Lament of the Mind

skeletyson:

mediamattersforamerica:

Fox posted this very misleading graphic comparing people on welfare to people with full-time jobs to conclude that there are more people on welfare than with jobs—by the looks of this chart, 5 times as many people on welfare than there are working. 

Let’s break down everything that is wrong with this.

1. The chart uses a shortened y-axis to make the number of people on welfare look 5 times as large as the number of people with jobs. 108.6 is not five times bigger than 101.7. 
2. The figure for the “people on welfare” includes anyone in a household where one member participated in a means-tested program. The figure for people with a full-time job is only individuals who worked. 
3. Many people who receive federal benefits also work—6.4 million households where someone works also receive food stamps, for example. 

Fox has a history of misleading graphics, but this one really exposes their smear campaign against government programs. Charts this bad don’t happen by accident. 

According to the data used for this graph, my mom and dad would qualify as “welfare victims” for a non-significant portion of their lives.

And, uh, yeah. No.

Ugh, seriously… anyone who still watches this “news” station and believes a word that comes out of them really needs to have their heads examined. Though, for that matter, the station itself needs it too. This is nothing but pure bullshit and data manipulation to try and scare people into believing utter bullshit, and it makes me angrier the more I think about it.