NEW YORK, NY August 19, 2009 —City officials have found a way to sign up more people for food stamps. They identified more than 600,000 Medicaid recipients are not getting the benefit, and reached out to them. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn says nearly 10 percent of them ended up qualifying for food stamps:

QUINN: That was federal money we were leaving on the table in Washington and now we are bringing it back to New York to help New Yorkers and also to move around in the New York City economy.

REPORTER: Quinn says she's also talked to the state Department of Labor about reaching out to people whose unemployment runs out at the end of the year and could benefit from receiving food stamps.