Obama Calls for $50 Billion in Infrastructure Spending

Reuters

President Barack Obama, scrambling to jump-start job creation in a sluggish economy, proposed a six-year plan on Monday to rebuild aging roads, railways and runways with an initial $50 billion investment.

"We are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads -- that's enough to circle the world six times. ... We're going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways -- enough to stretch coast-to-coast," Obama told a labor rally in Milwaukee where several thousand supporters cheered his every line.

The infrastructure plan, one of several initiatives Obama is due to unveil this week, was immediately rejected by Republicans, who many analysts predict could win control of the House of Representatives in November 2 congressional elections.

With fellow Democrats facing punishment from recession-weary voters in November, Obama is under pressure to do more to create jobs and bring down the stubbornly high 9.6 percent unemployment rate, even as economists agree he has few good options left.

Economists are skeptical any measures Obama takes now will make a significant difference in the $13.2 trillion U.S. economy and point out that investments in infrastructure typically do not stimulate the economy quickly.

A centerpiece of his new plan is a proposal for the U.S. Congress to increase and permanently extend a tax credit for business research and development.

The tax credit proposal, which was widely expected by investors, would cost $100 billion over 10 years. He is to lay out the plan on Wednesday in Cleveland.

While Obama declared some jobs would be created immediately by the infrastructure overhaul, a senior administration official told reporters the plan would not create jobs until 2011.

"This is not a stimulus, immediate-jobs plan," the official said.

DOUBTS FROM DEFICIT HAWKS

The White House stressed the plan would not add to the record U.S. deficit, a key issue for voters.

"One thing (Obama) is willing to put on the table is closing some of the tax loopholes for big oil and gas companies that currently get subsidies from taxpayers that they certainly don't need. He thinks that is a perfectly good 'pay-for' to get this up and running," the administration official said.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents major U.S. oil and gas companies, said additional taxes would drive energy investment, including jobs, overseas. "Now is the time to create American jobs, not eliminate them," API spokeswoman Cathy Landry said.

Obama told the Milwaukee rally he would work with Congress to make sure the plan was fully paid for.

He could face an uphill battle in getting Congress to approve the plan, especially if Republicans make big gains in November.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called it a "last-minute cobbled-together stimulus bill" and the Republican leader of the House, John Boehner, was equally dismissive.

"We don't need more government 'stimulus' spending -- we need to end Washington Democrats' out-of-control spending spree, stop their tax hikes, and create jobs by eliminating the job-killing uncertainty that is hampering our small businesses," Boehner said.

DETAILS OF PLAN

Under the infrastructure plan, Obama is proposing to:

- Rebuild 150,000 miles of roads;

- Construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail;

- Rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of runway and modernize the air traffic control system and;

- Set up an infrastructure bank to leverage private, state and local capital to invest in projects.

Transportation construction spending would likely help companies like equipment maker Caterpillar Inc, privately held engineering firm Parsons Corp, and conglomerate General Electric Co.

The administration official said a "substantial number of jobs" would be created by the infrastructure projects. Transportation experts say 35,OOO jobs are created for every $1 billion in transportation construction investment.

The administration said the proposal unveiled on Monday would be part of a long-term transportation reauthorization that traditionally includes highway and rail funding. The $50 billion would represent a significant portion of the spending in the first year of any new transportation funding measure, an administration official said.

Congress has yet to comprehensively address new transportation legislation. The previous measure expired in 2009. One plan floated in the House would spend about $500 billion over six years.

Obama used his appearance in Milwaukee to set the tone for the fall campaign. Monday's Labor Day holiday marks the informal start of the election campaign season.

He argued that Democratic policies had stopped the bleeding and produced some economic growth, while Republicans had opposed him every step of the way.

"If I say the sky is blue, they say no," he said.

Obama's visit to Cleveland promises to be more strategic. It is the city where Boehner, who would be House speaker if Republicans win the House, recently urged Obama to fire his economic team.

