Tuesday, July 09, 2013

America's food aid

Roughly one-third of Americans receive subsidized food assistance from the government. A total of 101 million people currently participate in at least one of the nation's 15 federal food programs.

 The food stamp program represents the largest federally funded food assistance program, with a record 46.7 million participants. The next largest is the National School Lunch program which provides 32 million students with low-cost or no-cost meals daily. 10.6 million participate in the School Breakfast Program; and 8.9 million receive benefits from the Woman, Infants and Children (WIC) program each month, the latter designed for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding women. In addition, 3.3 million children at day care centers receive snacks through the Child and Adult Care Food Program. There’s also a Special Milk Program for schools and a Summer Food Service Program, through which 2.3 million children received aid in July 2011 during summer vacation. At farmer’s markets, 864,000 seniors receive benefits to purchase food and 1.9 million women and children use coupons from the program.

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