The ulttra liberal Washington Post, believe it or not, fact-checked the claim that food-stamp recipients have to get by on $4.50 a day and found it wanting:
The average monthly benefit for one person is $133.44, which is where the $4.50 a day figure comes from. But note that the name of the program refers to “supplemental” assistance. SNAP is not intended to be the only source of income for food. According to the USDA, about 75 percent of SNAP participants use their own money, in addition to SNAP benefits, to buy food.
USDA data show that only 20 percent of SNAP participants have no income, while the rest either earn wages or receive government assistance. (The SNAP benefits are reduced according to a formula that lowers the maximum benefit by 30 percent of net income; about 32 percent of households with children receive the maximum benefit.) The data also show that SNAP recipients spend a larger share of their overall income on food than nonparticipants with a similar income.
Moreover, the maximum monthly benefits can quickly climb as the size of the household grows. A family of four, for instance, could receive as much as $668 a month for food. Indeed, households with children receive 71 percent of all SNAP benefits.
The real food stamp, er, SNAP, story is how the program has grown explosively, to 47 million recipients, an increase of 70 percent just since 2008. Hard to believe there are quite that many hungry people in this country, and, guess what, I don't.
