On October 30, Just Harvest organized a public meeting with Secretary Beverly Mackareth, head of the PA Department of Public Welfare. We wanted the chief decision-maker at DPW to hear directly from clients about their frustrations, concerns, and horror stories regarding their many failed attempts to get help from the state – help they were definitely eligible for – when they fell on rough times. We also presented our research showing that these problems are systemic.
Mackareth seemed concerned and promised a new era of accountability was being ushered into the DPW. We were encouraged but know the fight has just begun. (You can stay up-to-date about this and other Just Harvest campaigns by We hope you’ll join us.)
So we at Just Harvest were disappointed to see, just a week after our meeting, a CBS report on an anonymous whistleblower with accusations of her own against the DPW. Not accusations of shameful under-funding of the welfare department, and not of the miserable work conditions, poor customer service, and continued suffering such under-funding causes.
No – she accuses the DPW of helping to perpetuate welfare fraud.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised. Stories about food stamp fraud have been loudly trumpeted as an excuse for federal cuts to the food stamp program, despite having little basis in reality.
But why would CBS run such a story?
- The “whistleblower” had already left DPW’s employ voluntary but is unwilling to show her face or name, has no specific allegations or details about actual cases where ineligible people received benefits, no documentation, and the reporter won’t even indicate what county the person worked in.
- The reporter talks about the DPW’s giant budget, misleading the reader to thinking that all of it is welfare “payments.” Actually 97% goes to nursing homes, funding to county human services for Mental Health/Mental Retardation/Drug & Alcohol programs, services to people with disabilities, etc.
- The report contains no data or independent evidence to support the whistleblower’s allegations, except an Auditor General report on Medicaid from 3 years ago that was immediately challenged as inaccurate by the federal government. And that audit was about “errors,” not “fraud.”
Which may be why the accusations – when brought to Mackareth’s attention by Harrisburg’s local CBS news station rather by than the “whistleblower” herself – were met with “incredulity.”
There is a story here, one that Auditor General Eugene DePasquale seems to have uncovered: a significant lack of oversight and accountability within DPW, resulting in thousands of home care workers waiting up to four months for their paychecks.
But CBS’s journalistic endeavors stopped short of any actual journalism. They took the easy out with what is essentially just another right-wing attack ad, one aimed at focusing blame for the last recession on its victims rather than on its perpetrators.
We’ll try not to succumb to suspicion: this blatant anti-welfare piece coming on the heels of all the Associated Press coverage on the need to strengthen the social safety net?
Maybe it was just shoddy journalism, which seems to be the new status quo for CBS. (There are many accounts out there of the recent discovery of 60 Minutes anchor Lara Logan’s bogus Benghazi bombing story, but this one’s the funniest.)
And perhaps comparing CBS to FOX News isn’t fair, since FOX’s own Greta van Susteren recently took the opportunity to correct some of CBS’s bad Obamacare reporting.
Perhaps. Stay tuned.
And stay tuned for our next post where we’ll take a look to see if the truth about food stamps is finally getting out there….
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