Other items that Obama could talk about this week are a payroll tax holiday, extending tax cuts for the middle class and increasing money for clean energy.

Thousands Gather in Atlanta for Federally Subsidized Housing

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thirty thousand people turned out in East Point on Wednesday seeking applications for government-subsidized housing, and their confusion and frustration, combined with the summer heat, led to a chaotic mob scene that left 62 people injured.

At the Tri-Cities Plaza Shopping Center, emergency vehicles passed each other, transporting 20 people to hospitals. Medical and police command posts were set up on scene. East Point police wore riot gear. Officers from four other agencies supported them. Yet no arrests were made.

All of this resulted from people attempting to obtain Section 8 housing applications and, against long odds, later securing vouchers for affordable residences. Some waited in line for two days for the applications.

Renee Gray, a single mother holding her one-year-old daughter, Marion, came looking for a housing break and nearly got trampled, forcing her to run from the crowd and into the street.

"It could have been better organized," said Gray, a customer service employee. "A lot of adults lost focus.”

Jacquelyn Cuffie, 50, of Duluth, used a walker to cross the parking lot and navigate the huge gathering, determined to improve her living situation. It didn't matter how hot or crowded it got.

“It’s difficult to pay [the rent] with a disability check,” Cuffie said.

Offering applications for the first time since 2002, East Point Housing Authority officials had triple the crowd they anticipated, and one that was three-fourths of the 40,000 population of the south Fulton city. Things got out of hand when people started cutting into lines and authorities attempted to move groups to different areas.

Sgt. Cliff Chandler, East Point Police Department spokesman, said one flash point occurred early on. Authorities originally had lined up people to come into the front entrance of the Central Station Sports Cafe and receive the applications. However, when they saw the sheer number of people, the officials set up kiosks around the parking lot to hand out the applications, Chandler said.

Felecia McGhee, who came in search of her own Section 8 assistance, saw two small children trampled when people rushed the building that held the applications. When a group of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said.

People collapsed in the heat. Emergency personnel drove up in a pickup truck and handed out bottled water. People were carried off on stretchers. A baby went into a seizure and was taken to a hospital.

Thaddeus Brookins of Atlanta dropped off his mother, Betty, a part-time furniture store employee, into the middle of the shopping center mayhem. He didn't like what he saw.

“It was terrible,” Thaddeus Brookins said. “Lot of people. People pushing people, knocking people over. People getting hurt.”

Wednesday's deluge of people seeking low-income vouchers in East Point demonstrated just how desperate the need for affordable housing has become in metro Atlanta, officials said. Some 15,000 Georgians currently are accommodated with Section 8 housing, with thousands more on waiting lists. Housing openings have been difficult to find anywhere, including rural areas.

"East Point, to me, is indicative of the problem," said Dennis Williams, a Georgia Department of Community affairs assistant commissioner. "It just goes to show you the situation is pretty dire."

At the same time the recession has pushed many middle-class families out of their homes, the closure of several large public housing projects -- Grady, Bowen and Capital Homes -- during the last decade has left many lower-income families with few housing options as well, elevating vouchers to something akin to lottery winnings. The demand has overwhelmed many municipalities and public entities that administer the Section 8 programs.

A check of the 16 metro Atlanta housing authorities that administer Section 8 programs found the overwhelming majority had closed their waiting lists. In one instance, the waiting list at Marietta Housing Authority has been closed since September 2008.

"There's more people demanding units at a lower-income level. The demands coming in from people who are losing their jobs and potentially having to leave their homes whether they move all the way to Section 8 or not, it's going to create demand, " said Jim Skinner, a planner in the research division of the Atlanta Regional Commission. "That's just the bottom line and that perhaps explains what happened in East Point."

When the crowd thinned out at the Tri-Cities Plaza Shopping Center, the parking lot was a sprawling mess of discarded water bottles, crushed soda cans and cigarette packs.

