I live on Social Security Disability Insurance.

My TOTAL monthly income is $1060.00.

I receive $99.00 per month in Food Stamps.

I applied on November 15, 2012.

At that time I received $1048.00 per month in Social Security Disability Insurance.

At that time I qualified for $169.00 per month.

$169.00
- $99.00
=$70.00

A $70.00 per month cut in Food Stamps.

Can anyone live on $99.00 per month food budget ???

Should anyone have too ????

These are the cuts to my Food Stamps in a 16 month period:

$169.00
$140.00
$109.00
$103.00
$ 99.00

I am getting to the point where they can take their food stamps and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

Living in poverty, through no fault of my own, is sucking the life's blood out of me.

Prior to November, the increased level of the stimulus was still in place.

may have been a difference in the way someone calculated your costs, or other qualifying criteria. I also wonder if you state was doing something on top of the federal program that was cut off. If you haven't contacted your aid worker I would and ask specifically what the changes were prior to the end of the stimulus in Oct. 2013. You deserve to know, especially if there was an error.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2226

1. number of participants
2. average benefit per participant
3. total cost of benefits
4. other costs (administrative, etc.)
5. grand total

but funding did not drop because of welfare reform.

The number of participants dropped in the late 1990s, because of the record low unemployment rate.

That may also explain the average benefit per person. Because the benefit amount is not just a function of funding, it is a function of income.

And year - labor force participation - unemployment

1995 - 66.6 - 5.6
1996 - 66.8 - 5.4
1997 - 67.1 - 4.9
1998 - 67.1 - 4.5
1999 - 67.1 - 4.2
2000 - 67.1 - 4.0
2001 - 66.8 - 4.7

2007 - 66.0 - 4.6
2008 - 66.0 - 5.8
2009 - 65.4 - 9.3
2010 - 64.7 - 9.6
2011 - 64.1 - 8.9
2012 - 63.7 - 8.1
2013 - 63.2 - 7.4

with a potential labor force of 245 million another 3% participating in the labor force means 7 million more workers. Even with the same labor force, the difference between 4% unemployment and 9% is another 7.8 million.

So that's almost 15 million non-workers in 2011 compared to 2000.

"So that's almost 15 million non-workers in 2011 compared to 2000."

...from the OP: Granted that participation went from 30 million to 46 million from 2008 to now.

The stimulus still increased the allocation and the benefits significantly.

if only the amount of benefits was increased, then total expenses would be $51 billion instead of $79

and the amount of benefits would have risen due to inflation anyway.