Newt Gingrich has come under fire recently for his statement that Barack Obama is the "Food Stamp President." In response to Gingrich, the left makes three claims:

1. Racist!
2. It's Bush's fault
3. Well yes, but the population has increased too so Obama can't be blamed.

It is this last claim that I wanted to take a look at and see if population growth could account for the increase of people on food stamps.

The U.S. civilian population estimate on the first day of *FY2010 was 307,518,237. SNAP participation for FY2010 was 40,302,000. The percentage of people on food stamps was 13%.

The U.S. civilian population on the last day of FY2011 was 310,800,403. FY2011 saw 44,709,000 people receiving SNAP benefits. This represents 14.3% of the population. So while the population did increase, so did the percentage of people on food stamps!  read more »