- Food stamp use increasing in Delaware, By William H. McMichael, Jon Offredo and James Fisher, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “Each Delaware community experienced different problems. In New Castle County, it was the loss of good-paying jobs. In Smyrna, thousands of newcomers seeking an affordable life stumbled into economic troubles. In Rehoboth Beach, younger workers and seniors struggled to make ends meet. In each, increasingly, many Delawareans needed help with food. The number of state residents receiving food stamps has nearly tripled over the past 10 years, far outpacing the relatively small increase of 14 percent in population…”
- Food Stamps in Delaware: Rising need ‘a big deal’ in Smyrna, By Jon Offredo, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “There’s something about the once quiet farming community around Smyrna that has attracted Christina Quiros and thousands of others over the past 10 years. Mostly, it’s a better way of life, a cheaper cost of living and the promise of a new beginning. Quiros, 40, joined her husband last summer. A former police dispatcher, she thought finding a job would be easy. He already had moved to the area to look for work, which he found for a time…”
- Food Stamps in Delaware: One NCCo community looks to recover, By William H. McMichael, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “A once-prosperous swath of homes and businesses across New Castle County has seen first-hand the impact of lost jobs and lost opportunity. Here lived workers from Chrysler, MeadWestvaco, MBNA, Avon and the dozens of businesses that supported those major employers. Those jobs have disappeared. And across the area, which stretches from the state’s western border south of Newark to the Christina River, the use of food stamps over the past decade has grown dramatically, even as the population has fallen…”
- Food Stamps in Delaware: Shopping trips involve careful planning, By Jon Offredo, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “Erick Coleman reaches in and grabs five fried chicken strip dinners from one of the freezers lining the frozen food aisle at Food Lion in Newark. ‘This is a meal right here,’ Coleman, 42, said, clutching the boxes of Hungry Man. ‘If I could afford it, I’d never eat these again.’ Like others across Delaware, Coleman hits the supermarket twice a month. He and his girlfriend plan out what they need, scour the newspapers for coupons, and keep an eye out for must-grab in-store deals like the two half-gallon containers of orange juice for $5 they place in their cart, or the two packages of shredded cheese for the same price…”
- Food Stamps in Delaware: Coastal Sussex changes hit some hard, By James Fisher, March 9, 2014, News Journal: “Rehoboth Beach is Delaware’s biggest coastal resort, its air thick with the scent of vinegary french fries and sloppy cheesesteaks. There’s even a store at the beach offering bacon-infused ice cream. The coastal town draws many vacationers interested in owning beach homes or condos, and willing to pay high prices in a community that has seen the median sales price grow to $647,000 for a single-family home. But the area is also seeing a rising use of food stamps, according to data from the state Department of Health and Social Services. In 2003, 260 people received the food assistance in the Rehoboth ZIP code of 19971, which had 10,000 residents then…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty