By Michael Snyder
How would you feel if someone told you that one of the largest banks on
Wall Street makes more money whenever the number of Americans on food
stamps goes up? Unfortunately, this is something that is actually
true. In the United States today, one out of every seven Americans is
on food stamps. In fact, the number of Americans on food stamps has
increased by a whopping 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White
House.
All of this makes JP Morgan very happy, because JP
Morgan has been making money by the boatload on food stamps. Right now,
JP Morgan Chase issues food stamp debit cards in 26 U.S. states and the
District of Columbia. The division of JP Morgan Chase that issues
these debit cards made an eye-popping
5.47 billion dollars in
net revenue during 2010. JP Morgan is paid per customer, so when the
number of Americans on food stamps goes up, they make more money. But
doesn't this give JP Morgan an incentive to try to keep the number of
Americans on food stamps as high as possible? Of course it does. JP
Morgan is interested in making money as rapidly as possible. If JP
Morgan can get more Americans enrolled in the food stamp program and
keep them enrolled in it for as long as possible, that is good for
business.
And the Obama administration is certainly doing what it can to help
out. Even though a whopping 46 million Americans are now on food
stamps, the Obama administration plans to give out
large amounts of money to organizations that are able figure out ways to get even more people enrolled in the program....
Despite the historic rise in food stamp use, however,
the Obama Administration believes not enough people are receiving food
stamps who should be and is offering $75,000 grants to groups who devise
"effective strategies" to "increase program participation" among those
who have yet to sign up.
In fact, U.S.