Staunch Black Conservative Republican, Allen West, has been outspoken for years on the subject of social services, and the need for them to be eradicated.

He has also been outspoken about food stamp aid, and once again, he’s gone on the attack. West, who represented a Florida district for one term, sent a tweet recently that once again raised a theme used by Mitt Romney and others during the 2012 Presidential campaign that there are makers and takers in America. West tweeted, “More Americans receive food aid than work in the private sector.”

The tweet was linked to an article in the conservative website CNSNEWS that provided data to support his claim. The article cited a report by the Inspector General of the Agriculture Department, who operates most federal food assistance programs, as well as employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The IG report said that a total of 101 million people currently participate in at least one of its programs. The article compared that figure to data showing there were 97,180,000 full-time private-sector workers in 2012. However, there is a problem with this comparison, and how West framed it.

According to BLS, 113.6 million Americans had a private-sector job during April 2013. That’s more than the 101 million figure for food assistance. As far as the food assistance number, it’s probably lower than the 101 million West cited. That’s because an individual who qualifies for one program may also qualify for another. It would be different if at least some fraction of children qualifying for a free or reduced school breakfast wouldn’t also qualify for a free or reduced school lunch, and if some of these same children didn’t also qualify for food stamps at home. West said studying overlap was actually the whole purpose of the inspector general’s report. It concluded that the potential for overlap and duplication does exist among the department’s nutrition programs.

It should be noted that participation in all of these categories is counted separate, and no steps were taken to avoid double or triple counting people who receive more than one type of food assistance when the 101 million figure was calculated. It was also pointed out that the point West was trying to make isn’t especially enlightening.