Last Tuesday, Fox News reported on “Fox & Friends” that there are millions of dollars of food-stamp fraud in the United States.
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Fox News Caught in Lie, Admits False Food Stamp Story
On the show, co-host Abby Huntsman was introducing a panel discussion on the topic commenting, “Food-stamp fraud is at an all-time high, and some of the worst offenders this year have included a state lawmaker and a millionaire. This year, it is estimated $70 million of taxpayer money was wasted on food-stamp fraud. So is it time to end the program altogether?”
Fox News story completely false
But according to the USDA, that statement is false. “We are not quite sure where this came from,” a USDA spokesperson told the Erik Wemple Blog. “We saw that there was as story on Breitbart. We have not issued a report on this recently. There is no new rate that we’ve published. So we’re not quite sure why they’re so interested in stirring this up.”
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The Agriculture Department asked Fox News to correct this report
Shortly after, “Fox & Friends” issued a correction and apology Friday. “We reported that back in 2016, $70 million dollars were wasted on food stamp fraud. That was actually incorrect,” weekend co-host Abby Huntsman said in an “update” to the report. “The latest information from 2009 to 2011 shows the fraud at 1.3 percent, which is approximately $853 million dollars for each of those three years, and nationally food stamp trafficking is on the decline, so sorry about that.”
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