It drives me nutso when the media says people have given up/ stopped looking for work/money and do not clarify that statement.
I just checked the ‘food stamp’ stats
People on SNAP is at 45,837,824 (Aug ‘11)
Last year the figure was 42,389,926 (Aug ‘10)
(That’s a 3,447,898 increase in one year)
Many of those who are not employed are most likely supplementing ‘living’ with ‘food stamps’
http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/34SNAPmonthly.htm
I can’t find any up-to-date stats on HUD section-8 housing - the last stats the government put out that I can see is from 2008 - section-8 kicking around 5 million homes (that number has got to be higher now)
For many people - having free food and free housing makes it easier to not work. Some people going off unemployment payments have to be shifting to government subsidies.
Then you have two income families that go to one.....people moving back to parents or family. People opting to collect early social security.
You just don’t ‘give up looking’ for money - unless you have a trust fund or a net to catch you......
Here’s some more stats:
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/index.html
As of Oct 2011 60,542,000 are collecting some form of SS or SSI
In 2010 the number was 54,031,968
That’s a 6,510,032 increase of people getting SS or SSI
(how much of that is a baby boomer bump-I don’t know?)
There’s more to the unemployment numbers than unemployment.
The Shift is ON