The New Face of Poverty in Oregon

It won't surprise anyone that the demand for state services associated with poverty has increased dramatically in the current economic downturn.  But the dramatic increase in households needing assistance is unprecedented, for example there was a 58 percent increase in participating households from 2005 to 2009.

This comes from a new study of SNAP, the state food stamp program, reveals how dramatically the population needing assistance has changed.  Suzanne Porter a student in the OSU Master of Public Policy program, and Mark Edwards, a sociology professor at OSU, in a new report show that many of the new recipients of SNAP have no recent history of SNAP receipt, that many of the new SNAP recipients come from manufacturing and construction and are therefore disproportionately male, and that many households have a full-time worker.

Here is the report:

Newly Poor in the Great Recession