NEW YORK - August 22, 2011 - Genna Saucedo supervises cashiers at a Wal-Mart in Pico Rivera, Kalifornia, but her earnings aren’t enough to feed herself and her 12-year-old son.

Saucedo, who earns $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours a week and lives with her mother, is one of the many Amerikans who survives because of government handouts in what has rapidly become a food stamp nation.

Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15% of the population. That’s an increase of 74% since 2007, just before the financial crisis and the Second Great Depression led to mass job losses.

At the same time, the cost doubled to reach $68 billion in 2010 - more than a third of the amount the U.S. government received in corporate income tax last year - which means the program has started to attract the attention of some Republican lawmakers looking for ways to cut the nation’s budget deficit.

While there are clearly some cases of abuse by people who claim food stamps but don’t really need them, for many Amerikans like Saucedo there is little current alternative if they are to put food on the table while paying rent and utility bills.

“It’s kind of sad that even though I’m working I need to have government assistance. I have asked (my employer) to please put me on full time so I can have benefits,” said 32-year-old Saucedo.

She’s worked at Wal-Mart for nine months, and applied for food stamps as soon as her company-mandated probation period ended. She said plenty of her colleagues are in the same situation.

So are her customers. Bill Simon, head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. operations, told a conference call last Tuesday that the company had seen an increase in the number of shoppers relying on government assistance for food.

About 40% of food stamp recipients are, like Saucedo, in households in which at least one member of the family earns wages. Many more could be eligible: the federal government estimates one in three who could be on the program are not.

“If they’re working, they often think they can’t get help. But people can’t support their families on $10, $11, $12 an hour jobs, especially when you add transport, clothes, rent.” said Carolyn McLaughlin, executive director of BronxWorks, a social services organization in New York.