HELENA – More than 10 percent of Montana residents are receiving food stamps.
Linda Snedigar, administrator of the Human and Community Services Division at the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, says the 100,000 people in the state receiving help is a 24 percent jump from May of 2008.
She says state officials last fall started seeing a sharp increase in residents applying for the federal anti-hunger program, called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Snedigar says rural counties are seeing unexpected growth in requests possibly due to jobless people moving back home.
Nationally, more than 34 million Americans participated in the program in May.