{"id":11070,"date":"2012-09-25T10:43:17","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T16:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=11070"},"modified":"2012-09-25T11:04:57","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T17:04:57","slug":"why-idahos-food-stamp-use-continued-its-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/09\/25\/why-idahos-food-stamp-use-continued-its-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Idaho&#8217;s Food Stamp Use Has Continued To Grow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, 13.5 percent of Idahoans received <a title=\"Understanding Food Stamp Use in\u00a0Idaho\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/topic\/food-stamps\/\" target=\"_blank\">food stamps<\/a>, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.\u00a0 That works out to about 214,000 people. It&#8217;s an increase from 2010, when 12.5 percent of Idahoans were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).<\/p>\n<p>In fact, as shown in the graph below, Idaho&#8217;s rate of food stamp use has risen year after year since 2007, when it was 6.2 percent.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/a\/boisestate.edu\/spreadsheet\/oimg?key=0AtNHLtezDs_XdE5hTnFSWERPR0hMV1FSazhORmtCVUE&amp;oid=1&amp;zx=5uvrzyuekzgc\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"source\">Source: U.S. Census Bureau<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Food stamp <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fns.usda.gov\/snap\/applicant_recipients\/eligibility.htm\" target=\"_blank\">eligibility<\/a> is means tested, but, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbpp.org\/cms\/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=2226\" target=\"_blank\">points out<\/a>, it is not limited to specific categories of people.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/09\/24\/idahos-poverty-rate-continues-its-rise\/\">Idaho\u2019s Poverty Rate Continues Its\u00a0Rise<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/09\/20\/idaho-incomes-fall-for-third-year-in-a-row\/\">Idaho Incomes Fall For Third Year In A\u00a0Row<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2011\/11\/EmptyFridge_MelYates_Getty1-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/topic\/poverty\/\">Measuring Idaho\u2019s Poverty Rate<\/a><\/p><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/01\/ElectronicBenefitTransferCard_ERSaunders-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/topic\/food-stamps\/\">Understanding Food Stamp Use in\u00a0Idaho<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Monthly income is the most important determining factor in eligibility.\u00a0 SNAP benefits are available to those whose total income is equal to or below 130 percent of the poverty guideline, whose net income is equal to or below the poverty line, and who meets specified asset limits.\u00a0 (College students and undocumented immigrants are among those who do not fall under the program&#8217;s broad umbrella.)<\/p>\n<p>Given that Idaho&#8217;s <a title=\"Idaho\u2019s Poverty Rate Continues Its\u00a0Rise\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/09\/24\/idahos-poverty-rate-continues-its-rise\/\" target=\"_blank\">poverty rate has climbed<\/a> upward year after year since 2007, it stands to reason that food stamp use is also on the rise.\u00a0 Moreover, Idaho is singled out as one of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbpp.org\/cms\/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=2226\">states in which enrollment has grown the most<\/a> since the recession&#8217;s\u00a0onset.<\/p>\n<p>The average SNAP recipient receives about $134 per month.\u00a0 The Recovery Act boosted SNAP payments by 13.6 percent, or about $20 per month for most recipients.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/economix.blogs.nytimes.com\/2012\/05\/09\/food-stamps-and-unemployment-insurance\/\" target=\"_blank\">Critics of the program&#8217;s expansion<\/a> in the years post-recession point to that and other eligibility adjustments.\u00a0 That temporary boost is set to end in November 2013.<\/p>\n<p>In fiscal year 2011, federal spending on the food stamp program totaled about $78 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Census Bureau released the results of its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.census.gov\/acs\/www\/\" target=\"_blank\">2011 American Community Survey<\/a> last week. We&#8217;re breaking out the findings of that comprehensive survey in a series of <a title=\"Idaho Incomes Fall For Third Year In A\u00a0Row\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/09\/20\/idaho-incomes-fall-for-third-year-in-a-row\/\">posts<\/a> here on the <em>StateImpact <\/em>site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, 13.5 percent of Idahoans received food stamps, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.\u00a0 That works out to about 214,000 people. It&#8217;s an increase from 2010, when 12.5 percent of Idahoans were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). In fact, as shown in the graph below, Idaho&#8217;s rate of food stamp use [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[126,103,46],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11158,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11070\/revisions\/11158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}