When former President Bill Clinton signed the landmark 1996 welfare reform law, it was supposed to “end welfare as we know it.” Despite that pledge, spending on the 77 welfare programs administered by the federal government and the states has skyrocketed over the past 15 years. (more)
Welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants cost America’s largest county more than $600 million last year, according to a local official keeping tabs on the cost. (more)
Many American colleges and universities are steering their students toward a new source of “financial aid”: food stamps. (more)
I’m on food stamps. Last month, despite the fact that I’m middle class and have a job, the District of Columbia enrolled me in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. For the next year, I’ll be getting $105 a month in assistance, no strings attached. (more)
What can you buy with food stamps? Pretty much anything sold in a grocery store, other than tobacco, booze and hot food. To find out what that really means, I took my November stipend to Whole Foods, a pricey organic food emporium that is as much a yuppie metaphor as it is a supermarket. (more)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the congressmen spearheading the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act made a last-minute plea to the House – “in the name of the child” — to support passage of the act on Wednesday. (more)
An old friend of mine recently concluded an email by noting that The Social Network, the Aaron Sorkin movie about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, “really makes you aware of how much good luck and timing are involved with great inventions and great fortunes.” (more)
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought federal permission on Wednesday to bar New York City’s 1.7 million recipients of food stamps from using them to buy soda or other sugared drinks. (more)
Would you be willing to exchange $86.79 for $24? (more)
Democrats who reluctantly slashed a food stamp program to fund a state aid bill may have to do so again to pay for a top priority of first lady Michelle Obama. (more)
House members return to Washington this week for a special session that will include a vote on a $26.1 billion spending package intended partially to keep states from laying off teachers, a move some critics have called a “bailout for teachers unions.” (more)
SNAP, the federal food stamp program, is getting snapped up by Democrats these days, hungry for savings to placate deficit hawks and clear the way for legislation. (more)
If people are bent out of shape about about a couple of kids with poorly-spelled names using food stamps for raw honey, I wonder how apoplectic everyone’s going to get when they learn that 56 of their tax dollars went toward a bunch of beer and Skittles this week. (more)
The welfare reforms of 1996 replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) as the primary safety for the poor. But the Great Recession has exposed the failure of TANF as a safety net to catch American families as they experience hardship. (more)
About 20,000 people sign up for food stamps every day, and college students across the country are the newest demographic being encouraged to enlist. (more)
Think of it as the effect of a grinding recession crossed with the epicurean tastes of young people as obsessed with food as previous generations were with music and sex. Faced with lingering unemployment, 20- and 30-somethings with college degrees and foodie standards are shaking off old taboos about who should get government assistance and discovering that government benefits can indeed be used for just about anything edible, including wild-caught fish, organic asparagus and triple-crème cheese. (more)
Food stamp distribution has skyrocketed since the U.S. Department of Agriculture renamed the program Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2008 and began pushing states to give federal food aid to people without verifying their finances. (more)
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