With high unemployment appearing to be a permanent part of the economic picture, the long-term poor are turning to increasingly desperate measures to survive. Many are selling food stamps for cash. Over 6 million people today report food stamps as their only source of income.

In a recent study by Colorlines magazine “Selling Food Stamps for Kids Shoes,” author Seth Wessler says selling food stamps is a growing survival mechanism, and one in which the already poor are being short changed. In a follow-up article for the Huffington Post on the same topic focusing on Hartford, Wessler writes, “they sell their food stamps at the corner bodega for 70 cents on the dollar just to cover basics like utility bills and winter shoes for their kids.”

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