At an ensuing news conference, East Point officials tried to describe the day as a success, an assessment that was roundly challenged by those who had witnessed or been involved in the unruly scene.

Kim Lemish, East Point Housing Authority executive director, said the Section 8 housing applications were made available by the city for the first time in eight years because a waiting list had been depleted.

There was concern a similar overcrowded scene could occur Thursday morning when East Point began accepting the completed applications.

No one, however, was lining up at the housing authority in advance, by design. Late Wednesday, police had barricaded the housing authority and erected signs that declared "no loitering."

U.S. Plans More Aid for Jobless Homeowners

NY Times

 

In an acknowledgment that the foreclosure crisis is far from over, the Obama administration on Wednesday pumped $3 billion into programs intended to stop the unemployed from losing their homes.

The housing market, which usually helps lead the country out of a recession, is this time helping hold the recovery back. Interest rates are at record lows, but too few can afford to buy or refinance. Unemployed homeowners who live in communities where values have fallen sharply are often unable to sell. Their foreclosures weaken neighborhoods and create a vicious circle by further undermining the market.

To try to break this pattern, the Treasury Department said it was adding $2 billion to its Hardest Hit Fund, roughly doubling its size. The fund, first announced by President Obama in February and expanded in March, goes to housing finance agencies in various states to create local aid programs.

Most of the state programs from the first two rounds are barely under way, but Treasury officials said it was clear that more funds were needed.

“In this very deep recession, people have tended to be out of work a little longer,” Herbert M. Allison Jr., assistant secretary for financial stability, said. “That’s why we think this additional relief for people searching for a job is so important.”

The second program, announced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, will draw on $1 billion authorized by the new financial overhaul law.

The agency said it would work with local aid groups to offer bridge loans of up to $50,000 to eligible borrowers to help them pay their mortgage principal, interest, insurance and taxes for up to 24 months. The loans will be interest-free.

Until now, the Hardest Hit Fund had been projected to help about 140,000 borrowers. Treasury officials said that number would grow with the new infusion of money, but offered no estimate. HUD also did not say how many homeowners would be eligible for its program.

If the new money is spent in the same way as the previous money, both programs would eventually aid about 400,000 borrowers — a large number, but not when set against the 14.6 million unemployed or three million contemplating foreclosure.

Over the last two years, the government has deployed many programs to help housing. It pushed interest rates down, offered tax credits and set up an ambitious mortgage modification program. Yet housing remains feeble and seems poised after a brief respite this year to become weaker again.

“I think all these government programs are helpful, but I wouldn’t look for them to cure the recession or even what ails housing,” said the economist Karl E. Case. “At best, they’re preventing things from getting much worse.”

The Hardest Hit Fund will draw on the $45.6 billion set aside for housing in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the rescue measure begun at the height of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008. Initially, the fund gave $1.5 billion to five hard-hit states: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada. The second round in March of $600 million went to North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina.

The expanded list of states eligible for the latest funding includes Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi and New Jersey, as well as the District of Columbia. Each state’s share of the money is based on its population.

Many of the programs involve direct assistance. Ohio, for instance, said it would use its $172 million to aid 15,356 homeowners by helping bring delinquent mortgages current for owners experiencing hardship because of a loss of income. The assistance will last up to 12 months.

The other housing money in the Troubled Asset Relief Program is earmarked for the modification programs ($30.6 billion) and a Federal Housing Administration refinancing program ($11 billion). The administration can shift money between the programs only until Oct. 3, the two-year anniversary of the program.

HUD said it was in the process of determining which communities would receive its money and how exactly the process would work. “We’re still in the design phase,” said Bill Apgar, HUD senior adviser for mortgage finance.

House Fails to Pass Jobs Bill, Unemployment Extension

Reuters

Republicans in the House of Representatives on Tuesday blocked a Democratic effort to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.

