For 40 straight months, over 46,000,000 people have received food stamps from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), according to the Department of Agriculture.
There were 46,252,064 Americans, or 14.5 percent of the population, receiving food stamps each month as of December 2014, down 11,032 from November, CNSNews reported. That's about double the number from a decade ago, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The number of households receiving food stamps increased by 28,141, from 22,696,294 in November to 22,724,435 in December, which is 19.6 percent of the nation's households.
As the economy continues to improve, the number of recipients is expected to drop nearly 30 percent to 33 million by 2025, according the Congressional Budget Office.
The average benefit amount received by households was $259.98 per month, with taxpayers paying $5,907,873,849 per month.
The cost of the food stamp program has nearly tripled in a decade, going from $27 billion in 2004 to $74 billion in 2014, according to the WSJ.
A new report from the liberal Washington, D.C., think tank, the Center on Budget Policy Priorities, estimates that food stamp enrollment will fall by 1 million over the next year due to falling unemployment rates, which will cause states to lose an exemption they currently have for food stamp recipients.
House Republicans are expected to again attempt to cut benefits and make them harder to get in 2015, kicking efforts off in late February with the first of several House Agriculture Committee meetings discussing the food stamp program. In 2013, Republicans attempted to cut $40 billion but eventually compromised with Democrats at $8.6 billion in cuts over 10 years, according to the WSJ.
