Fact checking a viral chart on US food stamps recipients' race, ethnicity

"The chart, titled Food Stamps by Ethnicity, listed 36 groups of people and said it showed the percentage of US households receiving SNAP benefits. list of 4 itemsend of list The groups were labelled by nationality, such as Afghan, Somali, Iraqi, along with the racial groups white, Black and native. The chart appeared to show that Afghan people were the largest group receiving SNAP benefits, at 45.6 percent, followed by Somali (42.4 percent) and Iraqi (34.8 percent)."

"White people, represented on the chart with the US flag, were third to last at 8.6 percent. The federal government shutdown, which started on October 1, is the cause of the looming SNAP funding lapse. SNAP provides food purchasing benefits to low-income households. Conservatives have peddled the misleading narrative that Democrats are pushing for healthcare for undocumented migrants, and people commenting on the chart rehashed a similar talking point."

"Who is getting their EBT cut? read the caption of an October 25 X post sharing the chart, which had 3.1 million views as of October 27. EBT stands for Electronic Benefits Transfer, which is a SNAP payment system. Only 18.7% of EBT or food stamp recipients are American. Let that sink in read another post sharing the chart, seemingly mistakenly referring to the figure next to the word Armenian; there was no American category in the chart."

USDA data indicate the majority of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients are white and U.S.-born citizens. Millions of people face potential loss of SNAP benefits beginning November 1 because of a federal funding lapse tied to a government shutdown. A widely shared graphic labeled groups by nationality and race and presented percentages that implied high SNAP participation among some immigrant nationalities. The graphic showed Afghan, Somali and Iraqi groups with high percentages and placed white people near the bottom. Social media posts misread or misrepresented those figures and framed misleading narratives about noncitizen benefit use.

Read at www.aljazeera.com