Fox News misleadingly attacked the federal food stamp program for being wasteful and unaccountable despite reports that the program achieved the lowest payment error rate in its history in the most recently available data.
Fox New complained about the findings of a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on quality control in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as food stamps. The USDA report clearly states that the 2012 fiscal year was “another year of excellent performance in payment accuracy” before noting that the most recent payment error rate of 3.42 percent was once again “the lowest National payment error rate in the history of SNAP.”
On the July 24 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade cast the findings in a negative light, stressing that “the government is overpaying on food stamps by about $2 billion.” Co-host Steve Doocy then questioned whether the Obama administration could “be trusted with more money,” given the overpayments. Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney went on to chastise the Department of Agriculture for labeling the food-stamp payment error rate of 3.42 percent “excellent,” wondering aloud “since when has that been good?”
Fox News' mischaracterization of the SNAP report continued throughout the day. On Happening Now, co-host Jenna Lee called the USDA report “startling” and said that “the administration is having a tough time managing its funds.” On The Real Story, host Gretchen Carlson claimed that federal spending on nutrition assistance was “reaching a breaking point” before highlighting the growth of participation in the food stamp program since 2007.
Far from indicating a managerial flaw in the Obama administration, the 2012 payment error rate in SNAP is evidence of success in rooting out improper payments. According to the report being derided on Fox News, the national payment error rate in SNAP during President Obama's first year in office was 4.36 percent. That error rate then fell to 3.81, 3.80, and 3.42 percent in fiscal years 2010-2012, respectively.
Error rates for the program were much higher during the Bush administration, before the 2008-2009 recession pushed millions of Americans into poverty and boosted participation in government-administered nutritional assistance programs. A February 2014 report from the USDA on characteristics of SNAP households in fiscal year 2012 reveals that participation is indeed up since 2007, but it also says, “Fluctuations in the number of SNAP participants in the last 16 years have been broadly tracked to economic indicators”:
