Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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That is not precisely what the newspaper said because it prefers to use really big numbers that it knows are meaningless to almost all of its readers. It instead told readers that the aid is expected to be $16 billion. This is in addition to the 7.5 million food stamp person-years that farmers got in 2018 as relief from Trump’s trade war and the 10 million food stamp person-years that they got in relief last year.
Anyhow, the NYT knows that when it writes $16 billion or any other really big budget number it is virtually meaningless to the vast majority of its readers, but it refuses to do anything to put these numbers in a context that would make them meaningful. The best that you can say is that the paper does not give a damn about providing information to readers.