By JASON DEPARLE and ROBERT GEBELOFF

Food stamps, a program once scorned as “welfare,” enjoys broad new support in a struggling economy. Following deep cuts in the 1990s, Congress reversed course to expand eligibility, cut red tape and burnish the program’s image, with a special effort to enroll the working poor. These changes, combined with soaring unemployment, have pushed enrollment to record highs, with one in eight Americans now getting aid.

“I’ve seen a remarkable shift,” said Senator Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican and prominent food stamp supporter. “People now see that it’s necessary to have a strong food stamp program.”

The revival began a decade ago, after tough welfare laws chased millions of people from the cash rolls, many into low-wage jobs . Newly sympathetic officials saw food stamps as a way to help them. For states, the program had another appeal: the benefits are federally paid.

The drive to enroll the needy can be seen in the case of Monica Bostick- Thomas, 45, a widow in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood who works part-time as a school crossing guard. Since her husband died three years ago, she has scraped by on an annual income of about $15,000.

But she did not seek help until she got a call from the Food Bank of New York City, one of the city’s outreach partners.

The worker projected a benefit of $147 a month. “That’s going to help!” she said. “I wouldn’t have gone and applied on my own.”

Since its founding in 1964, the food stamp program has swung between seasons of bipartisan support and conservative attack. George McGovern, a Democrat, and Bob Dole, a Republican, were prominent Senate backers. But Ronald Reagan told stories about the “strapping young buck” who used food stamps to buy a “T-bone steak.”

By the 1990s, the program was swept up in President Bill Clinton’s pledge to “end welfare.” While he meant cash aid, the 1996 law that restricted cash benefits included major cuts in food stamps benefits and eligibility. Some states went further and pushed eligible people away.

But as attention shifted to poor workers, food stamps won new support. Wisconsin’s former governor, Tommy G. Thompson, a Republican, boasted of cutting the cash rolls, but advertised the food stamp rise. “Leading the Way to Make Work Pay,” a 2000 news release said.

In a given month, nearly 90 percent of food stamp recipients still have incomes below the federal poverty line, according to the Department of Agriculture. But among families with children, the share working rose to 47 percent in 2008, from 26 percent in the mid-1990s, and the share getting cash welfare fell by twothirds.

Russell Sykes, a government consultant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, warns that the aid encourages the poor to work less and therefore remain in need.

The tension between self-reliance and relief can be seen at the food bank’s office in Harlem, where the city lets outreach workers file applications.

Juan Diego Castro, 24, has a monthly stipend of about $2,500 and initially thought food stamps should go to needier people, like the tenants he organizes. “My concern was if I’m taking food stamps and I have a job, is it morally correct?” he said.

But a food bank worker urged him to apply . “That meeting definitely turned us around,” Mr. Castro said.

Alba Catano, 44, appeared dejected. A Colombian immigrant, she has spent a dozen years on a night janitorial crew but fell and missed three months of work after knee surgery. Last November, she limped into a storefront church in the Queens borough of New York, where a food bank worker was taking applications beside the pews.

About her lost wages, she struck a stoic pose, saying her san cocho - Colombian soup - had less meat and more plantains. But her composure cracked when she talked of the effect on her 10-year-old daughter.

“My refrigerator is empty,” Ms. Catano said.

Last month, Ms. Catano was back at work, with a benefit of $170 a month and no qualms about joining 38 million Americans eating with government aid. “I had the feeling that working people were not eligible,” she said. “But then they told me, ‘No, no, the program has improved.’ ”