What complicates the picture for Oregon and Washington is that they have this higher than the national average, what they call food insecurity rate or hunger rate, yet unlike all the other states that have higher than the national average, Oregon and Washington have well below the average poverty rates. I think one of the explanations that's being given is the culture has become such that you are not only discouraged from applying when you qualify, but as you are moving out of welfare and still qualify for benefits, word is not getting out that people can still have these benefits. It's important to remember that AFS, the Adult and Family Services, I mean, they argue that they are not trying to push people off food stamps. They understand the importance of food stamps, but they have also been under the gun to get people off welfare, which is a different program than food stamps. They are under the gun.
Caseworkers have to reduce their loads by two percent every month.
44,000 people were on welfare in 1994. That process has clearly worked and part of that is because of the changes in welfare that Congress enacted. But that has sort of permeated the food stamp program, that's the complaint of the critics. The odd part is, in Oregon food stamp usage has gone down seven percent since the Welfare Reform Act took effect in 1996. In California and other states it has gone down much more substantially.