On February 16, a post on X claimed President Joe Biden recently announced tax incentives for families willing to take in “slav—migrants” in a new “Housing for Labor” initiative.
The post, which has garnered over 19.8 million views, also included a quote appearing to be from the IRS’s official X account that read: “You can now apply to keep a migrant in your home in exchange for cooking, cleaning, picking crops, and landscaping.”
A VERIFY reader asked in an email if there is actually a new “Housing for Labor” tax incentive. Recent online search trends show others are also wondering if this is true.
THE QUESTION
Is there a “Housing for Labor” initiative from the Biden Administration?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
There is no “Housing for Labor” initiative from the Biden Administration. The viral post is satire.
WHAT WE FOUND
President Joe Biden and the IRS did not recently announce tax incentives for families willing to take in migrants in a new “Housing for Labor” initiative. That’s because the program doesn’t actually exist.
VERIFY searched the IRS website and the agency’s social media accounts and found no information about “Housing for Labor” tax incentives. We also found no information about the initiative on the White House website or social media accounts.
The viral post was created by an X account called the U.S. Ministry of Truth, which describes itself as “satire or prophecy depending on the day” in its X bio. In a follow-up post, the satire account jokes that the official IRS X account untagged itself from the original post.
“Some intern had a really fun afternoon answering calls,” the U.S. Ministry of Truth said.
The “Ministry of Truth” is the name of a fictional government agency from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” that spreads propaganda and manipulates historical records. In the book, Winston Smith, the protagonist, “rewrites Times editorials at the Ministry of Truth to suit the Party’s version of events,” according to the Orwell Foundation.
VERIFY reached out to the IRS and the White House for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.
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