Democrats brought up the measure under special rules that require a two-thirds majority for passage. But they failed to win sufficient support from Republicans, who expressed concern about the measure's $33 billion cost to the federal treasury.

The bill would help as many as 1.7 million people whose unemployment insurance benefits have run out. It would extend an emergency unemployment compensation program through November 30.

Democrats said the spending was justified to help the unemployed pay their bills and to boost the economy.

"When you provide unemployment insurance to people, they spend it," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin said. "If Republicans are worried about growth and consumer demand, they should work to put money in the pockets of people who are desperate, who are out of work, who are looking for work."

The U.S. unemployment rate, currently 9.7 percent, has remained stubbornly high even as the economy has begun to recover from deep recession sparked by the financial crisis.

The government is due on Friday to report the jobless rate for June. Analysts are expecting a slight increase due to temporary U.S. government census workers being laid off.

But Republicans said the $33 billion price tag was too much to add to an already bloated federal deficit.

"Look around the world. Countries are sinking in debt," said Representative Dave Camp, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, adding that "this reckless spending cannot go on forever."

The $1.4 trillion deficit and $13 trillion debt are becoming issues in the run-up to the November U.S. congressional elections in which Republicans hope to make substantial gains against the Democrats, who control Congress.

The extension of jobless aid for the long-term unemployed has run into solid Republican opposition in the Senate as well. A measure was attached to a bill that would extend popular business tax breaks, which stalled last week over Republican concerns about deficit spending.

Jobless Aid Bill Comes To A Halt In Senate

WASHINGTON – The Senate halted an election-year bill to continue jobless benefits for millions of long-term unemployed workers.

Many Democrats joined Republicans on a 52-45 test vote rejecting Obama's $140 billion in new aid, protecting the jobs of thousands of state and local government workers. Democrats have been trying to enact the measure as an insurance policy against a potential double-dipping recession.

The bill's halt counters the advice of economists who support the bill's funding for additional jobless benefits and state aid to deter layoffs of public service jobs. Economist are afraid that the country could find its way back into a recession just as it's emerging from one of the largest economic downturns the U.S. has ever experienced.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave caution last week that while politicians need to devise a plan to address the U.S.'s deficit crisis, the country's recovery is still fragile. It is too soon for a immediate spending cuts on such a large scale, Bernanke added.

Although the current loss was a major hit for many, Democrats predicted that a slightly slimmer version of the measure could pass, even as early as later this week. This scaled-backed bill would extend unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless as well as provide $24 billion in state aid.

"We've got to do more to build on the existing jobs momentum and that's what these targeted measures are about," claimed White House economist Jared Bernstein.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., claimed the measure would "provide a path forward" as the lighter version was released late Wednesday.

However Republicans warned that the marginal difference of Wednesday's vote was a bad sign for a newly revised bill. Party leaders mentioned that even after revisions have been made, the result would still add over $50 billion to deficits over the next ten years.

President Barack Obama resurged his push for the measure last weekend, while warning that thousands of state and local public service jobs could be lost without $24 billion in Medicaid money to aid states in balancing their budgets and an additional $23 billion to ward off layoffs in local school districts.

The revised measure, which was released on Wednesday afternoon, would fall back to last year's $25-a-week hike in unemployment checks and instead of providing physicians relief of their Medicare payments through 2011, they will have only six-months.

"All I can tell you is that consensus about borrowing, debt, spending is growing stronger in our caucus and I think it is in the Democrats' as well," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.

An attractive, new tax on investment fund managers would impose regular income taxes on venture capitalist of only 50 percent of profits that are the result of sales of assets held for five or more years. This reduction for investors - who currently pay taxes on most of their income at the 15 percent capital gains rate rather than the 35 percent income tax rate — could only help to drive more monetary exchange.

Democratic leaders were standing firmly behind the $24 billion to aid state governments for the Medicaid health program. Roughly 30 states have already factored in the money into their budgets for the fiscal year starting July 1. Governors claim that without the money, they will be forced to lay off thousand of workers.

