The Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) released updated food assistance benefit numbers today for the month of November, correcting the erroneous numbers that were released Friday in a national report.

For the month of November, the state reported 128,400 households received food assistance benefits, a 14.8 percent increase from last year. Additionally, the number of actual recipients of food assistance benefits increased to 279,000, up 13.6 percent from last year.

Iowa DHS said the increase in households receiving the federally-funded food assistance benefit is due almost entirely to the poor economy.

When broken down by county, Polk County reported 21,200 households and 44,018 recipients who received food assistance benefits in November.

These numbers reflect a 106 percent participation rate in the federal program. The participation rate is calculated by dividing the number of recipients in Polk County by the number of persons in that area at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level.

Polk County has the second-highest participation rate, with Cedar Rapids reporting the highest participation rate of 112.6 percent. The third-highest county was Des Moines County near Davenport, which reported a participation rate of 104.2 percent.

Overall, Iowa experienced a food assistance participation rate of 72.9 percent in November.