Military food stamp use
When you think of someone who receives food stamps you generally do not think of someone serving our nation in uniform as being a recipient of food stamps. Surely we pay our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines enough money each month to support a family. Well, the sad truth is that no, junior enlisted do not make enough money to support a family. Which is why so many military families qualify for food stamps and is also why food stamp use in Commissaries (a grocery store on post) have gone from
$26.2 million in fiscal year 2006 to $103.6 million in 2013.
Some of the growth in soldiers' redemption of food stamps reflects the weak economic recovery, especially for spouses looking for jobs. In 2012, there was a 30% unemployment rate among spouses off active-duty military who were 18 to 24 years old, according to the Military Officers Association of America, which released the survey last week.
Cuts in the food stamp programs will only make things worse for many military families. But, that is not the worst part.
Coupled with cuts in food stamp programs...
...the Defense Department subsidy [for commissaries] would drop from $1.4 billion annually to $400 million under a defense budget proposal the Obama administration plans to deliver to Congress next week, Pentagon officials announced Monday. The commissary cut will be accomplished not by eliminating any commissary locations, but by reducing the amount of savings over civilian markets that service members enjoy.
Talk about a double whammy. Congress makes cuts to benefits that junior enlisted troops need in order to feed their families and at the same time the DOD is cutting one billion dollars from the commissaries budget. Which puts many young military families at risk.
It never ceases to amaze me; our government blows billions of dollars on weapons systems that don’t work and that we don’t need – yet we expect these young men and women to put their lives on the line day in and day out and we pay them so little that they have to use food stamps to make ends meet and to top it all off we whittle away at the benefits they receive costing them even more money that they do not have.
Instead of the Pentagon pissing away more money on an aircraft carrier, fighter jet, or some other weapons system we don’t need, how about making sure the young men and women who put their lives on the line every day are adequately cared for.