WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A record 31.8 million Americans received food stamps at the latest count, an increase of 700,000 people in one month with the United States in recession, government figures showed Thursday.

Food stamps, which help poor people buy groceries, are the major U.S. anti-hunger program, forecast to cost at least $51 billion in this fiscal year ending Sept. 30, up $10 billion from fiscal 2008.

"A weakened economy means that many more individuals are turning to SNAP/food stamps," said the Food Research and Action Center. Last summer food stamps were renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The average food stamp benefit is $115 a month for individuals and $255 a month per household.

Enrollment for food stamps in December was up 2.2% from the previous month with increases in all but three states. Ohio had the largest increase among large states, up 3.4%, to 1.26 million people. Texas had the largest enrollment, 3.05 million, up 1.8%.

The previous record for food stamp enrollment was 31.6 million last September, which included "disaster" stamps for states hit by hurricanes and floods.

In April, food stamp benefits will increase temporarily by 13% under provisions of the recently enacted economic stimulus law. Ellen Vollenger of the Food Research and Action Center said some families will see increases of $80 a month.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/05/news/economy/foodstamps.reut/index.htm?section=money_latest

People do have to eat.

It is going to get worse before it gets better. Job loss is happening so fast. People will have to reach out for help.

problem is....i'm doing barely enough for me and my son. If I had extra...i wouldn't mind helping others

think about this people, there are only 200 million people in the united states. that's a huge percentage of people suckling on mama government's teets!!!

That's so sad.

They don't even get very much in food stamps either. A month's worth of food stamps might only cover over a week of food.

What's even worse is that so many people are that poor in the greatest country on earth.

blame the republicans

we actually need to throw the blame our own ways because if we weren't so busy trying to keep up with the jones', we could have seen it coming. but even still, we would have needed the wisdom to pace ourselves and realize that material items are just trappings. but societal boredom caused by rapid influx of information not coming in rapid enough anymore makes us look to these things to keep ourselves occupied with some kind of a goal that we can percieve for ourselves that is attainable.

welcome to capitalism

The population is much higher than that the last figure I could find was 272,000,000 for the year 2000. So I would guess over 300,000,000 now for sure.

you might be right, but that is still quite a chunk of people. if you're correct that would still be around 10% of the population.