Big Increase in Food Stamp Applicants
Alabama opened 2009 with 36,300 more families on the food stamp program than a year earlier, an increase of 16 percent, according to the state. Mobile County alone had 27,699 households that received food stamps in December, up from 24,875 families in December 2007.
Baldwin County also saw an increase — 3,341 to 4,089 households — that at 22 percent was double the increase seen in Mobile. But as a direct result of the economy the cost of food, fuel, (and) everything else goes up. In December, the state gave out $2 million more than it did just the month before, she said. In neighboring Jackson County, Miss., where the fiscal year runs from July to June, $14.1 million in food stamps was issued in 2008, easily eclipsing the $12.6 million given out the year before.
With no end in sight the numbers are sure to go up.The average price to feed a family has just about doubled over the past couple of years. The lack of jobs out there has also helped increase the number of enrollees in the food stamp program