No, I'm talking about individuals. As I've already explained, the #'s you cite are not static. People move in and out of employment.
Yes, there is a problem when able bodied adults are not working, regardless if they receive Public Assistance or not. However, the problem is not aimply because they are unwilling to take a minimum wage job as you stated in an earlier post. The fact that they worked, either while receiving SNAP or in the year before, demonstrates that they will work.
And I am stating from experience having served thousands of able bodied welfare recipients over the course of my career that it really is simply that a lot of them simply don't want a job.
Not all, though. Some of my clients still inspire me to this day.
I had one client who I saw when she first entered the country as a refugee form Vietnam. When she was young she stepped on a landmine and the explosion took off both of her arms at the elbow. As is the case in all communist countries, the Vietnam government was not very kind to the young disabled girl. When a couple of missionaries found her in the late 90s she was in an invalid camp barely subsisting. The missionaries fought for a year to get her out of Vietnam, and eventually won because Vietnam, as I said, was not to fond of the disabled.
She came to the office with a translator and a big smile plastered across her face. I was told that she was simply stunned that fortune had smiled on her. She didn't know such a world as suburban Washington DC actually existed. She had a place to stay, food to eat, and above all, opportunity -- a concept she was only now becoming aware of.
She was processed and given her 9 months of Refugee benefits.
4 months later I received a letter stating that she would like to schedule a meeting to discuss her benefits. I was used to this and assumed she wanted to talk about the next step which was to discuss other benefits after the Refugee benefits ran out, and with her disability it would just be a stop gap while waiting for SSI. I was wrong.
She came in without a translator, speaking English well enough to speak for herself, with a little coaching, and she was there just to request her benefits be closed. She had found a job working at a small Vietnamese grocery, and was planning on finishing her ESL classes and then getting her GED. She then proceeded to fill out the exit-interview paper work by herself holding the pen in her elbows.
What she accomplished in 4 months makes 5 years on welfare seem like an eternity. And she was a rare bright spot in that depressing job.