Category: Fact Check

  • Fact Check: Chris Christie’s math on apprehensions and detention space is mostly right, but omits context

    Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said he is open to a plan to supply financial aid to Israel, Ukraine and other countries, but he would want to see help for the southern border, too.

    Christie said in an MSNBC interview Oct. 18 that more resources are necessary to “fix the border problem.”

    “The crisis at our southern border is significant. And you know the fact is it’s a complicated issue, as you know,” Christie said. “In the last 11 months, Customs and Border Patrol has averaged 200,000 apprehensions a month, and you know how many beds we have to detain people at the border? 38,000.”

    Christie’s numbers are on track, but his statement ignores nuance.

    On Oct. 20, the Biden administration released a proposal of almost $106 billion in overall spending, including $61 billion in military aid for Ukraine, $14 billion in military aid to Israel, and $14 billion for U.S. border security.

    Word choice makes a difference

    To evaluate Christie’s comment, we examined Customs and Border Protection data from October 2022 to August 2023, the latest data available.

    Christie used the term “apprehensions,” which happens when immigration officials stop immigrants at the border under immigration law. Using this metric, there were an average of 149,238 apprehensions a month at the southern border from October 2022 to August 2023.

    To support Christie’s claim, a campaign spokesperson pointed us to CBP’s “encounters” data, which includes apprehensions and expulsions under a public health policy that expired in May. 

    From October 2022 to August 2023, there were an average of 200,549 encounters at the southern border, both at and between ports of entry.

    Both numbers represent events, not people. For example, one person could try coming into the country multiple times, and each attempt would be recorded.

    What is U.S. detention capacity?

    Immigrant detention is complicated and can involve multiple agencies. When people are apprehended at the border, Border Patrol agents temporarily take them into custody as they decide on next steps. There’s enough room for about 21,000 people a day, but overcrowding is common. 

    Border Patrol transfers some people from temporary border facilities to detention centers operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement across the country.

    Historically, there hasn’t been enough detention space for all the migrants who cross the southern border. This kind of congressional funding hasn’t come through in more than 40 years, said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, an immigrants’ rights advocacy group.

    Christie slightly overstated the number of detention beds funded by Congress for fiscal year 2023, which ended in September. It was 34,000. His campaign sent PolitiFact a March article from The New York Times citing this number.

    However, the number of detention beds Congress appropriates “is generally a floor, not a ceiling,” Reichlin-Melnick said.

    In September, there were 35,289 people in ICE detention.

    Not everyone can be detained

    There’s merit to Christie’s point that there isn’t enough detention space for every single person apprehended at the border, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. 

    But for eight of the 11 months in Christie’s claim, many people encountered were quickly expelled and wouldn’t have been detained.

    Also, focusing only on the number of people at the border or detention capacity space “ignores some of the complications or the nuances” of immigration policy, said Putzel-Kavanaugh.

    That’s because even if there was enough detention space for 200,000 people, not everyone could be detained.

    For example, children traveling alone cannot legally be detained by immigration authorities. Instead, the Office of Refugee Resettlement takes custody of them.

    Under the Biden administration, families are also not detained. So if families are allowed to stay in the U.S. to seek asylum, they are often released under an alternative program in which their location is monitored by technology such as GPS, an ankle monitor or facial recognition. About 195,000 people are enrolled in these programs, according to ICE data.

    People can be released to wait for their court proceedings without any tracking technology. 

    The Border Patrol usually decides to transfer people who are going to be quickly removed from the U.S. or who pose a threat to national security into ICE detention, said Putzel-Kavanaugh. 

    Some people spend a few days in ICE detention as they wait for a repatriation flight. But others can be detained for years as they wait for an immigration judge to hear their cases.

    Our ruling

    Christie said, “in the last 11 months, Customs and Border Patrol has averaged 200,000 apprehensions a month, and you know how many beds we have to detain people at the border? 38,000.”

    Christie’s numbers are slightly exaggerated, but he’s on the right track.

    In the past 11 months for which there is data, there were an average of 149,238 apprehensions at the southern border a month. Christie was referring to a broader category of 200,549 encounters, which includes apprehensions and expulsions.

    Christie slightly overstated the number of ICE detention beds, which is 34,000. 

    Christie’s statement requires further context. Historically, Congress has not allocated enough funds to detain every immigrant who crosses the southern border. Not everyone who is stopped at the border can be detained under immigration laws and policies, including children traveling alone.

    Christie’s statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. We rate it Mostly True.



    Source

  • Fact Check: Video on ‘American Debt Relief’ program misleads

    Debt among American households reached a record high at the end of 2022. And promises to get it relieved are tempting.

    A Facebook post claims to show a family receiving news that their own debt had been cleared through a debt relief program for American citizens or legal residents who “have over $20,000 in (credit card) debt.”

    Footage shows the family screaming with joy after appearing to view an email that says its $31,844 credit card balance has been resolved and that “no further payments are due.” The sender of the email signs as “Finance Help USA.”  

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    First, the family in the video is not screaming over debt relief. That scene appears to be clipped from a 2019 TikTok video showing a prospective Tulane University student receiving news of her acceptance. It is set against a split screen showing video of the supposed debt-relief email. Her video went viral and became a meme.

    Second, the post refers to something called the “American Debt Relief” program, which sounds like a federal government program, but isn’t. The Federal Trade Commission  recommends consumers who see these kinds of pitches check whether the associated website ends in “.gov,” which signifies that it is legitimately a federal government program, an agency spokesperson said. In this case, it doesn’t.

    Nick Hillman, University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor who studies the effect of finance, policy and geography on educational opportunities in the U.S., said that “the word ‘relief’ can be really confusing and misleading because I imagine most people would think ‘relief’ is the same thing as ‘cancellation.’”

    The Facebook post includes a link to this page from a private company called Freedom Debt Relief. Debt settlement companies such as this one, help resolve debt to avoid bankruptcy, by negotiating agreements with creditors to pay less than the full balance. In exchange, customers pay a fee for the service. 

    These companies normally negotiate unsecured debts such as student loans or credit card debt, but not loans that have collateral, such as auto loans and mortgages.

    Hillman said, “The refinancing process may provide ‘relief’ by offering borrowers lower interest rates or possibly other benefits, but these also come at a risk.” For example, if a borrower refinanced a federal student loan to a private company such as SoFi, that borrower would lose all the benefits that come with holding a federal loan.

    The Facebook post saysr the minimum debt to apply for the program is $20,000, but the company accepts people with debts starting at $7,500. 

    The Freedom Debt Relief website includes a disclaimer that says, “We do not assume your debts, make monthly payments to creditors or provide tax, bankruptcy, accounting or legal advice or credit repair services.”

    Our ruling

    A Facebook video claims to show a family receiving word their debt has been resolved through the “American Debt Relief Program,” which purportedly aids American citizens and legal residents who “have over $20,000″ in credit card debt.”

    But this video was clipped from a TikTok video that showed a family responding to news of a college acceptance. We found no federal program called the American Debt Relief Program. The post leads to a debt settlement company that does not wipe out debt but, for a fee, negotiates with creditors to let borrowers pay less than they owe.

