Survey: Nearly 17 percent of Ross County Ohio households receive food stamps

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CHILLICOTHE -- Ross County ranks among the neediest in the state in the number of households getting food stamps in 2008, according to data made public Tuesday.

One out of 10 Ohio households received food stamps in 2008, an increase from the average of the previous three years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

In Ross County last year, 16.8 percent of households had accepted food stamps at least once in the previous 12 months. That number is 5.7 percentage points higher than the average estimates in 2005 through 2007, according to the surveys.

The 2008 numbers were made available initially only for 38 Ohio counties with populations of more than 65,000. Of those counties, Ross ranked third.

Ross is one of several non-metro counties that are outpacing more populated, urban areas in food assistance rates.

Four of the six counties examined by CentralOhio.com -- Marion, Ross, Muskingum and Richland -- all are in the top 10. Scioto County tops the list with more than one in five households receiving food assistance.

Amy Hanauer, executive director of the advocacy group Policy Matters Ohio, said unlike rural counties, urban areas tend to have pockets of high poverty surrounded by wealth. "When you look at Ohio's rural counties, particularly in southeast Ohio, you see a much higher percentage of the population in poverty," she said.

Looking at the list of counties by percentage of households in receipt of food stamps, Lucas County in northwest Ohio, at No. 7 with 15.3 percent, is the first metropolitan county to appear.

Franklin County, with about 455,000 households and a .3 percent increase in food assistance rates, comes in below the 2008 state average.

"We are seeing some shifts in were the highest foreclosure areas and highest poverty areas," Hanauer said.

She said these numbers are likely to continue to rise as a side effect of high unemployment.

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JMC Ministries thoughts

All we can do is ask you to pray for our part of Ohio. It is a hard time for our area. Crime is even up. In 2 weeks there has been 1 bank robbery, a convient store robbed at gun point, and just 2 days ago the Walgreens was robbed at gun point by a man demanding narcotics like Oxi-codine!

We don't live in a big city, or even a suburb, but people are beginning to get desperate. Please pray for us and all those effected.