New Food Stamp Outreach Opportunity: Medicare Discount Drug Card Offers An Opportunity To Expand Food Stamp Enrollment Among The Elderly And People With Disabilities

Publication Date: January 2004

Publisher: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Dorothy Rosenbaum

Research Area: Health

Keywords: Income diversity; Economic inequality; Food costs; Disabilities

Type: Report

Abstract:

Nearly one in three non-institutionalized people enrolled in Medicare, or about 10 million people who are elderly or disabled Medicare beneficiaries, have incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty level, $13,470 a year for a single person and $18,180 for a couple in 2004. Many of these individuals face significant challenges in affording the rapidly growing cost of prescription drugs while at the same time attempting to meet all of their other basic needs on their low, often fixed, incomes.