    We rate this claim False.



    Source

  • Biden’s Numbers, October 2023 Update

    Summary

    Since President Joe Biden took office:

    • The economy added 13.9 million jobs, putting the total 4.5 million higher than before the pandemic.
    • The unemployment rate dropped for a time to the lowest in nearly 54 years; unfilled job openings surged, with 3 jobs for every 2 unemployed job seekers.
    • Inflation surged to the highest level in over 40 years. Despite slowing their rise lately, consumer prices are up nearly 17.1% overall. Gasoline is up 50.3%.
    • Average weekly earnings haven’t kept pace with prices. After adjusting for inflation, “real” weekly earnings dropped 3.9%.
    • The U.S. murder rate declined by one-half of a point.
    • Defying economists who have been predicting a recession for more than a year, the economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.2% in the first quarter and 2.1% in the second quarter.
    • After-tax corporate profits increased in the second quarter of this year — the first increase in a year.
    • Inflation-adjusted median household income went down by 2.7%. The official poverty rate is the same as the year before he took office.
    • Those lacking health insurance went down — by 0.7 percentage points by one measure and 1.3 points by another.
    • U.S. crude oil production is up 10.7%; imports are up 7.4%.
    • Homeownership rates have barely budged under Biden.
    • The U.S. accepted 60,014 refugees in fiscal year 2023 — the highest amount in seven years, but less than half of Biden’s campaign goal of admitting up to 125,000.
    • The number of apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally crept back up in recent months, and is up 300% overall.
    • Debt held by the public has increased by 22.5%.
    • The trade deficit for goods and services has gone up by 24.6%.

    Analysis

    This is our eighth installment of “Biden’s Numbers,” a quarterly feature we launched in January 2022. As we also did for former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, we provide the latest statistics on a range of topics from authoritative sources on what has happened in the country since the president was inaugurated.

    Opinions will vary on whether a president deserves credit or blame for these figures, and we take no position on that.

    Jobs and Unemployment

    The number of people with jobs has increased dramatically since Biden took office, surpassing pre-pandemic levels by more than 4.5 million.

    Employment — The U.S. economy added 13,905,000 jobs between Biden’s inauguration and September, the latest month for which data are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The September figure is 4,503,000 higher than the February 2020 peak of employment before COVID-19 forced massive shutdowns and layoffs.

    Some categories are still lagging, however. There were 89,000 fewer public school teachers and other local government education workers in September than there were at the pre-pandemic peak, and 187,500 fewer hotel and restaurant workers and others in the accommodation and food services industries.

    Unemployment — The unemployment rate fell from 6.3% at the time Biden took office to 3.4% in January and again in April, the lowest since June 1969. Most recently the rate has crept up to 3.8% in September, or 0.3 points above the pre-pandemic rate.

    Job Openings — The number of unfilled job openings soared, reaching a record of over 12 million in March of last year, but then declined after the Federal Reserve began a steep series of interest rate increases aimed at cooling the economy to bring down price inflation.

    The number of unfilled jobs was 9.6 million as of the last business day of August, the most recent month on record. That’s still an increase of over 2.4 million openings — or 34% — during Biden’s time.

    In August, there was an average 3 jobs for every 2 unemployed job seekers. When Biden took office, there were more unemployed job seekers than job openings.

    The number of job openings in September is set to be released Nov. 1

    Labor Force Participation — One reason many job openings go unfilled is that millions of Americans left the workforce during the pandemic and haven’t returned. The labor force participation rate (the percentage of the total population over age 16 that is either employed or actively seeking work) has risen slowly during Biden’s time, from 61.3% in January 2021 to 62.8% in September.

    That still leaves the rate well short of the pre-pandemic level of 63.3% for February 2020.

    The rate peaked at 67.3% more than two decades ago, during the first four months of 2000. Labor Department economists project that the rate will trend down to 60.1% in 2031, “primarily because of an aging population.”

    Manufacturing Jobs — During the presidential campaign, Biden promised he had a plan to create a million new manufacturing jobs — and whether it’s his doing or not, the number is getting close to that target.

    As of September, the U.S. added 815,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s time, a 6.7% increase in the space of 32 months, according to BLS. Furthermore, the September total is 226,000 (or 1.8%) above the number of manufacturing jobs in February 2020, before the pandemic forced plant closures and layoffs.

    During Trump’s four years, the economy lost 170,000 manufacturing jobs, or 1.4%, largely due to the pandemic.

    Wages and Inflation

    CPI — Inflation came roaring back under Biden. During his first 32 months in office, the Consumer Price Index rose 17.1%.

    It was for a time the worst inflation in decades. The 12 months ending in June 2022 saw a 9.1% increase in the CPI (before seasonal adjustment), which the Bureau of Labor Statistics said was the biggest such increase since the 12 months ending in November 1981.

    Inflation has moderated since then. The CPI rose 3.7% in the 12 months ending in September, the most recent figure available.

    Gasoline Prices — The price of gasoline shot up even faster.

    During the week ending Oct. 16, the national average price of regular gasoline at the pump was $3.58. That’s $1.20 higher than in the week before Biden took office, an increase of 50.3%.

    The price swung even more wildly during Biden’s first year and a half, hitting just over $5 per gallon in the week ending June 13, 2022. That’s the highest on record. The rise was propelled by motorists resuming travel after pandemic lockdowns and then by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

    Wages — Wages also have gone up under Biden, but not as fast as prices.

    Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers went up 13.1% during Biden’s first 32 months in office, according to monthly figures compiled by the BLS. Those production and nonsupervisory workers make up 81% of all employees in the private sector.

    But inflation ate up all that gain and more. “Real” weekly earnings, which are adjusted for inflation and measured in dollars valued at their average level in 1982-84, actually declined 3.9% since Biden took office.

    More recently, real wages have been inching up, rising 0.7% since hitting the low point under Biden in June 2022.

    Crime

    Both the number and rate of violent crimes, including murders specifically, have gone down under Biden, from 2020 to 2022, according to the FBI’s annual reports on nationwide crime.

    The FBI released its latest “Crime in the Nation” data, covering 2022, on Oct. 16. Its estimates show a drop in the murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate of 0.5 points, from 6.8 per 100,000 population in 2020 to 6.3 in 2022. The number of murders declined by 5.6%, totaling an estimated 21,156 last year.

    The violent crime rate dropped by 15.4 points, to 369.8 per 100,000 population in 2022. (For these figures, see Table 1 in the CIUS Estimations download for the crime in the U.S. reports.)

    The FBI’s 2022 report is based on figures voluntarily provided by 15,724 law enforcement agencies, which represent 93.5% of the U.S. population. Last year, the FBI had an issue with a lower participation rate, because it had switched to a new crime reporting system in 2021 that many law enforcement agencies, including those in New York City and Los Angeles, hadn’t yet adopted. That made it difficult for the FBI make nationwide comparisons to prior years. But for 2022, the FBI permitted agencies that hadn’t yet transitioned to the new system to submit data in another manner. As a result, all U.S. cities with 1 million population or more provided statistics for the full year, the FBI said.

