On yesterday’s Happening Now, co-host Greg Jarrett joined Fox News' war on the poor when he cited misleading data to suggest that poor people are living high on the hog, saying, “Sitting on the couch eating bonbons is now more financially lucrative” than working.

Jarrett was referring to a Cato Institute study that found a “full plate of welfare benefits” pays more than $12 an hour (as if that amount, $24,000 a year, puts people in the lap of luxury). But as we pointed out when Fox previously touted this study, most people don’t get that “full plate” of benefits:

(T)he nebulous term “welfare” here is a bit misleading. Joshua Holland of BillMoyers.com clarifies that the study uses “the maximum benefits of every federal anti-poverty program in which a single parent with two kids could participate, including things like tax credits for the working poor and supplemental nutrition and health benefits for pregnant women and young children” to denote “welfare.”  He concludes that the “typical” family on federal aid would come nowhere near the level of aid calculated.

But not only did Jarrett make the “bonbon” remark to suggest that welfare recipients are living in undeserved sumptuousness as slackers, he made a disingenuous attempt to suggest it’s thanks to President Obama’s encouragement of shiftlessness. Jarrett asked, “Have his policies, the president’s policies, led to a growing attraction not to work?”

There are many despicable facets to Fox News propaganda. But their demonization of the poor is right up there in the top tier.

Video below via Media Matters.