According to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture report released Friday, the number of U.S. participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or also referred to as food stamps) has hit another all-time record high of 47,791,996 for the month of December 2012, with an average per-person benefit of $133.73 per month.
Despite the recent economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that U.S. unemployment has reached a post-recession low of below 8 percent for February 2013, more than 100,000 new SNAP participants were added in just one month from the November 2012 figure of 47,682,072.
The number of U.S. households on SNAP also hit an all-time record high at 23,064,554 in December 2012, which broke the previous record of 23,017,768 households for the month of November 2012.
According to reports, there were about 32 million Americans on SNAP when President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.