    The property crime rate also declined a bit, by 9.5 points, from 2020 to 2022. But there was a notable increase in motor vehicle thefts: The rate increased by 35.2 points to 282.7 vehicle thefts per 100,000 people.

    The decrease in murder and aggravated assaults under Biden, however, hasn’t yet brought those figures back to their 2019 levels, before an increase in both offenses during the 2020 pandemic. For instance, the 6.3 murder rate for 2022 is still higher than the 5.2 rate for 2019.

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    Statistics from other sources reflect the same trend over the past few years, and show murders have continued to decline in 2023.

    The latest figures from the Major Cities Chiefs Association show a 10.9% decline in the number of murders for the first half of 2023, compared with the same time period in 2022, in 69 large U.S. cities.

    There was also a drop in murders in large cities in 2022. These decreases come after a 33.4% increase in the number of murders in large cities from 2019 to 2020, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and a smaller 6.2% rise from 2020 to 2021, Biden’s first year in office.

    The nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice published a midyear report on 30 U.S. cities that similarly found decreases in several crimes, including homicides, for the first half of 2023, compared with the same time period last year. But it found a large increase in motor vehicle thefts: 33.5%.

    CCJ noted that despite the recent declines in homicides, the number for the first half of this year remained higher than the first half of 2019, “the year prior to the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020.”

    “The authors conclude that crime patterns continue to shift as the nation has emerged from the COVID pandemic and that policymakers and communities must act urgently to adapt their strategies to meet the new challenges,” CCJ said in a summary of its report. “Though the level of serious violent crime is far below historical peaks, it remains intolerably high, especially in poorer communities of color.”

    Economic Growth

    Economic growth has been stronger than expected, defying economists who have been predicting a recession for more than a year.

    The real gross domestic product, which accounts for inflation, increased 5.8% in 2021 and slowed to 1.9% in 2022, when some economists predicted that the country was headed for a recession.

    But the growth has continued in 2023 — albeit at a relatively slow rate.

    In a Sept. 28 release, the Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that the economy increased at an annual rate of 2.1% in the second quarter, and BEA revised its first quarter estimate upward to 2.2% from 2%.

    The first official estimate for the third quarter of 2023 won’t be released until Oct. 26. But the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s “GDP Now” estimated on Oct. 18 that the economy will grow at an annual rate of 5.4% in the third quarter.

    In a report released last month, Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said the U.S. economy now seems poised for a “soft landing” — which is the sweet spot sought by the Fed when it raised interest rates with the hope that it would slow economic growth without causing a recession.

    “We recently shifted to the soft-landing camp, as the broad strength shown in the Q2 GDP release convinced us that the U.S. economy is more durable than expected,” Guatieri writes. “Not only is it not slowing further, it might be picking up.”

    Corporate Profits

    As the fear of a recession fades, after-tax corporate profits increased in the second quarter of this year — the first increase in a year.

    Under Biden, corporate profits set new annual records in 2021 and 2022 — but declined in the last two quarters of 2022 and the first quarter of this year, according to BEA estimates. (See line 45.)

    On Sept. 28, the BEA estimated after-tax corporate profits were at an annual rate of more than $2.9 trillion in the second quarter. That was 22.6% higher than the quarter before Biden first entered the White House.

    It was the first such increase since the second quarter of 2022.

    Stephen Stanley, the chief economist at Santander Capital Markets US, told Bloomberg that the rise in corporate profits was due in part to companies that “saw a degree of relief on the cost side.”

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    Consumer Sentiment

    Despite improving economic trends, consumer confidence in the economy has fallen since our last report. 

    The University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment dropped in the past two months. The October preliminary index was 63 — down from 68.1 in September and 71.6 in July.

    The latest preliminary number was 16 points lower than it was when Biden took office in January 2021.

    In a Sept. 8 report, Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, said “while consumers have welcomed the slowdown in inflation in 2023, concerns over interest rates have emerged.”

    Income and Poverty

    Household income — Household income declined again during Biden’s second year in office.

    According to Census Bureau estimates published in September, real median household income was $74,580 in 2022. When factoring in inflation, that was a decrease of $2,080, or 2.7%, from 2020.

    It also was the third straight annual decrease, after median household income declined by $1,590 in 2020 and $330 in 2021.

    (The median figure represents the midpoint — half of all households earned more, half less.)

    Before 2020, real median income had reached $78,250 in 2019, the highest amount on record, according to the bureau’s inflation-adjusted figures.

    Poverty — Meanwhile, the official poverty rate — which is based on an individual’s or family’s pretax cash income — went down by 0.1 percentage point, from 11.6% in 2021 to 11.5% in 2022, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent estimates. The 2022 rate was flat with the 2020 rate, which also was 11.5%.

    As for the raw numbers, there were about 37.9 million people below the poverty line in 2022, which was about 370,000 more than in 2020.

    However, the Census Bureau’s alternative estimate, the Supplemental Poverty Measure, showed an increase in poverty last year.

    Unlike the official poverty rate, the SPM, which was introduced in 2011, factors in government programs that benefit low-income families and individuals, such as food, housing and energy assistance, as well as tax credits and stimulus payments. The SPM also considers other mandatory expenses and regional differences in the cost of living.

    In 2022, the supplemental poverty rate was 12.4% — up from 7.8% in 2021, 9.2% in 2020 and 11.8% in 2019, before the pandemic. The 2022 rate “was the first significant increase in the SPM rate since 2010,” Census said.

    And that increase, according to Census economists, “was largely the result of the end of stimulus payments and tax credits in effect during the COVID-19 pandemic that had lowered the SPM rate to its lowest level ever in 2021.”

    Children, out of all age groups, were most affected by the expiration of those pandemic-related benefits, which included a one-year expansion of the child tax credit in 2021. The SPM child poverty rate increased by 7.2 percentage points, from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 2022, according to the poverty report.

    Biden has said he will “fight to restore the expanded Child Tax Credit” that congressional Republicans opposed reauthorizing. Census said that the fully refundable child tax credit had prevented about 5.3 million children from falling into poverty in 2021, “over twice as many” people as the pared back version did in 2022.

    Health Insurance

    The number of people without health insurance has decreased by 0.7 percentage points or 2.4 million people under Biden. Those figures come from the Census Bureau’s annual reports, which measure those who lacked insurance for the entire year.

    In 2020, the year before Biden took office, 28.3 million people, or 8.6% of the population, lacked health insurance for the entire year. In 2022, 25.9 million people, or 7.9% of the population, didn’t have insurance, according to the Census Bureau reports, which are typically published in September.

    Another government survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey, measures the uninsured at the time they were interviewed, and by that metric, the drop is greater. The NHIS shows those without health insurance declined by 1.3 percentage points, or 4 million people, from 2020 to 2022.

    More recent estimates from the NHIS indicate the share of the population without insurance continued to go down in the first three months of 2023. But as we have noted before, it’s possible the uninsured figures will go up this year, since some Medicaid provisions that were enacted during the coronavirus pandemic started to be phased out at the end of March.

