The number of children receiving food stamps was higher last year than it was before the start of the Great Recession in 2007 – one out of every five, or approximately 16 million, kids in the US received benefits, up from one out of eight, according to Census Bureau data released yesterday.
The annual Families and Living Arrangement report also found that the number of children who live with married parents and receive food stamps nearly doubled from 2007 to 2014, increasing from 2.7 million children to 5.2 million. Children living with their mothers only, fathers only, two unmarried parents, and in households with no parent present also saw an increase in food stamp assistance.
As the Huffington Post pointed out, this increase highlights the fact that most of the progress made in the economic recovery hasn’t been helping the middle and lower classes. It has only been helping the richest one percent.
And while the Congressional Budget Office has released predictions that food stamp enrollment should steadily decline in the future, HuffPo previous reported that a portion of that decline will be because of “rules that will push unemployed, childless adults off the program.”
Click here to read the Census Bureau’s full FLA report.
