Triskaidekaphobia

Food Stamp Dole Reaches Highest Ever Number

Here's a number you should be afraid of. New statistics from the USDA show that 40.8 million people are receiving food stamps in this country. The article does not specify if the figure refers to only actual individual recipients or all the members comprising the households of recipients. Either way it is frightening. According to the Census Bureau's web site, there are 309.9 million Americans. Of course there are God knows many illegal aliens here, anywhere between 10-50 million, the numbers vary so widely, and many of them receive food stamps, but let's just use baseline numbers here. Diving 40.8 by 309.9 you come up with 13. A bit more actually -- 13.2% of Americans benefit from food stamps.

And that's nearly a best-case scenario. If, as I fear, the number does not refer to a family of four with one parent receiving food stamps as four stamp receivers, but instead considers such a family as being only one recipient the implication is much worse. 13% of Americans at least are on food stamps. I'm not afraid of black cats nor ladders nor broken mirrors, but a 13% slice of America needing financial assistance in order to eat is truly intimidating.