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Show Billions Channeled into Food Stamp Program Food stamp users have sufered more from inflation in recent years than the general population, despite automatic cost-of-living increases in benefits, according ac-cording to Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Carol Tucker Foreman. Overall income in the United States increased more than five times faster than incomes of food stamp households over the past four years. Incomes of food stamp recipients went up only 7 percent, while overall incomes rose 40 percent during this time. As a result, food stamp households are being especially hard hit by inflation. Foreman said. According to a recent survey. food stamp households have an average monthly income of about $320, compared to an average monthly household income of about $1,500 for the general population. Moreover, the poor have . little to fall back on, she said. Sixty percent of persons per-sons receiving food stamps have no liquid assets, and 95 percent have assets 'under $1,500. . The needy spend 90 percent per-cent of their income on necessities such as food, shelter, medical care and utilities. Other Americans spend only about 60 percent of their income to buy necessities, Foreman said. The price index for necessities shows the cost for these items has risen faster than the cost of other items--34 percent over the past four years. During the first nine months of 1979, the cost of medical care went up 9 percent, food up 9.6 percent, housing up 15 percent, and energy up 45.5 percent. Shoppers bought over $6.4 billion worth of food with food stamps this year, according ac-cording to Carol Tucker Foreman, assistant secretary of a agriculture for food and consumer services. The poor spent $3 billion more on food in 1979 than they would have without the food stamp program, she said. Food stamp dollars benefit U.S. food retailers and farmers, while helping to feed the nation's hungry, Foreman said. A department report on the economic effects of food stamps showed that spending spen-ding for food as a result of the stamps increased the income of food processors and distributors by about $1.4 billion. Farm income increased by nearly $1 billion because of the increased spending brought on by food stamps in 1979. Foreman said if food stamp benefits were cut by $1 billion next year, it would cost farmers $140 million in income. Food distributors-including distributors-including processors, packers, wholesalers and retailers-would lose about $210 million, and food expenditures ex-penditures would decrease by $350 million, despite the fact that stamp users would substitute some of their own money for the stamps cut. |