The BLS number for 2011 is roughly 14.1 to 14.5 million. Don't make me do your homework for you - look it up.
Even if you take some of more pessimistic numbers beyond the BLS figure, you don't even come close to 45 million unemployed.
Eligibility for food stamps is not determined on the basis of employment anyway ~ and there are plenty of retirees who qualify for food stamps.
Well, that's just great. So, we have people who are collecting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps.....plus whatever else. On top of that, roughly half the people in the country pay no Federal income tax and have no skin the game anyway. In fact, many of those household ca$h in some more with the "Earned Income Tax Credit Scam."
Half of U.S. pays no federal income tax
The Earned Income Tax Credit Obamas Stimulus Welfare Scam
Given all of that, now can you see why we have a $15 Trillion Dollar Debt?
They make up the greater number of the people covered by Food Stamps.
That doesn't mean folks don't have skin in the game.
Let's take my grandmother (long at rest lo these many years). She had 10 kids. It was the Great Depression. They were poor. Grandpa never made enough money to pay income taxes at either the state or federal level.
Her two brothers were WWI combat veterans. Her eldest child, her only son, fought in Pelau in WWII. Three son in laws, and their 8 or 9 (combined) brothers fought in WWII, some of them in the heaviest fighting in any more any time in history.
Three grandsons served during/in The Nam. Several great grandsons have been to Iraq, Afghanistan and other combat situations.
Skin in the game?
It's our country. It was her country. If they'd had Food Stamps she'd had qualified in spades.
I'm not sure where you are coming from? Do you imagine that only people who pay cash money to the government get to be patriotic?