WASHINGTON The number of children in the United States relying on food stamps for a meal spiked to 16 million last year, according federal data, signaling a lopsided economic recovery in which lower income families are still lagging behind. 
 
 The roughly one in five children who received food stamps in 2014 surpassed pre-recession levels, when one in eight or 9 million children were on food stamps, according to the U.S. Census survey of American families released on Wednesday 
 
 Republicans in Congress have sought to cut back on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program or food stamp program as part of a larger plan to balance the budget. 
 
 Early last year lawmakers proposed $40 billion in cuts from the program over 10 years. The final farm bill signed into law trimmed $8.6 billion from the program, eliminating benefits for about 850,000 people, according to estimates by anti-hunger advocates. 
 
 Other findings of the survey show a rapidly changing America in which more children are being raised in single-parent homes and more young people are delaying marriage. 
 
 Of the 73.7 million children under 18 in the United States, 27 percent were living in single parent homes last year, tripling the 9 percent in 1960. 
 
 The number of marriages also dwindled last year with less than half of households in America made up of married couples, compared to three-quarters in 1940, the survey found. 
 
 The median age for people first getting married in 2014 was 29 for men and 27 for women up from 24 and 21 respectively in 1947. 
 
 (Reporting by Elvina Nawaguna; Editing by Sandra Maler) ||||| The number of children receiving food stamps remains higher than it was before the start of the Great Recession in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual Families and Living Arrangements table package released today. 
 
 
 
 The rate of children living with married parents who receive food stamps has doubled since 2007. In 2014, an estimated 16 million children, or about one in five, received food stamp assistance compared with the roughly 9 million children, or one in eight, that received this form of assistance prior to the recession. 
 
 
 
 These statistics come from the 2014 Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which has collected statistics on families and living arrangements for more than 60 years. Today’s table package delves into the characteristics of households, including the marital status of the householders and their relationship to the children residing in the household. The historical data on America’s families and living arrangements can be found on census.gov. ||||| The U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday that 16 million children living in America received food stamps in 2014, or about one out of every five kids. 
 
 Census said that number is up dramatically from 2007, before the Great Recession, when 9 million kids were receiving food stamps, or about one in eight. The data comes from Census’ 2014 survey on families. 
 
 “The rate of children living with married parents who receive food stamps has doubled since 2007,” Census said. 
 
 The findings are likely to bolster claims from some Republicans that the Obama administration seems to have a goal of putting more people under government aid programs. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 2012 called President Barack Obama the “food stamp president,” which led some to say his comment was racist. 
 
 The debate over food stamps has led to a sort of chicken-and-egg argument between Republicans and Democrats. The GOP has said the end of the recession should allow Congress to reduce spending on food stamps. 
 
 While Democrats have tried to give President Barack Obama credit for a rebounding economy, they also note that millions of additional people are using food stamps, and that the program should not be cut yet. The total number of people using food stamps has almost doubled since the start of the Great Recession, to nearly 48 million in 2013. 
 
 The number finally dipped from that peak in 2014, but just a little, to about 46 million people. 
 
 Republicans have tried since 2013 to cut food stamp spending, as part of their overall plan to slow spending and get control of the budget deficit. In 2013, the House voted to cut $39 billion from food stamps over a decade, and almost a year ago, President Barack Obama signed a final deal that will cut just $8.7 billion from the program over ten years. 
 
 That cut was estimated to reduce food stamp benefits by about $90 per month for the hundreds of thousands of homes that use them.
– There are roughly 73.7 million kids running around America, and about 16 million, or nearly one in five, of them are doing so fueled by food stamps, according to US Census data out yesterday. That number is particularly alarming when compared to pre-recession levels: In 2007, some 9 million, or one in eight, kids were on food stamps. There are currently about 46 million Americans total on food stamps, down from the 2013 peak of 48 million. The jump signals what Reuters says is a "lop-sided" economic recovery that has left low-income people behind, but it also underscores a fundamental partisan divide over social welfare programs. As the Blaze notes, Republicans want to scale back the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program—arguing that the end of the recession should indicate less need—and trimmed $8.6 billion and 850,000 people from its rolls with last year's farm bill. Democrats, meanwhile, argue that it's too soon to scale back the program. Meanwhile, some other highlights from the Census numbers: 27% of children live in single-parent homes, three times the 9% who did in 1960 10% of kids live with a grandparent, 15% have a stay-at-home mom, 0.6% have a stay-at-home dad, and 38% have at least one foreign-born parent 48% of households are made up of married couples, down from 76% in 1940 Americans are continuing to marry later, at a median age of 29 for men and 27 for women; that's up from 24 and 21 in 1947