Dishonest Fox Chart: Food Stamps Edition
January 27, 2012 9:23 pm ET by Matt Gertz
Another day, another dishonest Fox News chart. This time Fox is twisting the data to support Newt Gingrich's claim that President Obama is the "food stamp president" because "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history."
On today's edition of Your World with Neil Cavuto, Mike Huckabee agreed, saying that "what Newt says remains factual: more people have gotten on food stamps under Barack Obama as he's president than ever before. So it's true." Guest host Eric Bolling agreed, adding that "under Obama the program has increased by 45 percent in three years." During the segment, Fox amplified the point with the following chart:
This chart adds to Fox News' record
of using misleading charts
to deceive their viewers. It features mismatched data that does not answer the question of whether "more people have gotten on food stamps" under Obama
than any under other president (spoiler
alert: they haven't).
The data for Presidents Richard Nixon through George W. Bush comes from this table of average food stamp participation by fiscal year, but the reason each specific fiscal year's data was selected for each president is a mystery. It appears that Fox's intention was to select the year of each presidency with the highest participation. However, the fact that the data is compiled by fiscal year seems to have caused their employees some confusion, which we will detail below. Moreover, the chart does not compare those fiscal year averages to a comparable figure, the average number of beneficiaries in a fiscal year of the Obama presidency. Instead, the 46.2 million figure Fox labels "Obama (2012)" refers to the number of beneficiaries in October 2011, the first month of fiscal year 2012 and the most recent month in which data is available.
Fox's data does not show how many people were added to the rolls under the tenures of the various presidents, which would indicate whether Gingrich, Huckabee, and Bolling are correct in stating that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." Instead, the data appears to attempt to answer the question of whether more people are currently enrolled in food stamps than were enrolled under any other president. FactCheck.org, by contrast, created a chart aimed at determining whether the "food stamp president" claim is accurate, based on month-to-month figures rather than the more confusing fiscal year data. Their chart shows that more recipients were added to the rolls under George W. Bush's tenure than under Obama's:
FactCheck.org reported:
But Gingrich goes too far to say Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. We asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.
And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama's time in office than during Bush's.
It's possible that when the figures for January 2012 are available they will show that the gain under Obama has matched or exceeded the gain under Bush. But not if the short-term trend continues. The number getting food stamps declined by 43,528 in October. And the economy has improved since then.
A look at the data further reveals that Obama's tenure also has not seen the largest increase in food stamp participants by percentage. CBS News noted that the increase in food stamps enrollment "hardly makes Obama the 'best food stamp president in American history,' " pointing out that the "percent increase in beneficiaries during Mr. [George W.] Bush's presidency was higher than it has been under Mr. Obama."
In addition to answering the wrong question, Fox selects data on an inconsistent and frankly confusing basis. The figures selected show that the network either did not apply a consistent standard as to whether or not fiscal years that feature a change of president are counted for the outgoing president, or were not seeking to provide the year of each presidency featuring the highest number of food stamp beneficiaries.
Fox uses fiscal year 1993's figure of 27 million beneficiaries for George H.W. Bush; that period ran from October 1, 1992 through September 30, 1993, largely covering a period in which Bill Clinton was president. This suggests that Fox is including any fiscal year in which a president served at all as qualifying for inclusion.
Under that standard, Fox should have used fiscal year 2009 for George W. Bush, when the food stamps program had 33.5 million beneficiaries. That would have created a substantially smaller gap between that bar and Obama's.
Note that by featuring the peak food stamp enrollments of the Clinton and first Bush presidencies, the chart wipes out how participation plummeted from fiscal year 1994 through the end of Clinton's second term, and subsequently rose dramatically under the second Bush presidency.
Whichever standard Fox is using, Reagan's figure of 21.6 million in fiscal year 1983 is not the highest of his presidency.
Of course, both the chart and the Fox segment ignore the reason so many Americans are currently on food stamps: the economic downturn that began during the George W. Bush administration. That isn't data we'll see on Fox any time soon.
I think the FOXroids are upset that the Food-stampers are using the stamps (EBT card) in place of cash in order to make investments in their off shore accounts.....wtf
ONE year from G.H.W. Bush's bar to Clinton's? FOURTEEN Years from Clinton's to G.W. Bush's?
Bush was President for eight years, Obama has added his millions to the giveaway in three years. But that's typical MMFA distortion. What MMFA's boys can't lie about, they distort. What they can't distort, they ignore.
