Some 43 Million Americans Use Food Stamps

You can call the current state of affairs many things. “A broad based recovery” is not one of them. #inequality #letthemeatcake

WSJ Real Time Economics Blog:

Nearly a year and a half into the economic recovery, some 43.6 million Americans continued to rely on food stamps in November.

More than 14% of the population drew food stamps in November to purchase groceries as high unemployment and muted wage growth crimped budgets. The number of recipients was up 0.9% from October, according to the new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Compared to a year ago, the number of people receiving food stamps was up 14.2%.

In both Washington, D.C. and Mississippi more than a fifth of residents received food stamps — the highest recipiency rates of any state.

But demand has grown stronger in the past year in a handful of other states that recorded significant increases on a per capita basis.

In New Mexico, 19.4% of the population tapped into food stamps. That’s up 3.2 percentage points from the same month a year ago, the largest increase for any state. Idaho reported a similar jump: 14% of residents received food stamps, up 3.1 points from a year ago. Washington, D.C., Florida, Delaware and Texas all experienced similar year over year increases.

Food Stamp Use, by State

Click on the top of any column to resort the chart.

State Number of people on food stamps Nov. 2010 Percent of population on food stamps ↑Year-over-year increase in percent of population on food stamps Year-over-year rise in umber of people on food stamps District of Columbia131,61121.9%3.017,939Mississippi612,88920.7%1.543,537Tennessee1,264,40719.9%1.278,616Oregon749,49819.6%2.077,462Michigan1,920,33019.4%2.4240,584New Mexico399,45419.4%3.264,917Louisiana866,90519.1%1.464,496West Virginia345,68318.7%0.713,318Kentucky813,04118.7%1.355,390Maine241,11718.2%1.621,255Alabama863,60618.1%1.885,934South Carolina839,10918.1%1.567,569Georgia1,732,86517.9%2.3226,054Arkansas487,78616.7%1.132,393Arizona1,050,18116.4%1.063,905Oklahoma615,19116.4%1.451,831North Carolina1,531,25516.1%2.6246,098Florida2,994,41315.9%3.0563,646Missouri931,93315.6%0.954,087Texas3,925,11915.6%2.8697,058Ohio1,772,60815.4%2.0230,378Washington1,019,79115.2%1.8122,678New York2,934,49315.1%1.6311,229Rhode Island154,03114.6%2.627,161Delaware129,04914.4%2.926,179Vermont89,31614.3%1.05,974U.S.43,595,79414.1%1.85,411,796Idaho219,27114.0%3.148,309Wisconsin771,41313.6%1.9109,383Illinois1,732,16913.5%1.3162,844Indiana863,48913.3%1.382,069Pennsylvania1,673,71413.2%1.3165,619South Dakota99,82612.3%1.19,316Massachusetts799,77012.2%1.279,259Montana120,01312.1%1.413,670Nevada322,95012.0%2.568,574Iowa351,89811.6%0.824,412Alaska79,24211.2%1.410,194Hawaii153,01811.2%1.621,657Maryland643,65111.1%2.0116,540Virginia837,00510.5%1.083,970Connecticut370,66510.4%1.656,826Kansas295,78710.4%1.441,118Utah268,2169.7%1.953,455California3,521,8819.5%1.3480,231Nebraska170,7319.3%0.916,057North Dakota60,6819.0%0.42,507Minnesota473,7768.9%1.367,463Colorado435,3068.7%1.155,350New Hampshire111,5188.5%1.114,789New Jersey706,7028.0%1.5127,748Wyoming35,9246.4%0.63,592