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Tennesseans Receiving Food Stamps In Record Numbers

By Kleinheider Posted on December 2, 2008 at 7:43 am

Via the AP:

State officials say the number of households on food stamps has risen 9.5 percent from January to October.

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2 Responses to “Tennesseans Receiving Food Stamps In Record Numbers”

  1. Matthew Hurtt writes
    December 2nd, 2008 8:49 am

    Eh, 9.5% from what?

    9.5% from 1% of Tennesseans is 1.095%…
    9.5% from 5% of Tennesseans is 5.475%…
    9.5% from 10% of Tennesseans is 10.95%…
    9.5% from 15% of Tennesseans is 16.43%…
    9.5% from 20% of Tennesseans is 21.9%…

    It’s “risen” 9.5% of what it was. You have to be careful with statistics because the wording is almost always very misleading - perhaps not on purpose… then again, maybe.

    I’m not saying we shouldn’t be concerned about a rise in the usage of food stamps, I just wanted to shed light on the actual mathematics behind it.

    From the article: “In October, 443,115 Tennessee households up from 404,541 in January participated…”

    450,000 (rounding up here) people on food stamps represents only about 7.5% of 6 million people and 6.4% of 7 million people - Tennessee’s population lies somewhere in between. SO, let’s say that the number of people using food stamps at the present level is 7% - a nice middle figure. That means that the percentage of Tennesseans who were on food stamps at the beginning of the year represented probably about 6.39%.

    One out of every fourteen people in Tennessee received food stamps.

    Numbers.

    - Matthew

  2. Bristol Tennessee writes
    December 3rd, 2008 10:30 pm

    Unfortunately, numbers and statistics hide meanings and real life consequences usually in favor of the one in need of the calculating. Tennessee is gearing up to make their plea for part of state bailouts- so obviously they want this “information” to go out to the public, but they didnt express the before numbers as you have re-equated so nicely. Because it had no monetary valuation until now. I guess Tennessee didnt want it public knowledge that it ranks with Louisiana and Mississippi in poverty levels of its people- the people these “business as usual” Republicans(equating to the corruption and misappropriation of “tax” monies for personal agendas) need to maintain as flocks of quaint sheep- beneficial when supplying wool, readily slaughtered if it “fills” their freezers/bank accounts, with an endless supply from their just as nieve offspring. The only numbers they care about are the numbers that roll into their bank accounts.

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