“Bill” Board Day 2 – If you don’t work, you don’t eat

Since the Obama administration took office, we have lost 5-million net jobs.  If you don’t work, you don’t eat.  Well not exactly.  In America, if you don’t work, you go on government assistance.

At the time of this billboard advertisement’s creation (August, 2012), available data from the US Census Bureau’s Community Survey (DP03) reported that over the period October,2008 (beginning Fiscal 2009), through September, 2010 (end Fiscal 2010), SNAP (food stamp) participation in Virginia Beach had increased from 4,562 families to 7,582 families or 65%.  Further investigation of Virginia Department of Social Services records over the period ending September 2008 through September 2012 show family participation in SNAP growing from 5,816 to 13,844 families or 138%.  Whichever number you choose to believe, it is still large and indicative of a society that at some point cannot sustain itself, even at the most basic level of human significance – providing food for one’s own family.

Extrapolating this to the federal level, according to the US Department of Agriculture SNAP monthly report statistics, at the end of Fiscal 2008 (September 30, 2008), the number of SNAP recipients was 28,223,000.  As of July 2012, that number stands at 46,681,833, an increase of 18,458,833 or 65%.   So, Virginia Beach is simply a microcosm of the larger nation.

To make the point, if we have 23 million people who are either unemployed, underemployed, or have dropped out of the workforce (should be employed) standing 3 feet apart, that unemployment line would stretch half-way around the world.  Now imagine a second line of twice that number, standing in a line that circles the globe, waiting for the soup kitchen to open.  Fortunately, because of technology, we do not have to witness this every day: the government simply issues checks and gives out debit cards.  But I bet if we did have to see this every day, it would change our minds about the current administration and who should hold the highest office in the United States.

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” - Confuscius