of my recent publication...

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