Fact-checking the State of the Union address - Entrepreneur Generations

President Trump's State of the Union speech last night was "once again was chock-full of stretched facts and dubious figures. Many of these claims have been fact-checked repeatedly, yet the president persists in using them," Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, and Meg Kelly write for The Washington Post's Fact Checker column. The three provide fact checks for nearly 30 of President Trump's statements last night. Here are a few particularly relevant to rural readers:

"We have created 5.3 million new jobs and importantly added 600,000 new manufacturing jobs."

Trump has inflated the number of jobs created under his presidency by counting from Election Day rather than the day he took office (as he has here). Almost 4.9 million jobs have been created since January 2017, including 436,000 manufacturing jobs. "This is an impressive gain for almost two years; under President Barack Obama, about 900,000 manufacturing jobs were gained over seven years from the 2010 nadir after the Great Recession," Kessler, Rizzo and Kelly write. "Moreover, despite the recent gains, the number of manufacturing jobs is still nearly 1 million below the level at the start of the Great Recession in December 2007."

"Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades."
Wages rose 3.1 percent from December 2017 to December 2018, not accounting for inflation, which is the biggest such increase since the December 2007 to December 2008 time period. When adjusted for inflation, wages grew 1.3 percent in the past year, making it the largest increase since August 2016. "It’s worth noting that although real wage gains were higher in 2015 and 2016, that was a period of almost no inflation. So Trump can claim some credit for decent real wage growth now with inflation back at about 2 percent," Kessler, Rizzo and Kelly write.

"Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps."

There are two factors at issue here: the numbers and the reason for the numbers. About 3.6 million people have stopped receiving food stamps since February 2017, but that may be partly because of rule changes that forced adults off food stamps, not entirely because of an improved economy, they write.

"We virtually ended the estate, or death, tax on small businesses, ranchers and family farms."

"This is an enormous stretch. Trump often claims he saved family farms and small businesses by gradually reducing the federal estate tax," Kessler, Rizzo and Kelly write. "Reducing the estate tax primarily benefits the wealthy. The estate tax rarely falls on farms or small businesses, since only those leaving behind more than $5 million pay it. According to the Tax Policy Center, nearly 5,500 estates in 2017 — out of nearly 3 million — were subject to the tax. Of those, only 80 taxable estates would be farms and small businesses."

"We recently imposed tariffs on $250 billion dollars of Chinese goods — and now our Treasury is receiving billions of dollars."

Treasury Department data shows an increase of $6.7 billion in customs duties collected in the year that ended last September, and that could be mostly because of tariffs. "But the exporters do not pay the tariffs; it is the importer, who in turn passes it on to consumers. A study by the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that 115 percent of the money raised from tariffs is being used by the administration to aid farmers hurt by the tariffs, so it’s a net loser," Kessler, Rizzo and Kelly write."

from The Rural Blog http://bit.ly/2GpQJOu Fact-checking the State of the Union address - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet