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200 offices in the State. That's one for every state rep district, every county, plus every ward in the city and extra for every city over 100,000 with a poor neighborhood.

And how many staffers per office? My guess is more than 10 but less than 20 per office.

Illinois is 9th of 52 including DC and PR. So what is the correlation between blue state and participation rate? With all the pressure from the staffers and accusations that they are not good parents unless they apply for food stamps and threats that they will lose their children if they are not good parents, why do 1/3 not apply for food stamps?

Of the 1/3 who are eligible for food stamps and don't apply, guess which demographic group is least likely to apply... yep, Mexicans. Blacks and whites who are eligible are more likely than average to apply.

What the article assumes is that the 500,000 on the rolls who did apply are all eligible. Other studies consistently show that about 1/3 of those who apply and receive food stamps are not eligible. They lie on their applications .... or more likely the "bigger staff" creates the lies on the application in order to justify the existence of the "bigger staff".

In addition to these state employees, our tax money contracts "outreach programs" to city Human Service departments and to non-profit groups. I was previously on the board of a non-profit which was precinct captains for the Dick Mell-Pat Quinn organization. They were constantly pre-occupied with trying to justify their existence in the face of low numbers of eligible people signed up. It was hard to determine whether Pat Quinn's petition drives or concern for the needy drove the "outreach".

With all the pressure from the staffers and accusations that they are not good parents unless they apply for food stamps and threats that they will lose their children if they are not good parents, why do 1/3 not apply for food stamps?

Uh, maybe they are smart enough to stay out of the clutches of the government?

There have been several times in my life I was eligible for food stamps and other government programs.....thank you, but no thank you.