The United Nations released a report earlier this month blaming President Trump for poverty in the US.
They used data from the Obama years.
Reuters ran with this fake news headline:
Investors.com reported:
An uncritical Reuters headline says it all: “America’s poor becoming more destitute under Trump: U.N. expert”. The Hill’s equally blase headline: “UN poverty official: Trump exacerbating inequality.”
The report — really a first-person narrative — released earlier this month, ripped President Trump for his “contempt” and “hatred of the poor.”
The report cited 18.5 million Americans who live in extreme poverty, and massive U.S. defense spending at the expense of social programs.
Only one problem: As Chuck DeVore, vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, points out, the data on which the study was based came from 2016.
That’s right, President Obama’s last year. So does that make it “fake news”?
Worse, the U.N. report uses misleading and “wildly inaccurate” Census data to bolster its claims of 18.5 million living in the U.S. under extreme poverty. The real level, as a separate study reveals, is “less than half that.”
The report is a distortion, little esle. The fact is, unemployment at 3.8% is a 29-year low. Food stamp recipients in 2017 numbered 42.1 million, 2 million below Obama’s last year and the lowest since 2010.
