BEFORE Fox News discovered Jason Greenslate, he was just another Californian beach slacker. But then he explained to conservative America that he had no interest in a regular job, yet received $200 a month in food assistance. Worse, he occasionally spent some of it on fresh seafood. Thus a new welfare bogeyman was born: Lobster Boy.

Lobster Boy is now Exhibit A in Republicans’ efforts to slash the cost of the food stamp programme, known as SNAP—federal food aid to the poor. On September 19th House Republicans passed a bill cutting $40 billion from SNAP over ten years.

The number of people claiming SNAP claimants has certainly grown. In July 2007, before the recession, 26.6m Americans received it. Four years later the figure had climbed to 45.3m. By June it was 47.8m. The cost this year is around $80 billion, more than twice as much as before the economy stalled. Democrats say the rise is due to the downturn; Republicans say Barack Obama’s administration has been too generous and allowed lazy Lobster Boy and his pals to sponge off the taxpayer.

It turns out there is good support for the notion that most of the increase is counter-cyclical, as it is meant to be. Costs have risen because of the immediate effects of the recession and because of temporary changes in policy in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This law increased aid during the downturn, partly to help stimulate the economy.

In a recent paper Peter Ganong and Jeffrey Liebman of Harvard University say that at least two-thirds of the growth in spending between 2007 and 2011 was the result of higher unemployment; 3% came from more states using relaxed rules on financial eligibility; and 9% because more places qualified to extend the period for which childless able-bodied adults (such as Mr Greenslate) may claim SNAP. The Recovery act temporarily raised the maximum benefit by an average of 13.9%, which also raised the incentive to enrol.