"If we lose this (Medicaid) money, we will have to lay off 20,000 people." Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell said.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, adds "If states don't get this aid, they will be cutting payrolls very aggressively and it is a serious threat to the recovery,"

The newly revised stimulus bill is part of a catchall measure bringing together financial help for the jobless and aid for states with the renewal of numerous tax breaks for businesses and individuals.

The announced made earlier this week said that a 21 percent cut in Medicaid reimbursements to physicians would take effect on Friday would only increase the urgency to pass the measure. And according to the latest Labor Department estimates, by the end of the week, over 900,000 unemployed individuals who have been out of work for more than six months will have been ineligible to apply for further benefits.

Obama Sends Small -Business Lending Bill to Congress

USA Today

 

 

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has sent Congress a proposal to create a $30 billion program to unfreeze credit for the nation's small businesses.

The $30 billion fund would provide support to small and medium-size banks with assets less than $10 billion to encourage them to increase lending to small businesses.

Obama outlined the effort in his State of the Union address in January. Initially the administration planned to obtain the money by tapping leftover funds in the financial bailout program. Officials said Friday that the effort now has no links to the unpopular Troubled Assets Relief Program.

In remarks to reporters at the White House, Obama said the program has been expanded to include a new state small business credit that would support efforts by state governments to provide loans to small businesses.

"This state initiative, which was designed with the help of governors and members of both the House and the Senate, will help expand lending for small businesses and manufacturers at a time when budget shortfalls are leading states to cut back on vitally important lending programs," Obama said.

An administration official said many states have their own programs to support loans to small businesses but these programs have faced cuts because of severe budget shortfalls.

This official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the administration expects that Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez, head of the House Small Business Committee, and Sen. Mary Landrieu, head of the Senate Small Business Committee, would add their own proposals to the legislation as it moves through Congress.

"Getting capital to small business is going to be critical to sustaining our recovery and continued job growth," Velazquez, D-N.Y., said in a statement. "The committee will work to ensure that whatever Congress moves forward accomplishes that goal."

The administration has faced growing pressure to increase government help for small businesses. Lawmakers in both parties have complained that while the government created a $700 billion bailout fund that provided help to big financial institutions and two auto companies, small businesses have struggled to get the financing they need.

Many banks have tightened lending standards in the face of record home mortgage foreclosures and serious problems in commercial real estate.

The administration's initiative to support state lending to small business seeks to merge ideas that were suggested from various sources, including recommendations in a letter from 28 governors endorsing the use of loan guarantees.

The administration proposal also would provide support for a program currently being used in more than 20 states that gives capital assistance to banks providing loans to small businesses, an idea being pushed by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

In addition, the administration's effort incorporates elements of a small business lending program that has been successful in Michigan. The Michigan program provides support to businesses that have seen the value of the collateral they have put up to obtain bank loans shrink during the recession.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and members of the Michigan congressional delegation including Reps. Sander Levin and Gary Peters worked with the administration on this approach as did Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Stigma Of Food Stamps Fading As Demand Rises

NY Times

A GROWING NEED FOR A PROGRAM ONCE SCORNED Greg Dawson and his wife, Sheila, of Martinsville, Ohio, help feed their family of seven with a $300 monthly food stamp benefit. Center and right, the food pantry in Lebanon, Ohio, where residents can also enroll in what is formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

 MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.

While the numbers have soared during the recession, the path was cleared in better times when the Bush administration led a campaign to erase the program’s stigma, calling food stamps “nutritional aid” instead of welfare, and made it easier to apply. That bipartisan effort capped an extraordinary reversal from the 1990s, when some conservatives tried to abolish the program, Congress enacted large cuts and bureaucratic hurdles chased many needy people away.

From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times.

