Food Stamp Enrollment – Idaho

When it isn’t enough: Idaho leads national increase in food stamp use, By Amy Huddleston, Twin Falls Times-News: “Kelly Malmstrom lost her job as a large-animal veterinarian after suffering a badly broken arm in 2006. Over the last four years she’s undergone more than four surgeries while watching her once-comfortable life spiral into poverty. Emily Flores is a single mother of four children all under the age of 6. She makes $7.50 an hour at her full-time housekeeping job. Dawn Rollins has been sober 14 months after struggling with methamphetamine addiction for 22 years. She said she’s been looking for work everywhere. The faces and stories are different, but the need is the same. Today one in eight Idahoans receives federal assistance to fill the basic need of keeping food on the table. They are next-door neighbors, co-workers, parents gathering their children from day care. And they need help, now more than ever. From March 2009 to March 2010, Idahoans’ participation in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – commonly called the food stamp program – increased by 42.5 percent, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service statistics. That’s more than double the nationwide increase of 21.1 percent during the same span…”