This one must sting, otherwise, MMFA wouldn't be trying to obfuscate the issue.
Why didn't they focus on why GWB enlisted 800,000 more food stamp recipients than Bill Clinton did? Does that make Bushie a "food stamp president too"?
8 years under Bush added an average of 1.8375 million food stamp recipients per year. 3 years under Obama have added and average of 4.733 million per year. Sure, this means Obama averages 257% per year more than Obama, but what is math anyway? Just another racist way to disparage our glorious leader.
People can really be self-delusional wackos! I mean really! Using math as a gauge for performance? Ridiculous!
You are one ignorant, pathetic, brainwashed pool of sewage. The left doesnt do hero worship nor do we think Obama is all that great. He is only a great president if you compare him to that catastrophe that walks like a man W.
You are a punk. You never argue reality at all. YOu come in and spew the stupidity based on the fantasies you were brainwashed with. You are about the most pitiful, brain damaged moron ever to walk the Earth.
I guess math is another thing to hard for your depressingly inferior brain. All of your math still doesnt make the claim more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history true. It is still a lie. Sorry that you are so mentally inferior and morally retarded that you STILL want to pretend its true
As for the last yes you are the perfect example that people can be delusional whackos. You make most morons shudder at the idea they might be compared to you
Take off the partisan blinders, and stop taking the derangement pills. Does it mean you worship someone if you want to see figures and facts represented truthfully?
If you say Mitt Romney's tax returns show he paid 6% in taxes, and I say it's more like 13-15%, does that mean I'm suddenly in love with Mitt Romney? Or am I just trying to be accurate?
This explains much of your mindset katanakumori. You aren't concerned with facts, accuracy or truth, you just need your fix of Obama hate.
See... isn't math great. It paints with a very broad brush.
If we end up looking at Obama after 8 years, he'll have many fewer people on food stamps than right now - your whine makes no sense.
And it's not "Media Matters" that's raising this issue. It's any factchecking site. What we liberals know is that facts don't have a liberal slant. Facts are facts and you too can either agree to accept factual evidence or you can be dishonest. It's too bad that you've chosen to be dishonest when faced with that choice.
Then again, I'll bet good money that ed won't get it even with a re-run.
See! Jonimacaroni can see into the future! She knows for an absolute fact what the food stamp situation will be in 5 years. Only we enlightened Obama worshipers can see into the future with such clarity. If only the evil & racist conservatives would join in our worship of Barry, then they to could see the future and know that if we just wait five more years then we will be in an American Utopia!
The fact that Jonimacaroni can see into the future and calculate with internet speed the state of our economy (without even knowing what Obama economic policies will be after he is re-elected) proves that we Obama worshipers are superior beings. I sure feel sorry for the tiny brained conservatives who don't have this Obama-fueled form of extra sensory perception.
Hopefully, with just a few more months on my knees in front of my Obama shrine will give me the magical precognition skills of my fellow Obamabot Jonimacaroni.
All hail Obama!
Wingnuts take such glowing pride in being duped.
You are a LAIR. Oh yes you are a punk and the stupidest most mentally inferior dolt to ever post on the internet but you are also a LIAR. As I have pointed out many times. Obama was NEVER revered by the left. As I pointed out before he has been so pilloried from the left his chief of staff threw a hissy fit about it. That lie is just one among many that Rush told you to think and you are SO stupid that reality means nothing to you. Rush said it, you repeat it and for someone with no brain like you that settles it. For me that makes you a LIAR. The very concept has been proven wrong. You dont care. IT is a LIE. You dont care. Obama is taken to task all the time here from the left. He isnt praised all that highly here. You dont care because you are a LIAR who doesnt care what is true. Only that you LOVE to tell lies.
You disgust all decent human beings and should STFU till you grow at least a vestige of a brain
Using science fiction fantasy claims to prop up one of the the worst presidents in history sets the bar for stupidity and you Obama worshipers agree.
Substance? Meh!
You cant discern present reality. All you can do is spew out the vitriolic nonsense you were brainwashed with based on delusional fantasies that dont exist.
Obama is Thomas Jefferson compared to Bush. Once again you think just spewing out stupidity, based on your deranged hatred of Obama is somehow connected to reality when it isnt. You are a liar katana. You are very stupid, very brainwashed and you are a LIAR. Your posts are nothing but ODS jokes
- If we love him so much, why don't we marry him?
More of the stupid!
