Food-Stamp Culture: Nashville, Tennessee

Driving out of town for a weekend trip, OS and his bride had the local NPR affiliate on the car radio. In the neutral tone their news staff are known for, the local reporter calmly reported a shocking statistic: One person in six in Nashville/Davidson County, Tennessee, OS's hometown, are on the Food Stamp program.

1 divided by 6= 16.67 percent of a what has become a large city in the past twenty years or so.

Since there are entire swaths of the county where Food Stamps would almost certainly never be needed or used, that means there must be other swaths where their use is now commonplace.

It's to the point, says our reporter, that the State of Tennessee has hired some six hundred Food Stamp recipients to process the flood of Food Stamp applications. Of course, this full-time employment takes them off Food Stamps themselves, but their salaries are funded by federal 'stimulus' money. Which will run out. Then they'll go back on their Food Stamps...

Well, the claim can be made that 'jobs were created'. But missing in this 'job creation' is one simple fact: These six hundred people are providing a service, and are now employed, but their employment creates no wealth.

And we now have the expansion of a more-or-less permanent underclass in this great city. The social and political implications of having some 16-17% of a population directly dependent upon the government for their food are sobering to contemplate.

Since the early 70's the recessions have come in waves--busts and recoveries, but each recovery leaving more people behind in the ditch, more businesses closed, more productive work sent offshore.

No, Virginia, the Great Recession is not over.