INSTITUTE INDEX
Institute for Southern Studies
Date on which Republican presidential candidate and former Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich, speaking during a debate in South Carolina, claimed that “more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history”: 1/16/2012
Number of days later that the Gingrich campaign unveiled a TV ad making the same claim: 1
Number of people who have joined the food stamp program — known since 2008 as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — under President Obama: 14,200,000
Number of people who became SNAP beneficiaries under President George W. Bush: 14,700,000
Number of people added to the SNAP rolls in the 12 months before Obama took office in January 2009: 4,400,000
Percentage by which that exceeds the number added in 2007, when the economic downturn began: 300
Number by which the SNAP rolls declined in October 2011: 43,528
Number of people receiving SNAP benefits, according to the latest figures available: 46,224,722
Proportion of U.S. residents that represents: 1 in 7
Proportion of residents receiving SNAP benefits in Mississippi, the state with the highest poverty rate: 1 in 5
Under the economic stimulus bill President Obama signed in 2009, increase in monthly SNAP benefits for a family of four: $80
Income limit for a family of four to be eligible for SNAP: $29,000
Percent of SNAP beneficiaries who are white: 36
Percent who are African-American: 22
Percent who are Latino: 10
Percent who are children: 47
Percent who live in a household where someone has a job: 41
Percent of SNAP households that also received cash welfare benefits in 1990: 42
In 2010: 8
SNAP’s annual cost to taxpayers: $75,000,000,000
Percentage by which that cost has increased since 2008: 200
Value of economic activity generated for every $1 spent on SNAP benefits: $1.84
(Click on figure to go to source. To comment on this index, click here. Image of Gingrich during the Jan. 16 GOP debate is a still from Fox News video via FactCheck.org.)