Military Families Often Depend on Food Stamps

Our military is all-volunteer. We pay people to defend the nation. Apparently, we don’t pay very much.

When did a McDonald’s style wage become the norm across the United States? From adjunct professors, to government contract workers , to our soldiers, no one in those groups makes much more than a fast food worker. There are airline pilots making 18,000 a year. Is that the goal?  – that everyone in America who works in a salaried job make around twenty thou a year?

James Pilant

Military Families’ Reliance On Food Stamps Hit A Record High Last Year

Military families were more reliant on food stamps in 2013 than in any previous year, according to a Department of Defense (DOD) review that found over $100 million in food stamps spending at military grocery stores last year.

The DOD-run stores, known as commissaries, sell food to active-duty and retired military personnel and their families at prices that are lower than what private grocers charge. Nearly $104 million of the $6.2 billion in total revenue the commissaries brought in during fiscal year 2013 came from food stamps.

Food stamp usage at the stores has more than quadrupled since 2007 as the recession compounded the already difficult financial situation faced by military families. New soldiers with a child and a spouse earn $20,000 per year in pay, according to CNN Money, and the frequent relocations and disruptions inherent to the lifestyle of a military family make it harder for military spouses to find jobs and bring in supplementary income. The unemployment rate for young military spouses was 30 percent in 2012. Retired military servicemen and women who joined up after 9/11 have a 10 percent unemployment rate, which also contributes to the elevated food stamp figures at DOD commissaries, and nearly a million working-age veterans lived in poverty in 2010.

via Military Families’ Reliance On Food Stamps Hit A Record High Last Year.

From around the web.

From the web site, Military.com.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/07/13/dod-5000-military-families-losing-food-stamps.html

The House action that stripped food stamp funding from a massive farm bill would threaten vital assistance for about 5,000 military families, mostly from the junior enlisted ranks, Pentagon officials said Friday.

A Department of Agriculture report last year showed that more than 5,000 of the 48 million Americans receiving Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program (food stamps) listed their employment status as “active duty military,” the Pentagon officials said.

“Military members who receive SNAP tend to be made up of members in junior pay grades with larger than average household sizes,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman.