Twenty Percent of America’s Kids Are on Food Stamps

Published at 4:34 am, January 29, 2015

EastIdahoNews.com Staff

iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The economic recovery is not being felt by millions of the nation’s children as the Census Bureau reported Wednesday that one in five Americans ages 17 and under are on food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

That means 16 million kids need nutrition assistance. All told, 46.5 million Americans received federal food assistance in 2014, 20 million more than in 2007. The Census Bureau estimates that about half the children currently on food stamps live only with their mothers.

Before the housing market collapsed in 2007, which led to the Great Recession, nine million children were on food stamps.

With Congress having made reductions in funding to SNAP, participation and spending have already started to fall and should continue declining over the next decade.

Addressing the report, the Children’s Defense Fund advocacy group called it “shameful” that the U.S. now has the second-highest rate of child poverty among 35 industrialized nations.

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