Trump gets food stamp usage down 12 mos. straight

The latest government report announced that overall food stamp participation in the United States has declined for 12 straight months under the Trump administration.

Showing yet another indication of a booming economy – in addition to historic lows reached in unemployment under President Donald Trump – the most recent statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reveal that the nationwide enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – which oversees the administration of food stamps – has diminished dependency on government food benefits steadily over the past year.

“(SNAP) showed that the number of people on food stamps went down every month in fiscal year 2018,” Breitbart News reported.

Proof is in the numbers …

The recently divulged data released by SNAP breaks down the month-by-month decline in how many Americans canceled their SNAP benefits for food stamps over the past year.

October to November: 4,050,688 recipients drop
November to December: 357,508 recipients drop
December to January: 740,952 recipients drop
January to February: 385,456 recipients drop
February to March: 39,701 recipients drop
March to April: 426,055 recipients drop
April to May: 139,570 recipients drop
May to June: 175,204 recipients drop
June to July: 352,584 recipients drop
July to August: 86,238 recipients drop
August to September: 297,116 recipients drop
September to October: 61,888 recipients drop

The unprecedented decline in the number of Americans dependent on food stamps is putting President Donald Trump and his administration in the record books.

“[T]he number of individuals and households on food stamps dropped to historic lows, with 1.4 million households and 3.6 million individuals dropping off the food stamp rolls since the first full month Donald Trump served as president,” Breitbart informed, as indicated in a separate report the conservative news agency published last week.

Not just a recent trend …

Even though SNAP has outlaid food stamps to a record-low number of recipients during the first two-plus years Trump has been in the Oval Office, numbers dependent on the food program have been dwindling since the second term of the Obama administration.

“These downward trends have not only continued over the past year, but for several years, as SNAP enrollment has been steadily declining since 2013,” Breitbart noted.

However, the consecutive month-by-month drop in food stamp usage registered under the Trump administration has shown a more dramatic decline than those under the years of former President Barack Obama, as his Republican successor took a bite out of food stamps beginning the month after he took office, as indicated in a report on his food stamp reduction last year.

“The USDA data shows that since February 2017 – Trump’s first full month in office – enrollment in SNAP dropped by 2,789,852 – which can be mainly attributed to the Trump administration’s efforts to reform the nation’s food stamp program and the improving economy,” Breitbart News reported in September. “The agency announced in March that it hired an ‘integrity officer’ to bolster the administration’s efforts to prevent fraud in the country’s SNAP program and announced in February the rollout of its ‘Harvest Box’ program to give food stamp recipients a box of food as part of their monthly benefits package.”

Reduction in food stamps no accident

The plummeting number of Americans dependent on food stamps has been on the Trump administration’s agenda for some time, as it has been carrying out its “Executive Order Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility,” which endeavors to get Americans back on their feet and in control of their own finances.

“Unfortunately, many of the programs designed to help families have instead delayed economic independence, perpetuated poverty and weakened family bonds,” the order reads, which is posted on WhiteHouse.gov. “While bipartisan welfare reform enacted in 1996 was a step toward eliminating the economic stagnation and social harm that can result from long-term Government dependence, the welfare system still traps many recipients – especially children – in poverty and is in need of further reform and modernization in order to increase self-sufficiency, well-being and economic mobility.”

Written and signed by Trump last April, the directive contends that more money funneling into the welfare system merely increases dependence on the government and takes away the motivation of Americans to search for work and achieve success without federal aid.

“In 2017, the Federal Government spent more than $700 billion on low-income assistance, [and] since its inception, the welfare system has grown into a large bureaucracy that might be susceptible to measuring success by how many people are enrolled in a program – rather than by how many have moved from poverty into financial independence,” the directive continues. “This is not the type of system that was envisioned when welfare programs were instituted in this country.”

Trump contended in the order that his administration is dedicated to do its job and get Americans back on their feet so that they are financially independent and strong enough to pay their own bills – as opposed to being dependent on the government to survive.

“The Federal Government’s role is to clear paths to self-sufficiency, reserving public assistance programs for those who are truly in need, [and it] should do everything within its authority to empower individuals by providing opportunities for work – including by investing in Federal programs that are effective at moving people into the workforce and out of poverty,” the executive order declares. “It must examine Federal policies and programs to ensure that they are consistent with principles that are central to the American spirit – work, free enterprise and safeguarding human and economic resources. For those policies or programs that are not succeeding in those respects, it is our duty to either improve or eliminate them.”

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