-By Warner Todd Huston
Obama’s home state of Illinois is struggling to break the Great Recession. A perfect example of this is seen in a recent report that shows that applications for food stamps in the Land of Lincoln is greater than its creation of jobs.
Illinois has had the worst recovery from the recession of any state in the country, the Illinois Policy Institute reported this month. “There are nearly 300,000 fewer Illinoisans working today than in January 2008, and 170,000 fewer payroll jobs. ”
“For every post-recession job created in Illinois, nearly two people have enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps,” the Institute wrote. “In the recession era, the number of Illinoisans dependent on food stamps has risen by 745,000.”
While Illinois sits about in the middle of the pack for a percent of the population on SNAP assistance program, this new report is consistent with reports last year that found that Illinois was the only state to see a double-digit increase in SNAP enrollments.
Illinois consistently falls in the lowest ranks of nearly every metric that denotes a successful state. Only last week a new report showed that Illinois had more home foreclosures than any other state. In July it was reported that Illinois had the worst private sector job creation of every state in the great Midwest.
Incumbent Democrat Governor Pat Quinn was undaunted by the news saying, “Illinois’ comeback is going strong and we’ve got more work to do.” Quinn is up for re-election this year.
Here are some more of Illinois worst hits:
- Food Stamp Sign-ups in Obama’s Illinois Larger Than State’s Job Growth
- Illinois a ‘Sinkhole State’: Rates Second Worst for Liability Per Taxpayer
- Illinois Worst in Midwest for Private Sector Job Creation
- Illinois One of the Worst GDP Growth in Entire Midwest
- Illinois Ranks as ‘Worst’ For Small Businesses
- Of the Fifty, Illinoisans Have Least Trust in the State Government
- Poll: Even People in Illinois Say Illinois Worst State to Live In
- Illinois has the most underfunded pensions in the country and faces a deficit growth of $17 million per day.
- The state also has the worst funded teachers pensions in the country.
- Illinois was identified as one of the worst states in the union for its oppressive, jobs-killing lawsuit climate
- Illinois had more home foreclosures than almost every other state.
- Illinois ranks as the 49th worst debtor state in the nation.
- Illinois was ranked the 48th worst state for business.
- Illinois ranked 48th for unemployment making it among the worst five states for joblessness.
- Its government also has one of the worst rankings for state transparency and accountability in the nation, too.
- As to big city stats, Chicago tops the nation with the highest unemployment rate.
- Illinois has the worst credit rating
- Illinois Tops Nation in Growth of Food Stamp Recipients
- Mercatus: Illinois ranks at the bottom of the most free states
- Illinois Ranks as One of Worst States for Losing Citizens
See also MarathonPundit who hit this story on Thursday.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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