Free Republic

More Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, but applications still stayed near historic lows that point to a stable job market. […] Weekly jobless claims have remained below the crucial threshold of 300,000 for more than a year, a level that usually corresponds with monthly gains in excess of 200,000. Economists expect that Friday’s jobs report will show that employers hired roughly 200,000 workers in February as the unemployment rate held at an eight-year low of 4.9 percent. …

Ten U.S. states still have not regained all the jobs they lost in the Great Recession, even after six and a half years of recovery, while many more have seen only modest gains. […] Wyoming had 3 percent fewer jobs last month than it did in December 2007, when the recession began, the Labor Department said Friday. That is the biggest percentage decline among the states. Alabama's job total trails its pre-recession level by 2.7 percent, followed by New Mexico, where job totals are 2.6 percent lower. Some larger states are also still behind. New Jersey has nearly 1 percent...

President Barack Obama responded to reports of slow job growth Friday by blaming Republicans who have opposed parts of his economic agenda. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report found the economy added 242,000 new jobs in February. The latest number highlights a long-running trend of slow, yet positive, economic growth. Obama credits the growth to his agenda but its slowness to Republicans for their opposition to his plan. “The plans that we have put in place to grow the economy have worked,” the president declared in the Oval Office. “They would work even faster if we did not have...

Despite the unemployment rate being at an eight-year low (4.9 percent as of January 2016), the number of people on food stamps remains near an all-time high which was 47,636,000 in 2013. Why the disparity in the numbers? Well, the unemployment rate does not take into account people who are not in, or have dropped out of, the workforce altogether. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January of this year that approximately 94 million Americans are not participating in the workforce. But the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been hovering around 46 million participants since 2011. ...

Author's Note: The email referenced in this column was composed by Chris Moore of East Carolina University, Michael Behrent of Appalachian State University, Jason Sturdevant of North Carolina State University, and Altha Cravey of the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Please feel free to email these public servants with your thoughts.Dear Faculty Forward Network (info@facultyforwardnetwork.org): I received your recent email on educational inclusiveness and diversity with great interest. I have written three books, spoken on 88 university campuses, and written approximately 1000 columns on the subject in the last 13 years. This was the first time I've ever...

Retailers that accept food stamps would have to start stocking a wider variety of healthy foods or face the loss of consumers under proposed rules expected to be announced by the Agriculture Department on Tuesday. The rules are designed to ensure that the more than 46 million Americans who use food stamps have better access to healthy foods although they don't dictate what people buy or eat. A person using food stamp dollars could still purchase as much junk food as they wanted, but they would at least have more options in the store to buy fruits, vegetables, dairy, meats...

More than 1 million low-income residents in 21 states could soon lose their government food stamps if they fail to meet work requirements that began kicking in this month. The rule change in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was triggered by the improving economy - specifically, falling unemployment. But it is raising concerns among the poor, social service providers and food pantry workers, who fear an influx of hungry people. Recent experience in other states indicates that most of those affected will probably not meet the work requirements and will be cut off from food stamps. ...

The social justice warriors of American campuses would like you to hold your applause. When a Yale student's angry meltdown at a professor went viral, viewers may have noticed the crowd gathered and some students snapping their fingers. It's the currently preferred method of showing approval in some circles, given complaints that traditional clapping can be "triggering," or even painful to hands unaccustomed to work. Although the curious digital trend is catching fire with the college crowd, it is not new or confined to the U.S.

The number of people receiving welfare cash assistance from the state has plummeted since Gov. Rick Snyder took office, partly due to the improved economy but also because the state now enforces a limit on how long beneficiaries could receive cash benefits. There were 227,490 people receiving cash assistance benefits from the state in 2011. As of August 2015, that number was down to 64,492. The state welfare agency's Family Independence Program provides temporary cash assistance to pregnant women and families with children. The program also attempts many interventions to get people employed in long-term jobs. From 2005 to 2011,...

New data released by the Department of Agriculture Oct. 9 shows the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, with enrollment exceeding 45 million for 51 straight months. The population of Canada: 34,834,841. “Between 2007 and 2011, new eligibility rules by themselves added 3.4 million people to SNAP enrollment and naturally tended to increase SNAP spending. At the same time, SNAP began to pay more generous benefits to people who enrolled,” Casey Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, told the Washington Free Beacon on Thursday. The growing SNAP population is a far cry from the 2.8 million enrolled...