You are the most useful of idiots, a pure partisan fool who is too busy screaming like a madman at fake birth certificates and pretending all liberals love Obama in order to rationalize the stream of absurd hate that fuels your derangement.
I'd love to hear some actual criticism or analysis from you that wasn't just repeating the madness and fake outrage you get spoonfed each day.
It's like having a discussion with a 5 year old, and no....I don't love him so much I want to marry him.
Of course, I say "you could" theoretically, not necessarily taking into account personal lack of emotional control.
Magical insight? Or it could simply be common sense, which apparently you completely lack!
Obama's not going to change the fact that our economy goes through good times and bad times.
God, the wingnuts are getting stupider all the time around here.
You're right ,ed. Of course, Bush came into office with a budget surplus and a good economy, and left with a disaster just starting to really percolate.
Obama took office at the rock-bottom depths of the Bush disaster.
You really can't figure out that it works in favor of Bush to compare his eight years with Obama's first three?
Talk about yer distortion and obfuscation.
I think Bush is using an evil mind-control ray to blind the world from Barry's greatness. Sure, all the things he said would fix the economy haven't worked like he said, but he said he would do them again and this time they would work.
Why should we doubt his word? After all, he has such a marvelous speaking voice and he seems so sincere. That's enough for me! I think he needs another vacation to Hawaii or another 90+ rounds of golf to focus his message so the unenlightened idiots will believe what we enlightened worshipers take on faith.
Your stupidity is epic. You want to BLAME Obama for an economy he inherited but excuse Bush for the economy when HE was president. Of course you are so stunningly stupid that makes sense to you. To those of us with functional brainpans it makes you look like a mentally inferior, brainwashed MORON. Then again you ARE a mentally inferior brainwashed moron
...or it's all Obama's fault?
I wish we could have a discussion about all the various aspects of the problems we face, how they got that way, and what might be done to fix them.
We could certainly discuss who contributed to what problems with what policies to what degree, however...
We can't, because according to right wingers like katanakumori, we have to assign all the blame for everything to one president or the other, and unless we agree that everything was perfect when Obama took office and he screwed everything up the moment he took the oath, they won't budge.
Again, it's a political discussion against a block of overgrown 5 year olds.
Is it all Bush's fault? No, it's the result of more than three decades of right wing policies, it's just that the last eight years of Bush was really the sh*t-flavored icing on the crapcake.
I'd strongly suggest you try to master simple, straightforward conversation before attempting advanced maneuvers like sarcasm. You're not very good at it at all.
And that's just a sampling of his failures.
But he's your man. You are welcome to him. Please take him home with you next January.
Seriously, you could have a slow ten year old listen to Rush Limbaugh's Bizarro World interpretation of reality for one day, and tell him to write down what he heard, and it would look just like ed's post.
Oh, and dipsh!t, foxtards haven't been saying that the RATE of food stamp recipients is increased under Obama, they're saying that the NUMBER of recipients added surpasses Bush. See, math is fun, if you're not an idiot.
If you don't read the article, you really shouldn't criticize MMfA for things you don't notice in the article. That's unfair, I think you would agree.
They aren't allowed to read the articles, they are only allowed to read the headlines and then cut and paste rebuttals from their billionaire funded think tanks and pollsters.
That's what was so funny about the "obfuscation" line. If MMfA really wanted to downplay the numbers, they would have thought twice about linking to that chart, never mind displaying it.
To edrossinoelwein9669:
You have offered no evidence that Media Matters is lying or distorted any information on this site.
While plenty of evidence has shown Fox News engages in Lying, Race Baiting, and Racism in their news reporting.
The obfuscate the issue claim is also nonsense.
If you have evidence then post it, otherwise your just another name calling Conservative who cannot deal with reality and fact.
And that fact is Media Matter has exposed another Fox News lie.
Business as usual.
It's an ugly trick: attacking a President for keeping his citizens from going hungry due to a recession he had no part in creating.
Must go over great with those selfish teabagging medicare recipients.
It is not a distortion MORON. Newts claim was
It is a LIE. Also did you note the part where the amount of recipients DECLINED by more than 43,000?
This isnt a distortion. You are a LIAR. You are also just flat out too stupid to understand pretty much anything so you really ought to STFU and stop humiliating yourself
That's the only number that matters...despite all the numerical gymnastics.
No, let's just be superficial to suit your partisan purposes.
I sort of imagined you might cite that, but I couldn't possibly expect you would base your defense on a years-old misreading which I promptly admitted anyway. That's really the best shot you thought you had here?