    The Census Bureau’s annual reports show that most Americans have insurance through their employers — 54.5% in 2022, a figure that has remained relatively steady under Biden. The main areas of growth in coverage, on a percentage basis, include: Medicaid, which enrolled 18.8% of the population in 2022, up 1 percentage point from 2020; Medicare, which covered 18.7% of the population, up 0.3 percentage points; and the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, which covered 3.6% of Americans, also up 0.3 percentage points.

    Oil Production and Imports

    Crude oil production averaged roughly 12.5 million barrels per day during Biden’s most recent 12 months in office (through July), according to Energy Information Administration data released in late September. That was almost 10.7% higher than the average daily amount of crude oil produced in 2020.

    The U.S. is currently headed for a record production year, as the EIA, in its October Short-Term Energy Outlook report, projected that crude oil production would average over 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023 — higher than the more than 12.3 million barrels per day in 2019.

    The EIA says higher well activity and higher oil prices have contributed to the increase in production, particularly in the Permian Basin region in eastern New Mexico and western Texas.

    Despite the increased output, however, U.S. imports of crude oil still averaged more than 6.3 million barrels per day over the same 12-month period — up 7.4% from average daily imports in 2020.

    Carbon Emissions

    Since our last update, there was another small decline in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

    In the most recent 12 months on record (ending in June), there were approximately 4.83 billion metric tons of emissions from the consumption of coal, natural gas and various petroleum products, according to the EIA. That’s down from the 4.88 billion metric tons as of our last report, but it’s still about 5.5% more than the 4.58 billion metric tons emitted in 2020.

    In its October forecast, EIA projected that total energy-related emissions in 2023 would drop to 4.75 billion metric tons — which would be lower than the amounts in 2021 and 2022.

    Home Prices & Homeownership

    Home prices — Home prices fell since our last report, peaking in June and declining ever since.

    The preliminary median sales price of existing single-family homes in the U.S. was $399,200 in September, marking the third straight month that prices have dropped, according to the National Association of Realtors.

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    In its ongoing fight against inflation, the Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate in July for the 11th time since March 2022. As a result, mortgage rates have steadily increased and housing prices have cooled.

    The 30-year fixed rate mortgage average nationwide, as of Oct. 19, was 7.63%, according to Freddie Mac.

    “Not only are homebuyers feeling the impact of rising rates, but home builders are as well,” Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in an Oct. 19 press release. “Incoming data shows that the construction of new homes rebounded in September but as rates keep rising, home builders appear to be losing confidence. As a result, we expect construction to trend down in the short-term.”

    Despite the recent dip, the median home price was nearly 30% higher in September than it was in January 2021, when Biden took office.

    Homeownership — Homeownership rates have barely budged under Biden.

    The homeownership rate, which the Census Bureau measures as the percentage of “occupied housing units that are owner-occupied,” was 65.9% in the second quarter of 2023 — a tick higher than the 65.8% rate during Trump’s last quarter in office. (Usual word of caution: The bureau warns against making comparisons with the fourth quarter of 2020, because of pandemic-related restrictions on in-person data collection.) 

    The rate peaked under Trump in the second quarter of 2020 at 67.9%. The highest homeownership rate on record was 69.2% in 2004, when George W. Bush was president.

    Stock Markets

    The stock markets dipped since our last report, plodding through the weakest quarter of the year. Overall, however, all three major indexes have increased value under Biden — although only modestly in some cases.

    The S&P 500 stock index – which peaked for the year on July 31 and has been trending down since – was up 12.6% since Biden took office, as of the close of the markets on Oct. 19.  

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average, made up of 30 large corporations, has increased 8.0% under Biden. It peaked for the year on Aug. 1. The technology-heavy NASDAQ composite index, made up of more than 3,000 companies, crossed into positive territory under Biden in our last report. But a weak quarter now puts it down by less than 1%.

    Refugees

    As a candidate, Biden pledged to accept up to 125,000 refugees a year. The Biden administration fell far short of that lofty goal for the second straight fiscal year, but it is making some progress.

    In fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30, the U.S. accepted 60,014 refugees — the highest total since fiscal year 2016, which was the last full fiscal year of the Obama-Biden administration, according to State Department data. It was also more than twice as many as the 25,465 refugees admitted in fiscal 2022.

    Overall, the U.S. has admitted 95,487 refugees in Biden’s first full 32 months in office, or 2,984 refugees per month, the data show. That’s about 62% higher than the 1,845 monthly average under Trump, who significantly reduced the admission of refugees. (For both presidents, the averages include only full months in office, excluding January in 2017 and 2021, when administrations overlapped.)

    But, in order to reach Biden’s target of 125,000, the U.S. needs to admit about an average of 10,417 refugees per month. Under Biden, the peak month was 8,762 in September.

    As it did in fiscal years 2023 and 2022, the administration has once again set the cap on refugee admissions at 125,000 for fiscal year 2024. In doing so, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration “has worked to rebuild, streamline, and expand the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program,” which the department has said was weakened by COVID-19 and a lack of resources under the Trump administration.

    “Admitting 125,000 refugees — an ambitious target not achieved in three decades — is now within reach,” Blinken said, referring to 1992, when the Clinton administration set the cap at 131,000 and admitted 132,531, according to the data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute.

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    Immigration

    The number of apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally crept back up in July and August, to 132,648 and 181,059, respectively, according to the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. But that’s still lower than the apprehension figures between March and December 2022, when monthly numbers regularly topped 200,000.

    “Irregular migrant arrival numbers seem to be going back up but do remain below the highs seen at the start of the fiscal year,” Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told us.

    “Looking at migration numbers through the Darien Gap and Central America it is clear that many people continue to be on the move, with their final destination possibly being the U.S.” Putzel-Kavanaugh said. “Irregular arrival numbers likely remain below the highs at the start of FY 2023 because of the new legal pathways available like the CBP One app and the parole programs for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.”

    CBP One is a mobile app created by the Biden administration that allows migrants to make appointments to seek asylum (and penalizes those who do not).

    On Sept. 20, the Department of Homeland Security announced a new “series of actions to increase enforcement across the Southwest Border, accelerate processing of work authorizations, and the decision to redesignate and extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuela.”

    Biden also asked Congress for $4 billion in supplemental funding for enhanced border security. But ultimately, Biden said Congress needs to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

    “As a result of Congress’ failure to enact the reform, the Administration has been using the limited tools it has available to secure the border and build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system while leading the largest expansion of lawful pathways for immigration in decades,” DHS wrote.

    Looking at the entirety of Biden’s time in office, and to even out the seasonal changes in border crossings, we compare the most recent 12 months on record with the year prior to him taking office. And for the past 12 months ending in August, the latest figures available, apprehensions totaled 2,034,730, according to Customs and Border Protection. That’s 300% higher than during Trump’s last year in office.

    “Demand to enter the U.S. remains high and the options for legal entry, though vastly expanded, are still limited, which likely contributes to continued high numbers of irregular migrant arrivals,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said.

    Food Stamps

    Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, declined each month since our last update. The program used to be known as food stamps.

