Michigan Legislature considering changing how they pay out for food stamps.

[knitter4democracy]

There's a bill in each house (HB 4923 and SB 120) to change the food stamp payout to twice a month so people can spend the money on perishables more easily. While I started thinking that was a good idea in reading yesterday's article (which for some reason is not on our paper's website--I spent ages searching for the article today for a link), what really struck me was what the average recipient gets in Michigan; $88/month. Seriously?! No one can survive on that, even if it's supplemental. That's terrible!

Oddly enough, yesterday's paper had the entire story above the fold: leader was the food stamps story, just under it was a story on our local food bank's big spring push, and to the side was a study on the Iraq War costing us $12billion a month. There ya go. We're wasting boatloads of money on Iraq and going deeper into debt, the state is only paying out $88/month to our poorest citizens, and that's why the Food Bank needs more money. Gah!