My name is Christine, and I get food stamps. I've had to apply off and on over the past 16 years in order to make sure my family was fed. I don't feel the least bit ashamed of myself for this, but apparently some people think I should. Some people think I, and people like me, am lazy. Or that we're taking advantage of other (smarter, harder-working) people. Those people seem to have an image in their heads of how someone who "deserves" assistance behaves, and a very narrow idea of how we should feel about it. Those people are...

Maine Drug Enforcement Agency agents revealed yesterday that EBT cards (debit cards that are loaded with funds for welfare programs, like SNAP and TANF) are being used as currency to buy drugs. In the past 11 months, MDEA agents have found 40 EBT cards in 25 drug enforcement operations.

In a blog posted on Friday on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, the department boasts that food stamp spending at U.S. farmers markets has increased “nearly six-fold” since 2008. “National SNAP redemptions at those outlets totaled $18.8 million during fiscal year 2014 (Oct. 1 to Sept. 30), a nearly six-fold increase since 2008,” the blog states, calling the increase “a win-win for all.” (SNAP is the acronym for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food stamp program.) […] Calling food stamp payment at farmers markets a “top priority” for the USDA, the department is providing free wireless equipment to...

the nation’s legal and illegal immigrant population hit a record 41.3 million in the summer of 2013 – up 1.4 million since July 2010. ... refugees from both Africa and the Middle East were users of the most cash assistance – noting that 91.4 percent of refugees from the Middle East were on food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The Maine Wire Maine Leads Nation in Food Stamp Reduction By Patrick Marvin July 30, 2015 According to recently released data from the U.S.D.A, Maine is leading the nation with its reduction in the number of individuals who are utilizing the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as the food stamp program. Between April 2014 and April 2015, 12.4% fewer individuals participated in the food stamp program in Maine, the highest percent reduction of any state in that time frame. Maine’s 12.4% reduction represents a decrease of approximately 28,000 individuals who are no longer enrolled in the program which...

Illinois and Michigan have traded places on two key metrics for measuring prosperity and opportunity, and both changes are embarrassing for the Land of Lincoln. The first major change came in October 2014, when Michigan surpassed Illinois for total factory jobs. Michigan now has 25,000 more factory jobs than Illinois even though the Wolverine State’s economy is only three-quarters the size of Illinois’. Now, new data from the Department of Human Services shows the embarrassing role reversal has come full turn. In March of this year, Illinois bumped off Michigan to become the Midwest’s No. 1 user of the Supplemental...

A record 21.7 million American kids get free or reduced-price lunch during at school. But when summer vacation starts, the vast majority of them go without this essential, federally funded benefit. Fewer than 4 million kids -- or just 18% of those in the school lunch program -- are fed through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's summer food program. While that's a record number for the 40-year-old initiative, many advocates and government officials say more needs to be done. "In the summer, when those school meals disappear, children find themselves hungry and with few options," said Duke Storen, a senior...

The bloated federal agency charged with feeding the poor—and eradiating “food insecurity” in the U.S.—blew nearly $7 billion to provide “ineligible recipients” with the welfare benefit and there appears to be no end in sight to the fleecing. In fact, the agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), has for years violated a measure known as the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (IPERA) that requires agencies to conduct annual risk assessments to identify programs that make “significant improper payments” of $10 million or more. Not only has the USDA violated IPERA in the last four years, it also refuses...

Soon it could be possible to apply for food stamps over the phone, with proponents arguing that in-person interviews add too much extra administrative cost. A report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) looked at whether it should get rid of in-person interviews for those who apply to receive benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is commonly known as food stamps. The program is the nation’s largest food-assistance program.

The big Agribusiness corporations are some of the most corrupt corporations in America. The New York Times had an article in 2013, on the Agribusiness corruption in the $1 trillion farm bill. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/business/richer-farmers-bigger-subsidies.html?_r=0 The Food Stamp programs and free school lunch programs, are a means by which Agro-business corporations can increase their revenues, by selling food to the Federal and State governments at above market prices. The food stamp program was never intended to help the poor. Even the USDA website admits that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was intended to help Agribusiness corporations sell surplus food that they were...