    As of July, nearly 41.3 million people were receiving food assistance, the lowest monthly enrollment since August 2022. That figure is down about 1.5 million people from this year’s high of nearly 42.8 million in January, and it’s a decrease of about 2%, or 856,143 people, from when Biden became president in January 2021.

    The figures, which are preliminary, come from Department of Agriculture data updated this month.

    Despite the recent declines, the number of SNAP beneficiaries in July was still higher than the 40.8 million on the rolls in August and September 2021, which was the lowest participation under Biden.

    Debt and Deficits

    Debt — Since our last quarterly update, the public debt, which excludes money the government owes itself, increased by more than $783 billion to over $26.5 trillion, as of Oct. 17. That brings the total increase during Biden’s presidency to roughly $4.9 trillion, which is 22.5% higher than it was when Biden took office.

    Deficits — In its Monthly Budget Review for September, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the federal deficit rose to nearly $1.7 trillion in fiscal year 2023, which ended on Sept. 30. That’s up about 23% from the nearly $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2022, but still down 46% from the deficit of $3.1 trillion in fiscal year 2020.

    The Treasury Department is expected to release its finalized deficit figure for fiscal 2023 this month.

    Compared with fiscal 2022, CBO said that both revenues and spending were lower in fiscal 2023, but receipts were down by $455 billion, or 9%, compared with a decrease of $141 billion, or 2%, in outlays.

    Guns

    Handgun production — In 2022, annual production of pistols and revolvers in the U.S. totaled just under 7 million, according to figures in an interim report prepared in July by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

    That is an increase of about 7.3% from 2020, when handgun production during the beginning of the pandemic surged to a then-record of over 6.5 million. The 2022 figure, if it holds, also would be an 11.8% decrease from the final 2021 figure of over 7.9 million.

    Prior to 2020, handgun production had gone down by more than a third under Trump through 2019. That was after production more than tripled during President Barack Obama’s time in office.

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    Gun sales — The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s latest estimates suggest that gun purchases continued to decline during the third quarter of 2023.

    Since the federal government doesn’t collect data on gun sales, the NSSF, a gun industry trade group, estimates gun sales by tracking the number of background checks for firearm sales based on the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System, or NICS. The NSSF-adjusted figures exclude background checks unrelated to sales, such as those required for concealed-carry permits.

    The group’s adjusted NICS total for background checks during the third quarter of the year was over 3.28 million. That’s a nearly 12.8% drop from the roughly 3.76 million in the third quarter of 2022, and it’s also down close to 42% from the almost 5.63 million in Trump’s last full quarter in 2020.

    Through the first nine months of 2023, there were about 11.11 million background checks for firearm sales. That total is down 28% from the same period in 2020, down 19% from 2021 and down 6.6% from 2022 — which were the years with the first, second and third highest annual totals, respectively.

    Trade

    The international trade deficit is down from last year’s record high, but still up compared with Trump’s final year.

    According to Bureau of Economic Analysis figures published this month, the U.S. imported approximately $813.6 billion more in goods and services than it exported over the last 12 months through August. That’s an increase of more than $106.7 billion, or 24.6%, compared with 2020.

    But through the first eight months of 2023, the trade gap in goods and services was down $137.6 billion, or 20.7%, from the same period in 2022. Exports increased $22 billion, or 1.1%, and imports decreased $115.6 billion or 4.3%, the BEA said.

    The U.S. is currently on pace to have an annual trade deficit that is lower than the record of $951.2 billion in 2022 and the second-highest gap of $841.6 billion in 2021.

    Judiciary Appointments

    Supreme Court — So far, Biden has won confirmation for one Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. She replaced retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, and was confirmed on April 7, 2022. By this same point during Trump’s term, he had won confirmation for two Supreme Court justices.

    Court of Appeals — Biden also has won confirmation for 36 U.S. Court of Appeals judges. At the same point under Trump, 43 had been confirmed.

    District Court — For District Court confirmations, 110 judges have been confirmed under Biden, while 109 had been confirmed at the same point during Trump’s presidency.

    Biden has now won confirmation for four U.S. Court of Federal Claims judges. At this point under Trump, two such judges had been confirmed, as well as two U.S. Court of International Trade judges.

    As of Oct. 19, there were 68 federal court vacancies, with 28 nominees pending.


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  • Fact Check: Does national credit card debt exceed $1 trillion for the first time ever? And what does that mean?

    West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, took aim at “Bidenomics” —  President Joe Biden’s economic policies — as he runs to unseat incumbent Democrat Joe Manchin in the U.S. Senate.

    “Bidenomics,” Justice said in an Aug. 14 post on X, “is hammering Americans — Credit card debt is above $1 trillion for the FIRST TIME EVER. Joe Biden, and the radical left’s policies have hurt our economy, requiring families to rely on credit cards to make ends meet. We are all suffering the consequences.”

    Numerically, Justice is correct that national credit card debt recently set a record. But other economic data undercuts his argument that this represents a troubling milestone.

    Justice’s office did not respond to inquiries for this article.

    In his post, Justice cited an Aug. 8 CNBC article headlined, “Credit card balances jumped in the second quarter and are above $1 trillion for the first time.”

    The article noted that recently released New York Federal Reserve data showed that combined balances for credit cards had exceeded $1 trillion for the first time ever.

    Elizabeth Renter, a data analyst at personal finance website NerdWallet, told CNBC that Americans benefited from excess savings and debt flexibility during the pandemic. But, she said, the inflation that peaked at 40-year highs in 2022 cut into those savings, forcing many families to rely on credit cards to pay for goods that had risen in price.

    “Credit card delinquencies continue on an upward trend, a growing sign that consumers are feeling the pinch of high prices and lower savings balances than they had just a few years ago,” Renter told CNBC.

    However, this $1 trillion figure needs context.

    Every quarter, the International Monetary Fund calculates the ratio of U.S. household debt to gross domestic product. This calculation clarifies the absolute value of household debt while putting it in a larger economic context. 

    Even if consumer debt is rising, it may be considered more sustainable if the national gross domestic product is rising at an even faster rate — something data shows has happened in recent years.

    Consumer debt hovered around 100% of gross domestic product — the total of all economic activity in the U.S. — from late 2007 to late 2009. After that, the percentage slid as low as 75% in early 2019.

    The ratio rose modestly during the pandemic to almost 82%, before falling back to 73% in  2023’s first quarter, the most recent quarter with available data.

    In other words, even as consumer debt is rising in absolute dollars, it’s becoming smaller compared with the broader economy.

    Despite crossing the $1 trillion barrier, credit card debt accounts for only a modest share of overall consumer debt. In 2021’s first quarter, for example, credit card debt accounted for 5.2% of all consumer debt. Besides credit card debt, consumer debt also includes home mortgages, auto loans and student debt. By 2023’s second quarter, that share had risen to 6%.

    Also, as we have reported in the past, the economy is more complex to be controlled by any president.

    Inflation, which appears to have driven the spike in credit card debt, has causes that “go back to (the) COVID(-19 pandemic) — issues like supply-chain constraints, workforce shortages, and other factors,” John Deskins, director of the West Virginia University Bureau of Business and Economic Research, told PolitiFact West Virginia in September. “That is much larger than any particular Biden policy.”

    Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, said Biden should “assume some responsibility, but so should members of Congress who voted in favor of stimulus payments, tax cuts, generous unemployment benefits, aid to states and private businesses during and after the COVID-19 pandemic recession.”

    Although the American Rescue Plan received no Republican support in Congress, earlier pandemic relief bills passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan backing. 

    Our ruling

    Justice said, “Credit card debt is above $1 trillion for the FIRST TIME EVER.”

    Numerically, Justice is right, according to New York Federal Reserve data. However, focusing on credit card debt’s absolute value ignores the shrinking size of consumer debt compared with the broader U.S. economy, and also leaves out that credit card debt accounts for only a modest proportion of all consumer debt.

    We rate the statement Mostly True.



    Source

  • Fact Check: Fact-checking how much the Inflation Reduction Act affects taxes

    Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is up for reelection in 2024, and if he runs for a new term, he faces a difficult reelection campaign in a state that has turned heavily Republican in recent years.

    One conservative advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, took out an ad on Facebook to criticize Manchin for voting to approve the Inflation Reduction Act even though every Republican in Congress voted against the measure.

    “The Inflation Reduction Act led to higher taxes,” the Americans for Prosperity ad said.

    However, this assertion is exaggerated.

    As PolitiFact has noted, the Inflation Reduction Act includes a green energy package costing $369 billion over 10 years, including tax credits to boost investment in solar, wind, hydropower and other renewable energy. Such provisions have attracted opposition from oil and natural gas producers, including some in West Virginia, who say it puts their industries at a disadvantage.

    The Inflation Reduction Act does not raise income taxes for the broad swath of individual taxpayers; its tax increases are targeted at very large companies and wealthy people. One key provision says corporate profits exceeding $1 billion for three consecutive years will face a new minimum 15% tax on corporate “book income” — generally, the amount of income that companies report to investors.

    Although these taxes are poised to hit large corporations and high-income taxpayers directly, “the costs of higher taxes are also borne by the corporations’ workers, consumers, and the economy as a whole,” Americans for Prosperity told PolitiFact West Virginia in a statement.

    Experts also expect there to be a spillover effect on ordinary taxpayers, because corporations tend to pass the cost of their tax increases: to their customers, through higher taxes; to their workers, through lower wages; and to their shareholders, including retirement plans, through lower dividends.

    However, analysts say these spillover effects should be small.

    “If you are not in the top 1% of taxpayers, you likely won’t notice any effect of the tax increases included in the law,” said John Buhl, a senior communications manager for the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, which analyzes tax issues.

    For instance, the Tax Policy Center finds that the average tax increase for the 80% of taxpayers with the lowest incomes “is very small for 2023, a $50 or less reduction in after-tax income,” Buhl said.

    An analysis by the Tax Foundation, another tax policy-focused think tank, found small but broad gains in after-tax income within every income range measured, once other provisions of the law, including the bill’s energy tax credits and health care subsidies, are factored in.

    Nevertheless, some very-high-income earners could see higher tax burdens because of the corporate book minimum tax and other taxes targeted at high-income groups, said Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation.

    Our ruling

    Americans for Prosperity said, “The Inflation Reduction Act led to higher taxes.”

    Taxes are poised to increase under the law, but the increases are targeted at very large corporations and the richest Americans. 

    These tax increases could be passed indirectly to taxpayers with more modest incomes. But overall, independent analyses have found that ordinary Americans can expect to see little, if any, change in what they pay in taxes.

    We rate the statement Mostly False.



    Source

  • Fact Check: Did Israel use its laser weapon ‘Iron Beam’ for the first time? Here’s what we know

    Video footage of beams of light pulsing through the night sky prompted speculation about the potential use of a new weapon in the Israel-Hamas war — the Iron Beam. 

    “Breaking: Israel activates new energy based iron beam system in taking out missles (sic) heading towards Tel Aviv,” read the caption of an Oct. 15 Instagram video. The beams appear to strike two targets in quick succession, then a third.

    After showing footage of beams striking targets in the sky, the video explains how the Iron Beam works.

    The Iron Beam will be the first of its kind and will add to Israel’s defense system. But based on available information, it’s not clear whether the weapon is ready for use or being used. 

    Referring to the specific video footage in this Instagram post, a spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Defense told PolitiFact that the Iron Beam “was not used operationally.” A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces said, “We cannot elaborate on that matter.” 

    CTech, which says it is “Israel’s leading financial daily,” noted that Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the state-affiliated company that developed the Iron Beam have not released any statements “categorically denying the testing of the Iron Beam system during the recent confrontation with Hamas.”

    Here’s what we know about the Iron Beam.

    Iron Beam defense system

    The Iron Beam, Israel’s ground-based laser air defense system, was first unveiled in 2014. The New York Times described it in 2022 as a “high-powered laser gun that can intercept rockets, mortar shells, drones and anti-tank missiles in flight.” 

    State-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. was contracted to develop the system and said it can intercept threats from a distance of “a few hundred meters to up to several kilometers.” During live tests in March 2022, incoming threats were intercepted at a range of up to 6 miles, which is more than 9 kilometers.

    The system is intended to be used in conjunction with Israel’s other missile interception systems, such as the Iron Dome and David’s Sling. 

    While the Iron Dome costs tens of thousands of dollars per interception, the Iron Beam is more cost-effective, with interceptions costing as little as $3.50 per shot. But reports say it’s ineffective in rainy and cloudy conditions. 

    By June 2022, Israeli defense officials said they had a working prototype. The following month, Israel’s defense officials showed President Joe Biden the prototype. 

    U.S. President Joe Biden tours Israel’s Iron Beam and Iron Dome defense systems July 13, 2022. (AP)

    When the working prototype was rolled out, The New York Times reported that professionals involved in developing Iron Beam said it is still “several years away from being fully operational in the field.”

    But former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had previously predicted it would enter service by early 2023.

    PolitiFact reached out to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems but received no reply.

    Does the Instagram video show the Iron Beam?

    PolitiFact was unable to find the original source of the video. But the beams of light it shows don’t track with what is known about the Iron Beam. 

    Former Prime Minister Bennett has said that the laser’s interceptions are “silent” and “invisible.” 

    USA Today fact-checked the same Instagram footage and found it had previously been posted on X, formerly Twitter, by an account that initially said it was affiliated with Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. The newspaper said the X account was temporarily restricted and then changed its descriptor to say it provides Mossad commentary.

    USA Today also reported that defense experts told them the footage doesn’t show the Iron Beam. James Siebens, a fellow for defense strategy and planning at The Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank, told USA Today that “conflicts like the Israel-Hamas war are often treated as ‘testing grounds’ for new weapons systems.”

    Other fact-checkers debunked posts that used different images and footage to claim that Israel used its Iron Beam. One post used a 2005 photo that shows a laser in New Mexico. Other posts used footage from the video game Arma 3, which has been commonly used as misinformation during the Israel-Hamas war.



