Does anyone out there know

of some good resources, web reachable preferably, on the number of people on public assistance of one kind or another. I'd really like to get a breakdown by state and type of assistance and would love to have by parish in Louisiana. I'm really curious to know the actual proportion of people down there on public assistance, given the kind of right wing rhetoric we've seen over the past week or so.

There are an awful lot of people eligible for assistance who are not, however, aware of it and therefore not receiving any. And there are many others who are not eligible and yet are extremely poor. A sizable number of people in this country are working 40 hours a week and yet barely scraping by. Furthermore, what Google searching I've done, for example, indicates that there are a total of 80,000 people in Louisiana total on aid to families with dependent children. Now a few of those 80,000 were not in New Orleans and there were 100,00 people stranded in New Orleans. Do the math. So far this is just a guess and speculation, AFDC is only a part of public assistance after all. I would very much like to get some solid evidence. Anyone with knowledge of useful sources please contact me.