Food stamps and food prices...
The current maximum benefit for USDA Food Stamps is $162/month for individuals and $542/month for a family of four. That equates to $5.40 for individuals living alone, and $4.52 for individuals residing in family households. I decided to see where those benefits stood in when the Bush Administration took office, and how their increase held up against inflation in the price of food. For assistance, I turned to the Way Back Machine, where, with a little digging, I was able to determine the benefits beginning October, 2000, were $130/month for individuals and $434/month for a family of four. Thus, individuals and families each saw a 23% increase in their benefits over those seven years, or a whopping $1.07/day for individuals living alone, and 90 cents/day for individuals living in families.
So how does that compare to the prices of CPI-tracked foods, including some I discussed earlier this morning?
(Note: The bottom number is the percentage increase.)
The average increase of these five staples was 45.08%, and even stripping out the highest and lowest results in an inflation rate of 33.4%, 10% higher than the rate of increase of the maximum food stamp benefit.
Clearly, one of the very first actions of any stimulus package should be to bring those number into sync, or better yet, to increase the monthly benefit substantially. Anyone who believes children can subsist, yet alone grow healthy, on $1.50 per meal is either delusional or completely out of touch.
