Waiting for midnight, hungry families on food stamps give Walmart 'enormous spike'

Image via WikipediaAt the stroke of midnight, a growing number of Americans are lining up at Walmart not to cash in on a holiday sale, but because they’re hungry. The increasing number of Americans relying on food stamps to survive the sluggish economic recovery has changed the way the largest retailer in the United States does business.

Carol Johnston, Walmart’s senior vice president of store development, said that store managers have seen an “enormous spike” in the number of consumers shopping at midnight on the first of the month. That’s typically when those receiving federal food assistance have their accounts refilled each month.

“We’ll bring in more staff to stock. We’ll also make sure all of our registers…are open…Some people may think at 12:01, Walmart’s very quiet, but in a lot of our areas of the country, 12:01 is a big day or a big night for us, actually,” Johnston said. More...

New all time record number of 45.8 billion on food stamps

As the European news flow overflow continues, it is useful to occasionally look at how America's own economy is doing. After all remember that the latest paradigm is that the US will decouple from everyone (as is always foolishly and erroneously assumed whenever the ROW turns lower) and carry the weight of the global economy on its own shoulders. So here is this month's refresh from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which informs us that in August, a new all time record number of Americans, or 45.8 billion, relied on food stamps for sustenance. More...