    Source

  • Social Media Posts Spread Bogus Quote From Qatari Leader

    Quick Take

    Posts on social media are spreading the baseless claim that the ruler of Qatar has “threatened that if the bombing of Gaza does not stop, he will cut off the supply of gas to the world.” The country’s government gets most of its revenue from energy exports, and there’s no record of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani making such a threat.


    Full Story

    When war broke out between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 7, leaving more than 1,200 people dead in Israel, the Islamic state of Qatar issued a statement reiterating its support for Palestinian statehood and holding “Israel solely responsible for the ongoing escalation.”

    The statement also called for de-escalation by all parties and urged restraint.

    Since then, Qatari mediators have reportedly been engaged in talks to facilitate the release of about 200 hostages held by Hamas, including some Americans.

    So, Qatar has played some part in seeking to stop the violence since the conflict began, but social media posts have exaggerated that role.

    Social media posts have been spreading the false claim that Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, has “threatened that if the bombing of Gaza does not stop, he will cut off the supply of gas to the world.”

    There is no record of Al Thani making such a statement and the only evidence offered by those posting the claims is a short clip from a 2017 speech in which the emir referenced “the issue of Palestine,” according to a Google translation of the original Arabic. He did not say anything about stopping the export of natural gas in his speech, which was delivered six years before the war began.

    For example, a post from a conspiracy-theory account on X, formerly known as Twitter, shared the video clip with the claim “BREAKING: Qatar is threatening to create a global gas shortage in support of Palestine. ‘If the bombing of Gaza doesn’t stop, we will stop gas supply of the world.’”

    But, as we said, the video predates the war and doesn’t say anything about the export of natural gas.

    It’s also worth noting that oil and natural gas exports are the backbone of Qatar’s economy, so it’s unlikely that the country would cut off its own source of income.

    In 2021, earnings from Qatar’s hydrocarbon sector accounted for 81% of its total government revenues, the U.S. Energy Information Administration calculated in a March report using the most recent data available from the International Monetary Fund.

    “The strength of Qatar’s hydrocarbon sector … underpins the strong performance of the economy,” the World Bank wrote in an April report on the country.

    In another report on Qatar released in early October, the World Bank noted two major energy deals — one with China and the other with Bangladesh — saying, “These developments augur well for Qatar’s extended energy export prospects, with the likelihood of unveiling further energy contracts across Asia and Europe in the coming months.”

    Indeed, within the last week Qatar signed two more deals — one with Shell in the Netherlands and the other with TotalEnergies in France — for 27-year agreements to supply gas. In the first half of this year, Qatar was the world’s third leading exporter of liquefied natural gas behind only the United States and Australia, according to the EIA.

    Also, an anonymous Qatari official referred to the country’s liquified natural exports when he told Reuters, “such a statement has never been made and never would be. Qatar does not politicise its LNG supplies or any economic investment.”


    Sources

    Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Press release. “Qatar Expresses Concern over the Developments in Gaza Strip and Calls for De-escalation.” 7 Oct 2023.

    MacDonald, Fiona. “To Return Hostages Taken by Hamas, the US Calls Its Friend Qatar.” Bloomberg. Updated 18 Oct 2023.

    Doha Forum (@DohaForum13). “Opening Speech by: H.H. Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, Amir of the State of Qatar.” YouTube. 18 May 2017.

    U.S. Energy Information Administration. Country Analysis Brief: Qatar. 28 Mar 2023.

    International Monetary Fund. Qatar: Selected Issues. 21 Jun 2022.

    World Bank. Macro Poverty Outlook: Qatar. Apr 2023.

    World Bank. Macro Poverty Outlook: Qatar. Oct 2023.

    Saba, Yousef. “Qatar supplies gas to Europe, vying with US to replace Russia supply.” Reuters. 18 Oct 2023.

    Reuters. “Fact Check: Qatari emir’s 2017 speech misrepresented as gas threat.” 17 Oct 2023.

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  • Fact Check: No, Hamas no se ha rendido a Israel

    Usuarios en las redes sociales dicen que la guerra entre Israel y Hamas ya terminó porque Hamas se rindió, pero esto es falso.

    “El ejército israelí ha entrado en Gaza, a partir de ahora la milicia de Hamas se vió obligada a rendirse al ejército israelí ondeando sus banderas blancas en sus manos”, dice un video en Facebook del 15 de octubre. 

    El subtítulo de la publicación también dice: “Gritos de Triunfo en Israel- ¡Gaza ahora es de Israel! ¡HAMAS se rinde en un acto de desesperación!”.

    La publicación fue marcada como parte del esfuerzo de Meta para combatir las noticias falsas y la desinformación en su plataforma. (Lea más sobre nuestra colaboración con Meta, propietaria de Facebook e Instagram).

    PolitiFact no encontró reportes verídicos de que Hamas se rindió a Israel. La guerra entre Hamas e Israel continúa. 

    Israel ha bombardeado Gaza con ataques aéreos, pero por ahora no hay tropas israelíes invadiendo el terreno de Gaza. El 13 de octubre Israel ordeno a mas de un millón de personas a evacuar la ciudad de Gaza, la ciudad mas poblada en el territorio Palestino. 

    El primer ministro de Israel Benjamin Netanyahu prometió el 15 de octubre “demoler a Hamas” en respuesta a los ataques terroristas del 7 de octubre. 

    PolitiFact también verificó videos falsos en inglés que dicen que Hamas se rindió.

    Calificamos estas declaraciones como Falsas. 

    Una versión de este artículo originalmente fue escrita en inglés.

    Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.

    __________________________________________________________________________

    Debido a limitaciones técnicas, partes de nuestra página web aparecen en inglés. Estamos trabajando en mejorar la presentación.

     



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  • Trump’s Misleading Poverty Rate Comparison

    The official U.S. poverty rate in 2022 “remained stable compared to 2021,” but an alternative method of measuring poverty “increased significantly, reflecting changes in economic well-being following the end of many pandemic-era programs,” the Census Bureau says in a new report.

    But a chart former President Donald Trump shared on social media — comparing a decline in poverty during his presidency with an increase in poverty during President Joe Biden’s — leaves out important context that readers need to know.

    First, Trump’s chart uses poverty rates based on the Supplemental Poverty Measure, or SPM, which the U.S. Census Bureau calculates using a different methodology than that used to determine the official poverty rate. Under Biden, there was no increase in the official poverty rate, as of 2022, which is the Census Bureau’s most recent estimate.

    Furthermore, the supplemental poverty rate went down in 2020 and 2021 mainly because of economic relief, such as stimulus payments, unemployment benefits and tax credits, that was made available to qualifying individuals and families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Without that same financial aid in 2022, the supplemental poverty rate went up.

    Biden has proposed extending at least the expanded child tax credit that expired at the end of 2021. Doing that would lift millions out of poverty, the Census Bureau said.

    Poverty Rates

    Without any further explanation, Trump posted this chart to Truth Social on Oct. 16. (We added the “missing context” stamp for readers.)

    The chart does not say it, but the figures, which show the poverty rate declining by 4.8 percentage points under Trump and increasing 3.2 percentage points under Biden, are based on the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure.

    The SPM, introduced in 2011, is one of two poverty metrics the bureau publishes annually in September. The other, known as the official poverty measure, was developed in the 1960s.