The counties are as big as the Bronx and Philadelphia and as small as Owsley County in Kentucky, a patch of Appalachian distress where half of the 4,600 residents receive food stamps.

In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children. In the Mississippi River cities of St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, half of the children or more receive food stamps. Even in Peoria, Ill. — Everytown, U.S.A. — nearly 40 percent of children receive aid.

While use is greatest where poverty runs deep, the growth has been especially swift in once-prosperous places hit by the housing bust. There are about 50 small counties and a dozen sizable ones where the rolls have doubled in the last two years. In another 205 counties, they have risen by at least two-thirds. These places with soaring rolls include populous Riverside County, Calif., most of greater Phoenix and Las Vegas, a ring of affluent Atlanta suburbs, and a 150-mile stretch of southwest Florida from Bradenton to the Everglades.

Although the program is growing at a record rate, the federal official who oversees it would like it to grow even faster.

“I think the response of the program has been tremendous,” said Kevin Concannon, an under secretary of agriculture, “but we’re mindful that there are another 15, 16 million who could benefit.”

Nationwide, food stamps reach about two-thirds of those eligible, with rates ranging from an estimated 50 percent in California to 98 percent in Missouri. Mr. Concannon urged lagging states to do more to enroll the needy, citing a recent government report that found a sharp rise in Americans with inconsistent access to adequate food.

“This is the most urgent time for our feeding programs in our lifetime, with the exception of the Depression,” he said. “It’s time for us to face up to the fact that in this country of plenty, there are hungry people.”

The program’s growing reach can be seen in a corner of southwestern Ohio where red state politics reign and blue-collar workers have often called food stamps a sign of laziness. But unemployment has soared, and food stamp use in a six-county area outside Cincinnati has risen more than 50 percent.

With most of his co-workers laid off, Greg Dawson, a third-generation electrician in rural Martinsville, considers himself lucky to still have a job. He works the night shift for a contracting firm, installing freezer lights in a chain of grocery stores. But when his overtime income vanished and his expenses went up, Mr. Dawson started skimping on meals to feed his wife and five children.

He tried to fill up on cereal and eggs. He ate a lot of Spam. Then he went to work with a grumbling stomach to shine lights on food he could not afford. When an outreach worker appeared at his son’s Head Start program, Mr. Dawson gave in.

“It’s embarrassing,” said Mr. Dawson, 29, a taciturn man with a wispy goatee who is so uneasy about the monthly benefit of $300 that he has not told his parents. “I always thought it was people trying to milk the system. But we just felt like we really needed the help right now.”

The outreach worker is a telltale sign. Like many states, Ohio has campaigned hard to raise the share of eligible people collecting benefits, which are financed entirely by the federal government and brought the state about $2.2 billion last year.

By contrast, in the federal cash welfare program, states until recently bore the entire cost of caseload growth, and nationally the rolls have stayed virtually flat. Unemployment insurance, despite rapid growth, reaches about only half the jobless (and replaces about half their income), making food stamps the only aid many people can get — the safety net’s safety net.

Support for the food stamp program reached a nadir in the mid-1990s when critics, likening the benefit to cash welfare, won significant restrictions and sought even more. But after use plunged for several years, President Bill Clinton began promoting the program, in part as a way to help the working poor. President George W. Bush expanded that effort, a strategy Mr. Obama has embraced.

The revival was crowned last year with an upbeat change of name. What most people still call food stamps is technically the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

By the time the recession began, in December 2007, “the whole message around this program had changed,” said Stacy Dean of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington group that has supported food stamp expansions. “The general pitch was, ‘This program is here to help you.’ ”

Now nearly 12 percent of Americans receive aid — 28 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Latinos and 8 percent of whites. Benefits average about $130 a month for each person in the household, but vary with shelter and child care costs.

In the promotion of the program, critics see a sleight of hand.

“Some people like to camouflage this by calling it a nutrition program, but it’s really not different from cash welfare,” said Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, whose views have a following among conservatives on Capitol Hill. “Food stamps is quasi money.”

