Food stamp usage steady in rural areas, while overall national rate goes down - Entrepreneur Generations

University of New Hampshire chart; click on the image to enlarge it.

Rates of food stamp use held mostly steady in rural areas from 2015 to 2016, even as the rate for urban and suburban areas has been declining since 2012, according to a data analysis by Jessica Carson at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey School of Public Policy.

In 2016, 12.4 percent of households nationwide received food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Suburbs had the lowest rate of usage at 9.9 percent, and rural households had a 14.8 percent rate. Urban households had a slightly higher rate of usage than rural households in 2016, but a decrease in urban SNAP usage from 2015 narrowed the gap considerably.

The report also found that 79.1 percent of SNAP households nationwide have at least one person employed, and that rural SNAP households have a lower median income than SNAP households in suburban or urban areas.

"Rural America’s food-stamp usage rate mirrors other national economic trends. Nonmetropolitan counties’ job growth has been anemic compared to metropolitan areas (especially compared to major metropolitan areas). Rural counties have yet to return to pre-recession job numbers, while metropolitan counties have more jobs now than before the recession," Tim Marena reports for The Daily Yonder.

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2jxw3uI Food stamp usage steady in rural areas, while overall national rate goes down - Entrepreneur Generations

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