    Unlike the official poverty rate, which is based on an individual’s or family’s pretax cash income, the SPM is determined, in part, by cash income plus other noncash benefits. The latter includes government transfers or programs that help low-income individuals and families, such as food, housing and energy assistance, as well as tax credits and stimulus payments. In addition, the SPM calculation considers nondiscretionary expenses, such as taxes and medical care, and accounts for regional differences in the cost of living.

    There are criticisms of both metrics, but many who study poverty prefer the Supplemental Poverty Measure because of its more comprehensive measurement of a person’s or family’s financial resources.

    As Trump’s chart shows, the SPM rate declined from 14% in 2016, before Trump took office in 2017, to 9.2% in 2020, his last full year as president. From there, the rate dropped to 7.8% in 2021, the first year of the Biden administration, and then jumped up to 12.4% in 2022, as COVID-19 relief funding dried up.

    Meanwhile, the official poverty rate went down from 12.7% in 2016 to 11.5% in 2020. After that, the rate increased slightly to 11.6% in 2021, before returning to 11.5% in 2022.

    Poverty Increase, Explained

    But the chart Trump shared with his followers leaves out the reason for the increase in the supplemental poverty rate last year.

    “The trend in the SPM poverty rates is statistically accurate, though context here is needed,” Zachary Parolin, an assistant professor of social policy at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, told us when we asked about the graphic in Trump’s Truth Social post.

    In an email, Parolin, who is also a senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, wrote that the lower supplemental poverty rates in 2020 and 2021 could be attributed “entirely” to “COVID-related income support” included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and the American Rescue Plan Act, which became law in those years, respectively.

    “Both include expansions to unemployment benefits and a stimulus check,” and 2021’s American Rescue Plan, which passed without any Republican support, “also included the expanded Child Tax Credit, which contributed to lower poverty that year,” Parolin said.

    That is supported by the Census Bureau’s poverty reports for 2020 and 2021, which noted that economic impact payments, expanded unemployment benefits and tax credits authorized in those years helped keep tens of millions of people out of poverty.

    But when that financial support was no longer available in 2022, poverty, according to the SPM, increased.

    As the Census Bureau said in its report for 2022: “The official poverty rate remained stable compared to 2021, while the SPM rate increased significantly, reflecting changes in economic well-being following the end of many pandemic-era programs. SPM estimates for 2022 reflect changes to state and federal income taxes, including several one-time state income tax rebates and the expiration of expanded refundable tax credits and economic impact (stimulus) payments enacted as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.”

    Rising inflation also affected the level of poverty in 2022, “but its contribution was smaller than the contribution of declining COVID-era benefits,” Parolin said.

    When the report on poverty was released in September, it noted that children were most affected by expiring benefits last year. Biden issued a statement blaming Republicans and promising to push for Congress to restore the expanded child tax credit that phased out at the end of 2021.

    The Census Bureau said that the fully refundable child tax credit had prevented about 5.3 million children from falling into poverty in 2021, “over twice as many” as the 2.4 million people helped by the pared back version in 2022.

    Republicans opposed previous efforts by Democrats to extend the tax credit. The American Rescue Plan had increased the credit from $2,000 to $3,600 for qualifying children ages 5 and younger and to $3,000 for qualifying children ages 6 to 16, extended the credit to 17-year-olds, and made the credit fully refundable, meaning the full credit was available even if a family didn’t owe any taxes.


    Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

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  • Fact Check: Explaining a deleted X post that said Israel is responsible for Gaza hospital strike

    Shortly after a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital, a pro-Israel social media influencer posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the blast was caused by an airstrike from Israel. He then deleted the post, raising suspicions among social media users about what or who caused the blast. 

    “Israel military leader deleted tweet saying (Israel Defense Forces) blew up the hospital,” read sticker text on an Oct. 17 TikTok video. Other videos referred to him as an Israeli spokesperson.

    Some social media users framed the post as an admission by Israel that it bombed the hospital. Activist Shaun King posted that Israel “took credit” for the explosion.

    “Once they saw how many civilians it killed he deleted this tweet and blamed the attack on Hamas and said Hamas bombed the hospital themselves,” King wrote on Instagram.

    The person who posted, Hananya Naftali, is a pro-Israel social media influencer and writer who has worked on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s digital team, online biographies for Naftali say. 

    Though social media users referred to Naftali as a “military leader” or an Israeli spokesperson, we found no evidence on his social media accounts or an Israeli government list of spokespeople that he is an official spokesperson for Israel or its military. He said in an Oct. 14 Facebook video that Netanyahu assigned him to a task force to defend Israel in the media.

    We contacted Naftali and Netanyahu’s press office for comment but received no response. An Israeli government spokesperson referred us to Netanyahu’s press office.

    After the hospital blast, Naftali initially posted Oct. 17 on X,”BREAKING: Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza. A number of terrorists are dead,” according to social media screenshots. Naftali’s post was deleted.  

    He later wrote on X that he’d deleted the first post because it had inaccurate information about Israel’s involvement and had been based on a Reuters headline that later changed.

    Hundreds of people were killed Oct. 17 in an explosion at a Gaza City hospital, and some news reports initially said it was the result of an Israeli airstrike, a claim Israel disputes.

    Naftali’s follow-up post referred to a Reuters headline. Reuters initially wrote about the blast in an Oct. 17 article headlined, “More than 300 killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza Hospital – civil defense official.” The article’s headline was later changed to read, “In deadly day for Gaza, hospital strike kills hundreds.” 

    A New York Times headline read, “Israeli Airstrike Hits Gaza Hospital, Killing 500, Palestinian Health Ministry Says,” and was later changed to, “Israelis and Palestinians Blame Each Other for Blast at Gaza Hospital That Killed Hundreds.” 

    The New York Times also separately reported that headlines were shifting after the hospital blast, highlighting “the difficulties of reporting on a fast-moving war in which few journalists remain on the ground while claims fly freely on social media.” 

    Naftali describes himself on his X profile as a “media personality” and “that Israeli who talks to the camera about peace in the Middle East.” According to his online biography on The Jerusalem Post, for which he has written, Naftali is a “Israeli Jewish influencer and human rights activist.” Netanyahu hired him in 2018 as a social media adviser. The Jerusalem Post reported it is unclear whether he still has that role.

    Naftali has served in the Israeli Defense Forces in the past and said Oct. 9 on X that he was recently drafted for this war. He said in that post that his wife, India Naftali, a journalist, would  manage and post on his X account during his deployment. 

    The blast’s origin remains under investigation. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike; Israel blamed a failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad, a militant group that works with Hamas. Islamic Jihad denied the accusation and also blamed Israel, The Associated Press reported.

    Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, said Oct. 18 on X that although information is still being collected, the U.S.’ current assessment is that Israel is not responsible for the hospital explosion. The council advises President Joe Biden on national security and foreign policy. 

    The same day, President Joe Biden said in a public appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv that, “based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team — not you. But there’s a lot of people not sure.”

    PolitiFact New York Writer Jill Terreri Ramos contributed to this report.



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