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U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state faced a Twitter storm after making a wild accusation about the U.S. poverty rate on her account.
On Wednesday, Jayapal tweeted a call to "Tax the Rich" in the United States.
She wrote "The U.S. has nearly ONE-THIRD of the world's billionaires. Meanwhile, our poverty rate is the 4th highest in the world. Tax the rich."
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Pluribus editor Jeryl Bier soon corrected the accusation in various tweets.
"Apparently @PramilaJayapal is using this incoherent measure of ‘poverty rate’ from ‘World Population Review’ which defines the poverty line as ‘half the total population's median household income...’" he wrote.
He continued "From the SAME SITE, World Population Review, using poverty rates from the World Bank, US's rate is 17.8%. The actual #4, @PramilaJayapal, is Guinea-Bissau at 69.30%."
Bier later added "Imagine what your view of the country must be to believe that the US's poverty rate is 4th highest in the world. No one's common sense told them to not hit <tweet> on that one??"
Other journalists also called out Jayapal for the "bonkers" and "false" take.
Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle tweeted "This statistic is so bonkers wrong I cannot fathom how it could have made it past an elementary gut check, even if the gut belonged to an ardent Communist. (Rep Pramila Jayapal is not an ardent communist)."
CNN contributor Frida Ghitis wrote "This isn’t just false, it’s absurd."
Other users similarly criticized Jayapal’s tweet.
The congresswoman later deleted the tweet.
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Jayapal previously made the media rounds warning moderate Democrats that over 40 members of her Progressive Caucus are threatening to veto the upcoming infrastructure bill unless a larger one is negotiated.
"We have to deliver on the entirety of the president’s agenda," Jayapal told CNN. "We have to deliver on child care, we have to deliver on paid leave, we have to make sure people can go to free community college, we need to make sure we’re taking out climate change, we’ve got to address housing and immigration and Medicare expansion.
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