One of the greatest lies about unemployment benefits and food stamps is that they are an economic stimulus. The claim has been repeated -- and embellished -- for years by everyone from politicians, to left-wing columnists, to the compassionate clergy. And in the case of food stamps, its the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that keeps planting the seeds from which this lie repeatedly sprouts. And with our money. Food stamps bring federal dollars into communities in the form of benefits that are redeemed by participants at local stores, says the USDA. These benefits ripple throughout the economies of the community, state and nation. The USDA further claims that every $5 in new food stamp benefits generate a total of $9.20 in community spending; every additional dollars worth of ... benefits generates 17 to 47 cents of new spending on food; and that, on average, $1 billion of retail food demand by food stamp recipients generates 3,300 farm jobs. Back in 2012, the USDA went as far as to claim that if the national participation rate rose 5 percentage points, $1.3 billion in food stamp benefits would create $2.5 billion in new economic activity nationwide.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Feb 2014 17:41:03 +0000
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