Arguing that aid discourages work and marriage, Mr. Rector said food stamps should contain work requirements as strict as those placed on cash assistance. “The food stamp program is a fossil that repeats all the errors of the war on poverty,” he said.

Suburbs Are Hit Hard

Across the country, the food stamp rolls can be read like a scan of a sick economy. The counties of northwest Ohio, where car parts are made, take sick when Detroit falls ill. Food stamp use is up by about 60 percent in Erie County (vibration controls), 77 percent in Wood County (floor mats) and 84 percent in hard-hit Van Wert (shifting components and cooling fans).

Just west, in Indiana, Elkhart County makes the majority of the nation’s recreational vehicles. Sales have fallen more than half during the recession, and nearly 30 percent of the county’s children are receiving food stamps.

The pox in southwest Florida is the housing bust, with foreclosure rates in Fort Myers often leading the nation in the last two years. Across six contiguous counties from Manatee to Monroe, the food stamp rolls have more than doubled.

In sheer numbers, growth has come about equally from places where food stamp use was common and places where it was rare. Since 2007, the 600 counties with the highest percentage of people on the rolls added 1.3 million new recipients. So did the 600 counties where use was lowest.

The richest counties are often where aid is growing fastest, although from a small base. In 2007, Forsyth County, outside Atlanta, had the highest household income in the South. (One author dubbed it “Whitopia.”) Food stamp use there has more than doubled.

This is the first recession in which a majority of the poor in metropolitan areas live in the suburbs, giving food stamps new prominence there. Use has grown by half or more in dozens of suburban counties from Boston to Seattle, including such bulwarks of modern conservatism as California’s Orange County, where the rolls are up more than 50 percent.

While food stamp use is still the exception in places like Orange County (where 4 percent of the population get food aid), the program reaches deep in places of chronic poverty. It feeds half the people in stretches of white Appalachia, in a Yupik-speaking region of Alaska and on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Across the 10 core counties of the Mississippi Delta, 45 percent of black residents receive aid. In a city as big as St. Louis, the share is 60 percent.

Use among children is especially high. A third of the children in Louisiana, Missouri and Tennessee receive food aid. In the Bronx, the rate is 46 percent. In East Carroll Parish, La., three-quarters of the children receive food stamps.

A recent study by Mark R. Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, startled some policy makers in finding that half of Americans receive food stamps, at least briefly, by the time they turn 20. Among black children, the figure was 90 percent.

Need Overcomes Scorn

Across the small towns and rolling farmland outside Cincinnati, old disdain for the program has collided with new needs. Warren County, the second-richest in Ohio, is so averse to government aid that it turned down a federal stimulus grant. But the market for its high-end suburban homes has sagged, people who build them are idle and food stamp use has doubled.

Next door, in Clinton County, the blow has been worse. DHL, the international package carrier, has closed most of its giant airfield, costing the county its biggest employer and about 7,500 jobs. The county unemployment rate nearly tripled, to more than 14 percent.

“We’re seeing people getting food stamps who never thought they’d get them,” said Tina Osso, the director of the Shared Harvest Food Bank in Fairfield, which runs an outreach program in five area counties.

While Mr. Dawson, the electrician, has kept his job, the drive to distant work sites has doubled his gas bill, food prices rose sharply last year and his health insurance premiums have soared. His monthly expenses have risen by about $400, and the elimination of overtime has cost him $200 a month. Food stamps help fill the gap.

Like many new beneficiaries here, Mr. Dawson argues that people often abuse the program and is quick to say he is different. While some people “choose not to get married, just so they can apply for benefits,” he is a married, churchgoing man who works and owns his home. While “some people put piles of steaks in their carts,” he will not use the government’s money for luxuries like coffee or soda. “To me, that’s just morally wrong,” he said.

