Newt Gingrich recently called President Obama ‘the food stamp president‘.
Yes, food stamp usage has gone up under President Obama. It has gone up by about 3,000,000 … the approximate number of people that lost jobs during the Great Recession during President Obama’s portion of the Great Recession.
Umm, ah … however, the record for the greatest growth in food stamps belongs to President George W. Bush.
There were 31.6 million Americans living in poverty in 2000. There were 37 million by 2005, an increase of 5.4 million. That number dipped slightly with the ever so mild economic growth of 2006 and then it hit the skids again in 2007, surging from 36.5 to 37.3 million within 12 months.
What? Doesn’t Gingrich know that we live in a world where you can easily check the numbers?
If you really look at the numbers closely, food stamp usage decreased every year between 1993-2000 and then began almost a constant upward ascent between 2000-2010 — the only jagged edges in these numbers were with the people on the wrong end of the economic magic wand.
Of course, Gingrich didn’t mean his comment to be “factual”.
Dont you feel like mebbe that whole “Hurricane Katrina” catastrophe might have had some impact….just sayin.
Katrina’s number were large but insignificant when compared to timelines and when compared to the raw numbers and locations of recipients across time.