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Food stamps: More Americans keep signing up

Food stamps went to an additional 290,000 recipients in October, a federal survey shows.

By Guest blogger / January 12, 2011

In October, nearly 300,000 Americans were added to the food-stamp rolls.

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As a logical consequence of the prolonged economic downturn it appears that participation in the federal food stamp program is continuing to rise.

In fact, household participation has been climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed the last peak set as a result of the immediate fallout following hurricane Katrina.

The latest data released by the Department of Agriculture shows that in October, an additional 289,737 new recipients were added to the food stamps program, an increase of 14.67% on a year-over-year basis, while household participation increased 16.98%.

Individual participation as a ratio of the overall civilian non-institutional population has increased 13.72% over the same period.

These results confirm that participation is continuing it's explosive climb, likely as a result of the jump in total unemployment, driving the nominal benefit costs up an lofty 13.95% on a year-over-year basis to $5,778,387,682 for the month.

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Writer, The PaperEconomy Blog

'SoldAtTheTop' is not a pessimist by nature but a true skeptic and realist who prefers solid and sustained evidence of fundamental economic recovery to 'Goldilocks,' 'Green Shoots,' 'Mustard Seeds,' and wholesale speculation.

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