This Chart Illustrating the Difference Between Job Growth & Welfare Participation Over the Last Four Years Is Terrible

The Senate Budget Committee Republican staff under Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Thursday released a chart that should have you worried:

"The numbers reflect the change in the total number of people employed and the total number of people on the two largest federal welfare programs, as well as Social Security Disability Insurance, between 2008 and 2012," the senator’s report explains.

"The employment figure was derived using the total nonfarm and seasonally adjusted number of people employed in December of 2008 (134.4 million) and the number of people employed in September 2012 (133.5 million) as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics," the report adds.

The senator’s office also explains that the number of people on food stamps and Medicaid was derived by comparing the number of people on both programs in 2008 (as reported by each agency) and the number the CBO expects to be on each program by 2012.

"Overall, there are nearly 80 means-tested federal welfare programs and, according to the Census Bureau, nearly 110 million people in the United States receive benefits from at least one of them," the report adds.*

But instead of trying to limit or control the size of these unwieldy and expensive state run programs, it seems like there are people in the federal government who want more people on these programs.

Indeed, as Sen. Sessions notes and as TheBlaze has mentioned before, certain government agencies advertise and encourage participation in their programs.

Heck, the USDA even praises the economic benefits of food stamp participation: "Each $5 dollars in new SNAP benefits generates almost twice that amount in economic activity for the community… Everyone wins when eligible people take advantage of benefits to which they are entitled."

"Total spending on food stamps is projected to reach nearly $800 billion over the next 10 years, with no fewer than 1 in 9 people on the program at any given time," Sen. Sessions' office reminds us.

So, yes, as stated in the headline and the opening paragraph, the difference between job growth and welfare participation in this country is terrible and you should be worried.

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*"This figure includes exclusively means-tested welfare programs, not entitlements like Medicare or Social Security. It also excludes some means-tested benefits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or the health insurance premium subsidies included in the President’s health law. CBO estimates that the premium subsidies, scheduled to begin in 2014, will result in at least 25 million individuals receiving means-tested federal assistance by the end of the decade."