23,116,928 to 20,618,000: Households on Food Stamps Now Outnumber All Households in Northeast U.S.

A record 23,116,928 American households were enrolled in the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — AKA food stamps — during the month of June, according to data released this month by the Department of Agriculture.

That outnumbers the 20,618,000 households that the Census Bureau estimated were in the entire Northeastern United States as of the second quarter of 2013.

According to the Census Bureau, the Northeast region includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Thus, in June, the households receiving food stamps exceeded the total combined households in all of these states.

The 23,116,928 million households on food stamps in June also outnumbered the 15,030,000 home-owning households in the entire Western United States in the second quarter of the year and the 18,018,000 home-owning households in the entire Midwest.

The West, as delineated by the Census Bureau, includes Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii. {snip}

The Midwest includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. {snip}

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The record 23,116,928 households on food stamps in June also equaled 20.16 percent — or more than one-fifth–of all 114,663,000 households nationwide in the United States as of June, according to the Census Bureau.

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In fiscal 2009, the year President Barack Obama was inaugurated, there was a monthly average of 15,161,469 American households on food stamps, according to the Department of Agriculture. {snip}

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