One FOX News chart distorts in three ways

[gollygee]

Maybe that's a record?

You'll have to click to see the chart. I'm not very good at pasting pics, but it's funny that I googled to see if I could find a picture I could easily link to and that might show up, so I googed "fox news chart deceptive" and a whole bunch came up, but not this new one.

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/28/1251247/-One-Fox-News-chart-that-will-mislead-you-about-welfare-and-jobs-in-three-different-ways

First off, this chart, which claims to compare the number of people on government assistance with the number of people with full-time jobs, starts somewhere around the 100 million mark. The numbers given are 108.6 million and 101.7 million, but the scale of the graph means that the purported number of people on welfare looks several times as large as the number of people with full-time jobs. Anyone glancing at the screen quickly and not thinking about how far apart those numbers actually are will be seriously misled.

Second, Media Matters points out:

Fox's 108.6 million figure for the number of "people on welfare" comes from a Census Bureau's account (Table 2) of participation in means-tested programs, which include "anyone residing in a household in which one or more people received benefits" in the fourth quarter of 2011, thus including individuals who did not themselves receive government benefits. On the other hand, the "people with a full time job" figure Fox used included only individuals who worked, not individuals residing in a household where at least one person works.

A side point that's obvious if you understand the comparison Fox is making here is that many in the 108.6 million receiving government assistance are children, disabled people, or senior citizens—groups that most of us, though perhaps not Fox, don't really expect to be working full time.
Finally, it's not like people working full time and people receiving government assistance are mutually exclusive groups. In fact, a lot of people work full time and also get food stamps or other nutrition assistance, rental assistance, or other forms of aid, thanks to low-wage employers like fast food chains and Walmart.

Another article about the same thing: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/28/dishonest-fox-chart-overstates-comparison-of-we/196618

Fox's 108.6 million figure for the number of "people on welfare" comes from a Census Bureau's account (Table 2) of participation in means-tested programs, which include "anyone residing in a household in which one or more people received benefits" in the fourth quarter of 2011, thus including individuals who did not themselves receive government benefits. On the other hand, the "people with a full time job" figure Fox used included only individuals who worked, not individuals residing in a household where at least one person works.

Furthermore, many people who receive federal benefits also work. The means-tested programs in the Census Bureau report included Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, which includes strict work requirements. In 2011, 6.4 million households with earnings also participated in food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. And public or subsidized rental housing provides rental assistance to low-income families -- families who have an income which is 50 to 80 percent below the median income for the area.

Fox has a history of displaying error-riddled and deceptive graphics to reinforce conservative attacks on the Obama administration, and has previously had to issue a correction for a dishonest graphic that misrepresented the unemployment rate.

But Fox seems to have not learned from its past mistakes, and ignored the facts to misleadingly attack federal benefit programs, with Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy asking "is the number one occupation in this entitlement nation now, welfare?" while Fox Business host Stuart Varney baselessly suggested that President Obama personally encouraged "handouts" as a means of "buying votes."

[BlueStreak]

1. Does the "welfare" number include everyone working at Golman-Sachs,

Boeing, Lockheed, SLMA, General Electric, Computer Sciences and the rest of the companies that make billions every year from the largesse of the government?

[ourfuneral]

4. BAM!

[Pretzel_Warrior]

2. cable and broadcast news companies should be fined for this shit

even more than for someone flashing a breast at a halftime show. What is more corrosive to democracy? A bare breast or misinformation about our government?

[Fridays Child]

3. Corrosive? I could not agree more.

People who think that Fuck Snooze is a reliable source of factual information believe it's raining when Roger Ailes and his mangy dogs are doing nothing but pissing all over them. And it's not just any old piss. The stuff is pure acid. It's corroding their very humanity.

And they're so blinded by fear and bigotry that they can't even see how they're contributing to, hastening, their own demise. If it's true that, when boiled slowly, a frog will not comprehend the need to leap out of the pot until it's too late, then, the Fuck Snooze Faithful are the mothers of all frogs.

[ReRe]

5. It's the age old mystery....

.... how they wonder and wonder how many in our society are receiving benefits from the USG, which they call "hand-outs." Why can't they see it from the opposite direction, i.e., why are there are not enough jobs to employ all those who receive gov benefits? Business is the guilty one here, along with it's crony Wall Street buddies. They're making money keeping it like this! And I wonder how their tirade makes the poor ignorant constituents of the Republican party feel? Do you think they actually comprehend what Fox is doing/saying? I honestly think they don't. They don't know idea how Faux News uses them. That is so sad. A pox on Fox.

[The Straight Story]

7. Here is the chart in Excel starting at 0: