Troops on food stamps new news to CNN?

CNN just figured out miliatry families are facing food insecurity

A quarter of US service members have been food insecure, new report finds

That was the headline. And then there was this, Washington

CNN

Just over a quarter of US service members have experienced food insecurity in recent years, according to a new report from the RAND Corporation. The report, released this week, said that 25.8% of Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard personnel were food insecure. More than half of that percentage – 15.4% – were active duty troops. "" “We were surprised at the estimate. … I mean that’s a lot of people,” Dr. Beth Asch, a senior economist at RAND and the lead author of the report, told CNN.

You can read the rest of the report here.

In 2008, I did a huge report on this along with everything else we don't want to know is really happening to them as long as some get to satisfy themselves with slogans, like "suppor the troops" or use the neglect as something the leaders of the "other" parties allow to happen. Read Armed Forces Day on Food Stamps.

But nothing changed other than to get worse because it was hitting more and more families.

This is from 2012, but it wasn't just about having to take food stamps to the commerceary, they had to use food pantries.

At Fort Hood, the military's busiest deployment hub to Iraq over the past decade and home to as many as 50,000 soldiers, an on-post food pantry has served nearly 5,000 military families since 2008. Food stamp usage at on-post commissaries has ballooned from about $285,000 in 2001 to $1.4 million last year, according to the Defense Commissary Agency . Those numbers include soldiers, family members, reservists and retirees.

And it kept happening. This is from 2014

More troops and military families redeemed food stamps at military commissaries last year than ever before, according to statistics from the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) — but is it really the dire situation it seems? About five percent more shoppers used food stamps at commissaries in 2013 than used them in 2012. But the increase is actually a sign that use is leveling off instead of quickly increasing as it had been before. Between 2011 and 2012 it went up 13 percent. And back between 2008 and 2009 it went up 70 percent, according to figures from DeCA.

A later study had this stunning piece of information,

Commissary shoppers used $130.6 million in food stamps, officially known as the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in fiscal 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Defense Department. About $29 million in WIC benefits were redeemed that same year.Commissary shoppers used $130.6 million in food stamps, officially known as the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in fiscal 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Defense Department. About $29 million in WIC benefits were redeemed that same year.

In 2016 they weren't sure how many military families had to use food stamps. I can keep going on this but, you get the idea. Here's just one more to show that none of this is new even though CNN thinks they can act as if it was something they just learned.