Food Stamps, Dollar Stores and The Working Poor

Food stamp usage surges when the economy enters into a recession.  That is no surprise.  In fact, this is the design of the program.  A safety net when things get bad.  But if we are to believe headline indicators, the economy is improving so we should see food stamp usage decline substantially.  It has not.  Thanks to the low wage recovery, you have a new class of working poor.  We still have an incredibly high number of Americans on food stamps as we start 2015.  Dollar stores have done a great job capitalizing on this army of people needing low cost items to buy.  Instead of selling trivial junk, many dollar stores now make most of their volume through food sales.  Working and being on food stamps doesn’t seem like a perfect combination but it is if you are one of the millions in the low wage economy.  As we will highlight in this article, we are finding a high number of Americans unable to dig themselves out of the hole set from the Great Recession.

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