Every once in a while, a set of numbers starts bouncing around social media that makes you stop scrolling and go, “Wait… is that actually true?”
Well, here we are.
A viral post breaking down SNAP, Medicaid, and federal income taxes by race has been a hot topic on X for reasons that are pretty obvious once you see the numbers.
According to the post, 24.9 percent of Black households receive SNAP compared with 18.5 percent of Hispanic households, 8.5 percent of Asian households, and just 7.9 percent of White households. The Medicaid numbers follow a similar pattern, while the federal income tax figures suddenly swing dramatically in the opposite direction.
On its face, that’s one helluva contrast.
So…
Households on SNAP:
Black: 24.9%
Hispanic: 18.5%
Asian: 8.5%
White: 7.9%People on Medicaid:
Black: 29.0%
Hispanic: 29.6%
Asian: 17.4%
White: 12.9%Estimated Federal Income Tax Paid:
Black: 6%
Hispanic: 8%
Asian: 10%
White: 75%Telling…
Those numbers definitely tell a story… they just don’t tell the same kind of story, and if you’re a regular Revolver reader, you know we like to dive in and see what’s really going on… and in this case, it got pretty interesting.
The SNAP and Medicaid figures are real enough to track down. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute recently published virtually those exact numbers using Census Bureau data from 2023.
For Medicaid, the breakdown looked like this.