If that's the case, you couldn't have admitted I was right if you said so in that many words.
Dunning Kruger effect, parading around in full regalia.
You are a LIAR. What matters is that Newt made a claim that was an outright lie. Which is the topic of this thread. You are pathetic and brainwashed and have become a sad joke
Repercussions from economic collapses sometimes take decades for the downward spiral to end and for things to turn around.
I'm close to being a complete idiot when it comes to finance and economics, but I do know that I understand it a lot better than the average Republican official.
This narrow perspective fails to appreciate the diversity and interdependence inherent in a community economy.
That is why Romney's "I was born rich and used that money to get richer so I know about economics" line is such BS.
Sooner or later, the Democrats are going to be forced to admit that they own this economy. It's not "Bush's fault." It belongs to Barry.
Here is a quote from Reagan during a campaign stop in Georgia in 1980:
"We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," Such tax loopholes, sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy."
"Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver or less?"
Can you believe that Reagan? Engaging in Class Warfare. Of all the nerve.
"Duh, i dun saw them charts that proveses that that muslum in that don't not desurv to be in the whait house makeses peeple for-ced to be on fuud stamps to make dem vote fer him-un! See i tolds ya so!"
Good jobs gone overseas, thanks to Republicans, Obstructionist Republicans in the House and the poor and working poor pay the price.
For the rest of us such a concept is regarded as an economic failure. If you lot had the wit to understand the concept of a "social wage" rather than sticking the ordinary folk with ridiculous charges for access to the most basic of rights (forget the petit bourgeois concerns of your much perverted Bill of Rights"): those of access to education and healthcare in their broadest meanings.
It's Fox.
Like other positive social programs, food stamps are an effective process for assuring people's basic needs are being met. The few pennies being spent on taking care of the nation's people assure the well-being of all.
Implication here is that using food stamps is some how wrong. It ain't. People who receive these benefits are a part of USA's great society. If a person needs the people's support then the person should get it.
Now how about a chart showing the international corporations receiving government welfare compared to paying lobbyists and taxes. Or maybe a chart showing how much money corporations pay their lobbyist and how little taxes they pay.
While Murdoch Media/Fox are at it, make up a chart comparing the number of jobs sent over seas and the increase in USA people's need for social support.
It's Fox; do you expect truth, justice or the American way?
Ema Nymton
~@:o?
.
If you have no principles and don't care about the well-being of the country you profess to love, these political games make sense.
And that should tell you something, mcnairbo6573.
They're ALL working for the plutocracy.
~
What policy of Obama's is causing our holy job creators to fail to create jobs? Was it the stimulus which took zero money away from the holy job creators? Was it the health care plan which took zero money away from the holy job creators? Was it Obama playing footsies with the bankers which took zero money away from the holy job creators?
(I was just kidding about "conservatives need to explain", since they're not allowed to talk anymore after being so wrong for so long.)
Watch that monologue...one of Maher's best ever.
It's in the GOP debates, and in the mews, that imaginary Obama. He's been mentioned at this site. A lot.
BTW, I don't want to look like I'm fishing for pity, as I mentioned it on another thread, but that moran in the Reyn Spooner shirt and puka shells is my congressman. It just might explain why I need to beat up on the wingnuts here. ;0)
The last one was "do you prefer the Declaration of Independence or Saul Alinsky?"
I fell on the floor laughing at Newt's cynical use of the "Alinsky = bad" retarded dog whistle. Predictably the crowd ate it up.
I wonder if they have any idea that not only was Alinsky not politically affiliated, but that Koch funded teabagger groups like Freedom Works and the American Enterprise Institute have Rules for Radicals as required reading?
That's obscene.
The people at the debate who cheered Newt are worse.
P.S. Note to Fox: food stamps are no longer used. Calling food assistance programs "food stamps" is bigoted. Care to guess which portion of Americans it's bigoted towards?
And you can spin and dance all you want to PRETEND Newt didnt lie but he did and you are still pathetic and brainwashed. You can pretend that the economy didnt crater under Bush but it did. It is not appropriate it is thinly veiled racism and everyone knows it you just LIKE the racism because you are just that pitiful
Benjamin Landy's blog entry.
The sooner the DNC learns how to reach a society inundated with a fixation on instant gratification the better. Rebuttal to this is easy. More people end up on welfare when Republicans are in power (surely they can build a graph to prove this). Republicans want to end help for the poor and others down on their luck, etc., etc., etc.