The Food Stamp Program is a federally funded entitlement program designed to increase the food purchasing power of low-income households to a level that allows these households to purchase a low cost, but nutritionally adequate diet. Generally, households are expected to devote 30 percent of their countable income to food, including households whose only income is from public assistance. The Food Stamp Program then provides the difference between that amount and the maximum benefit. Maximum benefits are set at the amount needed to purchase the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Thrifty Food Plan. Income and resource limits in the Food Stamp Program are somewhat higher than in public assistance programs, allowing more households to be eligible for food stamps than are eligible for public assistance. Consequently, more children in New York State receive food stamps than receive public assistance. |
The rate of food stamp receipt among children varied greatly across the state. Among Rest of State counties, rates of food stamp receipt ranged from a high of 29.2% in Montgomery County to a low of 1.2% in Putnam County. The highest rates tended to occur in areas with relatively large rural populations such as Montgomery (29.2%), Chautauqua (26.2%), Oneida (24.2%) and Chemung (24.1%). Upstate counties with large urban centers such as Erie, Monroe and Onondaga also had high rates of participation: 22.7%, 22.2% and 20.9% respectively. The lowest rates of participation were found in the largely suburban counties such as Putnam (1.2%), Nassau (3.6%), and Suffolk (5.2%).
At the end of 2008, 851,116 children (19.3% of children) were in household that received food stamps, up from 611,990 children (or 13.0% of children) in 2000. Since the poverty rate remained about the same in New York State during the period, the rise in food stamp receipt is most likely due to major efforts of state and local administrators during the period to ensure that households that qualified for food stamps applied for and received food stamps.
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KWIC
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