Food Stamps

Since the recession started in 2008, military members using food stamps has been steadily increasing. And going back even further to 2006, food stamps use has quadrupled. Why is this happening?

How Much was Spent?

In the fiscal year of 2013, which ended on the last day of September last year, military grocery stores known as commissaries saw $103.6 million spent on food stamps. This number has kept increasing since the recession started five years earlier, although general food stamps spending hasn’t increased at the same rate. While military members have doubled their food stamps spending since 2009, the general population has increased it by only 51%.

When a military member starts out, they get out $20,000 a year, which doesn’t include housing or food. This amount is just a bit over the poverty line, and would qualify them for food stamps in a two-person household. And while the service member is regularly employed, if they’re married, their spouse has to contend with being uprooted and finding a new job every few years—and event that can make it more difficult to work up in one company.

How Prevalent is This?

Overall , service members only make up a small fraction of overall SNAP use. For example, in 2011, only 5,000 active-duty military members were on food stamps, which was under a tenth of 1% of all 44 million people on food stamps. Records aren’t kept as to which military members or demographics are using food stamps, but Pentagon officials guess it’s members with the least ranked, such as the youngest ones aged 18 to 20.

One of the reasons for this is the still-weak economy, even after the recession ended. While service members can generally be considered “safe” and on an upward trajectory if they continue in the military, their spouses and family members may not fare the same. Being relocated every few years is fine for the service member because they have a job waiting for them, but it breaks up any momentum for their spouse in earning promotions and raises.

Given that, it’s not much surprise to learn that for spouses of active-duty military members aged 18 to 24, the unemployment rate is a huge 30%. Or that in the last 30 years, the number of U.S. workers has generally increased at the same pace as its citizens (approximately 40%), but that the number of low-income earners who live in low-income households has spiked 94%.

What Lies in the Future?

A stable—or stabilizing—economy would go a long way in ensuring that military members’ use of food stamps doesn’t keep increasing at the same rate. And if Congress could either minimize their cuts to the SNAP program (the latest one resulted in $11 less per month, for an average of $134 per month at the end of the fiscal year) or implement programs that would combat the problems food stamps recipients face, the country could go a lot further in providing prosperity for more of its citizens.