Posted on 01/04/2010 3:11:34 PM PST by GVnana
Food stamp programs in 30 states and the District of Columbia provided data on the number of recipients who had no other cash income in 2007 and 2009. These numbers reflect not only the economic conditions in various states, but also the extent to which food stamp recipients qualify for other safety net programs, such as welfare or unemployment compensation.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No doubt.
“The 173% increase figure for Nevada is ONLY feasible if the massive numbers of illegal immigrants working in the Las Vegas housing-construction-market-bubble, somehow managed to qualify for food stamps, and other citizen benefits.”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Not necessarily, how many did they have on stamps in 2007? If the beginning number is very small it wouldn’t take many to account for a 173% increase.
I suppose that there are certain "marriages" in Utah that, legally to the Federal Goverment, appear as a man and wife, and several single, unemployed mothers.
I've been wondering if there is any validity check on the SSN when an illegal with fake ID applies for unemployment benefits, food stamps etc. My guess is there isn't.
Yes it would; because the housing boom in Vegas, at it’s height, acted as a self-perpetuating houses=jobs=houses=jobs machine, until the bubble burst, making the local construction trades the hardest and deepest hit segment of the local economy and those trades had a very high component of illegal employment. It is difficult to imagine the reduction in construction jobs NOT comprising a very high percentage of Vegas increases in unemployment.
Where they worked etc. is beside the point of what I said. If there were very few drawing food stamps before the crash then it would not take many new cases to account for a 173 percent increase. It is like the guy who brags that he made three times as much money last year as the year before but he leaves out the part where he only made five hundred dollars the year before so three times that is only fifteen hundred. It makes no difference about the details, I am only referring to mathematics. Without knowing the base figure the fact of a 173 percent increase tells me very little. Capice?
You may very well know the situation and be able to estimate how many illegals are on food stamps but that has no bearing on my statement which concerns only simple arithmetic.
Your are right, on your point - the math. The 173% does not tell us what the new level of beneficiaries is - 173% of what.?
So, Mea Culpa.
I should have stated my concern more generally, and less directly to the “173 %”, as in:
that ANY increase in the issuance of Food Stamps, or similar citizen benefits, in an area like Las Vegas, with it’s recent job/employment history (during the construction bubble), should cause legitimate question about the legitimacy of the numbers of those being added to the rolls of those getting the benefits, given the high rate there in Las Vegas of illegal employment and residence once supported by the construction bubble.
When the bubble ended, did they head south of the Rio Grand, like traditional seasonal agricultural workers, or stay to collect “benefits” until better times arrive.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.