Food Stamps for Adults

Dean Baker claims today that people without children are unlikely to get food stamps:

"if they have no children they will probably not [be] eligible for food stamps or other government benefits."

I'm not sure what data he's using. Using the USDA's quality control files provided by Mathematica Policy Research, I found that over 5 million non-elderly, non-disabled adults without children were participating in the food stamp program by mid-2010, up from 2 million before the recession began.

Perhaps Dr. Baker forgot how the Obama administration stopped requiring Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (USDA officials call them ABAWDs) to be employed if they were receiving food stamps.

You can read about this and further SNAP eligibility expansions, and their depressing effects on the labor market, in my new book The Redistribution Recession, available for sale now.