Your tax dollars:
The Wall Street Journal two days ago reported the latest numbers saying that the rapid increase over the last year flattened out a bit in February, but the numbers are staggering.
Of course, the cynic (me), thinks that the number partly increased in recent years as people learned that they could get cold hard cash from the system (redistribution of wealth from the taxpayer) by just going down to the local mom and pop store and trading their benefits for cash at half their value while the store owner turns in the full value for reimbursement from the feds.
I am continually amazed that papers like the Wall Street Journal never do stories on all the immigrant convenience store fraud busts on-going (I’ve got another good one this morning, here). As far as I know I’m the only media source writing regularly on the fraud.
Here is the Wall Street Journal (click on the link to the stats to see how your state is doing):
Growth in the food stamp program appeared to reach a plateau in February — with 14.3% of the population relying on the safety net program.
The number of food stamp recipients was essentially flat in February, the most recent month available, with 44.2 million Americans receiving benefits, according a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (See a sortable breakdown of the data here.)
The food stamp program ballooned during the recession as workers lost their jobs or saw their hours and income reduced. The rise in recipients has begun to flatten in recent months, which may mean that as the economy is improving fewer Americans are seeking to join the program. Enrollment in the program is still high though, with 11.6% more people tapping benefits in February than the same month a year earlier.
The state with the lowest food stamp use (as a percentage of population) is Wyoming!
Wyoming had the lowest rate of recipients with just 6.6% of the state’s residents using food stamps.
What a coincidence, Wyoming is also the only state in the Nation that does not take refugees. Could we make the leap and assume they don’t have as many immigrants (percentage wise) as other states? By the way, a state can opt-out of the refugee program, here, which is what Wyoming did at some point.
By the way, I see there is still no Office of Refugee Resettlement annual report to Congress for 2008, 2009 and 2010. What are they hiding? I betcha refugee food stamp use figures are among the data they don’t want you or Congress to see.
For dozens and dozens of posts on food stamp scams, just type ‘food stamp fraud’ into our search function.