"Is the food stamp system the fall back for unemployed people whose unemployment benefits have run out. How does this affect any housing benefits so that folks can remain in their place of residence (i.e Shelter esp with one of the coldest winters forecast for a generation)?"

I'm not exactly sure what your question is, but I'm sure food stamps are separate from housing. The amount you get is dependent on income and how many people there are in your family.

I received food stamps for three months back in 1982 when I lost my job to the recession then, and it wasn't very much. I took a list and a calculator to try to get the most food value for the price. Then I would get behind a large woman with a bunch of kids and an overflowing basket full of junk food and soda and frozen prepared meals.

There seems to be some sort of multiplication equation involved, but I don't know how it works. Maybe if you're collecting other forms of welfare from the government you get more.

There are also Food Banks, that collect food and give it away to people who get food stamps (and maybe others, too), but I think you can only go there a few times a month. But the way things are now (not as good as the news media reports), the food banks are in dire straits due to more demand than they can supply.

Sue

On the up side, the boorish and inconsiderate behavior by those who paid by other means, not Foodstamps/WIC coupons, didn't seem to cause you any great discomfort.

I find it interesting that the indicators seem to say this experience comes from what sounds like 20 years ago. When was the last time there was "$0.19 loaf of bread, the $0.99 eggs, $0.99 gallon of OJ, $0.79 imitation pop tarts"?

It also has to be pointed out that the foodstamp program stopped issuing paper coupons in 2004 and the coupons themselves were non-redeemable as of June 17 2009. I haven't seen a coupon in better than four years. The debit cards are far harder to convert to cash.

Of course the foodstamp program is a subsidy for the poor and a backdoor minimum wage. Wages have remained static for most of forty years even as the cost of living has gone up. The simple fact is that you can work sixty hours a week and not make enough even minimally support a family.

As of last May one in eight Americans were receiving foodstamps.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6465E220100507

An example to work through would probably be useful

If you become unemployed from a job and are single which pays say twice the minimum wage i.e. $15 an hour and you work 40 hrs per week to get an gross income of $600 per week or $2400 per month and your New York rental property is costing $1000 per month. How quickly do you end up on food stamps if you have say savings of $6000 if you cannot find a suitable job to cover rental/mortgage expenses etc.

How much is unemployment benefit?

How long does unemployment benefit last? (Does eligibility for food stamps kick in after unemployment benefit runs out i.e. long term unemployment, or can the food stamp program be accessed even to those on minimum wage incomes as a government mandated supplementary income i.e. it is telling folks how to spend the cash for food)

How long is the rent paid for by Government assistance? i.e. is there are form of housing benefits paid to stabilise the housing market and reduce the considerable stress of having to think about moving whilst looking for employment. (millions on food stamps and considerable numbers homeless whilst there are approx 30 million unoccupied homes quickly falling into disrepair)

Is the level of government assistance dependent of the level of personal savings etc i.e. means tested?

The food stamps system appears to be a government form of food rationing much like the 1940s in the UK during and after WW2.

How robust would the system of food stamps be if the Federal Government defaults on its National debt. Would these folks hanging on by their fingernails be the first to feel acute hunger (25% of all children reliant on food stamps for nutrition) where as the rest of the population would at least have some devalued (inflation) income such as experienced in Argentina in the late 90s.

It would appear that even free board and lodging with 3 square meals a day at the Governments pleasure is starting to become restricted as more prison places are being reduced as local and state government are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Or does everyone simply call the 50 Million Americans with potentially no food resources, no income, no housing, no medical insurance and no hope, after a Government debt default, the 'Zombies' and be glad of the ammunition stock pile for those that have prepared. I hope not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiK_RF3ioRw

The last section of the video might be of interest to gather some actionable intelligence on how to proceed if the Government Debt default become reality. Try not to be too offended at Max Keiser's outrage.

I worked grocery when I was in college in the 90's so 15 years ago.
I still see if, before we moved we were in an older area of town, I used to find paper food stamps that they would toss out their car window, I wanted to get those and call up the.gov office and tell them so and so apparently doesn't need them since they are throwing them in our yard. That was just over a couple years ago before we moved. Our city is apparently behind the times. We had the houses around us rented out through the government section 8 program. Watched the 50" tv, big stereo, come in from rent a center. Watched the nurse come weekly yo check on the younger kids, watched the social workers come every couple weeks to check on the older kids, watched the church vans bring them food once a week then saw most of that food in their trashcan unopened the next trash day.

Whew! I don't know the answers to a lot of this...

The Food Stamp program is a federal program, totally divorced from unemployment, which is handled by each state individually (each is different). I'll have to use Washington State as an example, it's the only one I know, and I will be making some assumptions and estimates just to give you an idea of how it works.

A WA claim is good for one year, but the total amount is decided by how much you made, approx. 40% of your gross annual income. Using the job you mentioned ($28,800/yr), the total amount available would be about $11,500 for the year, or $960/mo, which wouldn't even pay his rent.

If he found a part-time job, 15 hrs/wk at min. wage of $8.67/hr (T= $520/mo), about 75% of that ($386) would be deducted from his unemployment. His gross income would be $1,094 (reduced unemployment payment of $574 + $520 from his P/T job), but after deductions, that would be about $990 cash in hand, if he deferred the deductions from his unemployment until the following tax year. Still not enough to keep his apartment.

WA has an online calculator for food stamps. With or without the $6000 in the bank, he could receive $149/mo.

But, using your figures, he cannot make his rent or his electricity payments, so he would probably be evicted very soon. If he moved in with a friend or relative and paid them $300/mo, his food stamps would decrease to $123/mo. If he had no friends or relatives and had to live under a bridge, his food stamp amount would drop to $33/mo.

Since he has no children, he would not be eligible for any housing.

"The food stamps system appears to be a government form of food rationing much like the 1940s in the UK during and after WW2."

No, not really. The WWII rationing applied to everyone, even if they could afford to buy as much meat or gas as they wanted. The majority of the food was being sent overseas to feed the troops. The rationing was to ensure that everyone got a bit of everything (meat, butter, eggs, etc). Joe Smith who lost a leg in WWII and sold pencils on a street corner got the same number/kinds of ration tickets that the local bank president got.

The bit about govt inspection of personal savings appears to be a very tangled web, and I don't know enough about it to say. I believe most of it involves long-term Welfare and disabled Social Security recipients. I do know that investigators will confiscate funds in excess of allowable limits, any bank accounts belonging even to the family's children, etc.

"How robust would the system of food stamps be if the Federal Government defaults on its National debt?"

Our National Debt is over $14 trillon -- it will never be paid. If you are referring to the token payments currently being made suddenly coming to an abrupt stop, the economies in every single country in the world will crash into the worst Grand Depression ever seen, and the starvation will be incredible. IMO.

The growing number of people "with potentially no food resources, no income, no housing, no medical insurance and no hope" aren't called Zombies, they are the "Invisible Poor", and their ranks are growing daily.

I hope this has answered at least a few of your questions. It's a complicated subject. If there are others who want to correct me, go right ahead.

Sue