Reliance on food stamps rising in Tennessee
According to this KNS story, 407,000 households in Tennessee were enrolled in the federal food stamps program in March. The Census Bureau estimates that there are 2.4 million occupied households in Tennessee; that means 17 percent of households in this state are on food stamps.
The federal food stamp allotment amounts to $21 per week, or $1 per meal per person. With food prices the way they are in this country, that level can't be sustained without serious risk of malnutrition.
Last year, in an effort to raise awareness of the absurdly low level of this benefit, the governor of Oregon and four members of Congress tried to live on food stamps for a week (one of the four members of Congress had to fall off the wagon before the full week was finished, due to the TSA of all things). Imagine having to live at that level for months, or even years.
What kind of society would dare call itself "prosperous" when it expects 17 percent of its households (over 1 in 6) to feed themselves on wages barely above those of a subsistence farmer in sub-Saharan Africa?
What have we become?