He has noticed crowds of midnight shoppers once a month when benefits get renewed. While policy analysts, spotting similar crowds nationwide, have called them a sign of increased hunger, he sees idleness. “Generally, if you’re up at that hour and not working, what are you into?” he said.

Still, the program has filled the Dawsons’ home with fresh fruit, vegetables, bread and meat, and something they had not fully expected — an enormous sense of relief. “I know if I run out of milk, I could run down to the gas station,” said Mr. Dawson’s wife, Sheila.

As others here tell it, that is a benefit not to be overlooked.

Sarah and Tyrone Mangold started the year on track to make $70,000 — she was selling health insurance, and he was working on a heating and air conditioning crew. She got laid off in the spring, and he a few months later. Together they had one unemployment check and a blended family of three children, including one with a neurological disorder aggravated by poor nutrition.

They ate at his mother’s house twice a week. They pawned jewelry. She scoured the food pantry. He scrounged for side jobs. Their frustration peaked one night over a can of pinto beans. Each blamed the other when that was all they had to eat.

“We were being really snippy, having anxiety attacks,” Ms. Mangold said. “People get irritable when they’re hungry.”

Food stamps now fortify the family income by $623 a month, and Mr. Mangold, who is still patching together odd jobs, no longer objects.

“I always thought people on public assistance were lazy,” he said, “but it helps me know I can feed my kids.”

Shifting Views

So far, few elected officials have objected to the program’s growth. Almost 90 percent of beneficiaries nationwide live below the poverty line (about $22,000 a year for a family of four). But a minor tempest hit Ohio’s Warren County after a woman drove to the food stamp office in a Mercedes-Benz and word spread that she owned a $300,000 home loan-free. Since Ohio ignores the value of houses and cars, she qualified.

“I’m a hard-core conservative Republican guy — I found that appalling,” said Dave Young, a member of the county board of commissioners, which briefly threatened to withdraw from the federal program.

“As soon as people figure out they can vote representatives in to give them benefits, that’s the end of democracy,” Mr. Young said. “More and more people will be taking, and fewer will be producing.”

At the same time, the recession left Sandi Bernstein more sympathetic to the needy. After years of success in the insurance business, Ms. Bernstein, 66, had just settled into what she had expected to be a comfortable retirement when the financial crisis last year sent her brokerage accounts plummeting. Feeling newly vulnerable herself, she volunteered with an outreach program run by AARP and the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks.

Having assumed that poor people clamored for aid, she was surprised to find that some needed convincing to apply.“I come here and I see people who are knowledgeable, normal, well-spoken, well-dressed,” she said. “These are people I could be having lunch with.”

That could describe Franny and Shawn Wardlow, whose house in nearby Oregonia conjures middle-American stability rather than the struggle to meet basic needs. Their three daughters have heads of neat blond hair, pink bedroom curtains and a turtle bought in better times on vacation in Daytona Beach, Fla. One wrote a fourth-grade story about her parents that concluded “They lived happily ever after.”

Ms. Wardlow, who worked at a nursing home, lost her job first. Soon after, Mr. Wardlow was laid off from the construction job he had held for nearly nine years. As Ms. Wardlow tells the story of the subsequent fall — cutoff threats from the power company, the dinners of egg noodles, the soap from the Salvation Army — she dwells on one unlikely symbol of the security she lost.

Pot roast.

“I was raised on eating pot roast,” she said. “Just a nice decent meal.”

Mr. Wardlow, 32, is a strapping man with a friendly air. He talked his way into a job at an envelope factory although his boss said he was overqualified. But it pays less than what he made muscling a jackhammer, and with Ms. Wardlow still jobless, they are two months behind on the rent. A monthly food stamp benefit of $429 fills the shelves and puts an occasional roast on the Sunday table.

It reminds Ms. Wardlow of what she has lost, and what she hopes to regain.

“I would consider us middle class at one time,” she said. “I like to have a nice decent meal for dinner.”