Americans on food stamps are 49% white, 26% African-American and 20% Hispanic. Interestingly misleading numbers. What percentage of the total population is each group? Oh never mind. I forgot the article is aimed at democrats and they don’t understand math anyway.
She also claims that having children that their parents can’t afford doesn’t drive food stamp use, then a few paragraphs down says that represents 72% of food stamp use.
As to them being “us”, we know that twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservatives, rather than liberals, but voting outcomes don’t reflect that—and the conservative identity of those on food stamps is half that ratio of Americans overall anyway.
As to the racial makeup, the only way she can get to even her numbers, according to this USDA data from 2010 on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program#cite_note-usdafaq-11, the USDA site itself is now of course down) is by counting those of “unknown” race as white, the “known” figures are 37% white and 22% black.
Then that claim about that more were added to the rolls under Bush than Obama? Look at the charts on the wikipedia page: From 2008 to 2012, the number getting food stamps increased from 28 million to 46 Bush, and also far more than the reported rise of unemployment, including families for the increase in the unemployed—to counter two of her misstatements at once.
Oh, and for those who complain about it funding junk food? She says that alcohol and prepared foods are banned, but it is actually only hot prepared foods (which don’t tend to be junk food, but are more expensive than friggin’ fixing a meal yourself) that are banned. She even later suggests paying “bonuses” for those who purchase healthy foods with their food stamps. She also suggests increasing the minimum wage, which would, of course, increase numbers of the unemployed to go on the SNAP rolls.
She also tries to refute a comment that recipients make sure not to make enough money to get kicked off the program by saying the unemployed childless (so, again, you do need children you can’t afford to access the program!) can only get limited benefits without entering a job training program.
She claims that Obama encouraged more work requirements, but the truth is that he removed work requirements while somehow ‘encouraging’ them.
She then moves on to the old canard that food stamp benefits are meager, at an average of $133 per person a month. But that’s not low for someone really watching costs, half of the beneficiaries are either small children or those getting fed in school, the program by name is just supposed to be “Supplemental”—and of course that average includes people making enough money to get less than the regular maximum benefit.
All told, I don’t think I can find a single point in this entire piece that isn’t false or so misleading as to be false. Brazile is actually a vice chairwoman of the DNC, which a lot of people don’t realize, and this propaganda may well be a product of the DNC. But it is so dishonest that it could be used as an instructional example in how much misinformation gets generated by our so-called ‘news’ organizations.