Former president Barack Obama has been busy since leaving office trying to secure his legacy.
But here’s one big way Americans will always remember the 44th president: People forced to live on food stamp soared 32% under his watch. In 2009, when he took office, there were 33.5 million people on food stamp benefits; in October 2016, just a few months before he left office, that number had skyrocketed to 44.2 million — a jump of 10.7 million people.
The cost of the program to taxpayers rose from $50.3 billion to $66.6 billion — all while Obama’s administration pushed the idea that the economy was booming (it wasn’t). As the unemployment rate dropped (mainly due to Obama officials reducing the number of people considered in the “work force”), millions were forced onto food stamps.
But that “hope and change” has been replaced by four simple words: “Make America Great Again.”
New statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show nearly1.5 million Americans have gotten off the food stamp rolls since President Trump took office in January 2017. That’s a 3.5% drop in less than a year.
They’ve been streaming off the rolls every month.
- January to February – 408,956
- February to March – 95,152
- March to April – 521,295
- April to May- 176,527
- May to June – 178,648
- June to July – 236,417
See the full stats here.