Rick Santorum, the food-stamp senator

In the year following Santorum’s effort to lead the defeat of this proposal in the Senate, 18.7 percent of the households receiving food stamps were deemed automatically eligible under this loophole, which equated to about 2.1 million households (source). By 2010 this figure had grown to a whopping 51.3 percent of all households receiving food stamp benefits, or just over 9.4 million households (source). That’s nearly a 350% increase in only 5 years, and probably accounts for most of the increase in the total number of people receiving food stamp benefits outside of the effects of the economic downturn.

Thanks to Rick Santorum’s “leadership”.

Now that’s not to say that many of these individuals and families would not otherwise be eligible for food stamps. I’m sure many of them would, perhaps even a majority. But with over 50 percent of food stamp recipients now exempt from basic means testing, it’s a safe bet that there is a significant amount of over-spending taking place. Consider that if the 5-year savings number was $574 million in 2006, then 350% of this total (reflecting the increase in the number of recipients deemed automatically eligible since then) would be just over $2 billion. The actual number is probably much higher given that spending per recipient has also increased significantly in recent years.