The U.S. Census Bureau issued a report today that found that one in five children received food stamps in 2014 — despite an apparent economic recovery. As the Census Bureau reported in a press release announcing its latest report, Families and Living Arrangements:
The rate of children living with married parents who receive food stamps has doubled since 2007. In 2014, an estimated 16 million children, or about one in five, received food stamp assistance compared with the roughly 9 million children, or one in eight, that received this form of assistance prior to the recession.
What does this mean, given that the economy has been growing in recent years? Well, based on interviews I’ve done over the last several years on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — i.e., food stamps — the oft-touted recovery has not made its way to lower-wage workers. And while the unemployment rate has been falling, the so-called “participation rate,” or those who are working or actively looking for work remains at an approximately 35-year low. While some of that can be explained by retiring baby boomers — a federal report says about half of the 3.1 percent drop in participation since 2007 can be explained by retirements — not all of it can.
We remain mired in a period of wage stagnation for large swaths of workers, as Market Realist points out:
While hiring has picked up speed, wages continue to stay tepid. Private sector jobs have increased by 10.5% since the US economy exited the recession caused by the 2008 US financial (XLF) crisis in 2010. In contrast, average real wages grew by a meager 0.7% between 2009 and 2014.
This is why we continue to hear stories about families making use of SNAP — along with food pantries and soup kitchens — who never thought they would need to rely on the safety net before. Of course, our response to this has not been to admit that more need means more SNAP benefits being issued. Rather, we cut SNAP in 2014 and the GOP continues to push for more drastic cuts to the program.
This is absurd. There is no doubt that high SNAP enrollment is a bad sign, but cutting just to keep numbers down is foolish. We need to do things to get people off SNAP — create jobs, increase the minimum wage to the $15 an hour range, provide paid sick leave and family leave, etc. Basically, if we want to end reliance on emergency food systems we have to end the economic emergency that exists for so many. We need to make the economy work for everyone.
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Hank Kalet 