Joe Biden’s 100-Day speech

The facts behind his claims

This week:  Joe Biden speaks to Congress … Tim Scott rebutts for the GOP … Fox News' false burger story, debunked … How many states use the federal minimum wage? … Fake Kim Jong Un video makes the rounds on TikTok A weekly note from the editor-in-chief of    (AP) Joe Biden's 100-Day speech: The facts behind the speech In his first speech before Congress, President Joe Biden argued it was time to turn the coronavirus pandemic into a historic opportunity to expand government for the benefit of a wider range of Americans, urging investments in jobs, climate change, child care, infrastructure and more.  Biden said that taxes should be increased on corporations and the wealthy to pay for new spending, as well as to address escalating inequality.  "My fellow Americans, trickle-down economics has never worked. It's time to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out," Biden said. He repeatedly urged Congress to act on a variety of measures, including issues like gun control and immigration that have frozen Congress for decades. He said police reforms proposed in the wake of the death of George Floyd should be enacted and specifically urged bipartisan consensus.  "I know the Republicans have their own ideas and are engaged in productive discussions with Democrats. We need to work together to find a consensus," Biden said. The coronavirus pandemic limited the audience to 200 masked and distanced members of Congress and other officials, down from a typical audience of about 1,600.  And for the first time in U.S. history, two women sat directly behind the president as he delivered his speech — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Vice President Kamala Harris. For the most part, Biden's statements about his progress and future plans traced to estimates from think tanks or government data. In some cases, he exaggerated or left out information that would give Americans a full picture.  "The economy created more than 1.3 million new jobs in 100 days, more new jobs in the first 100 days than any president on record." This is basically accurate, although Biden sidestepped a grimmer statistic: The current employment level remains 6.72 million jobs below its pre-pandemic level. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 144.1 million Americans as employed in non-farm positions in March 2021, up from 142.7 million in January 2021, when Biden was sworn in. That's an increase of almost 1.4 million jobs, or an increase of about 1% from January to March. Biden's increases, by both number and percentage, are bigger than any post-war, regularly elected president. Biden has benefited from the updraft from the economic recovery after the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. But that's not an unusual circumstance: Only one president, Obama, had his first 100 days occur during a spiraling economic downturn, and it shows in the early job losses on his watch. Every other president in our comparison was fortunate enough to have their first 100 days either fully or partly in a rising economic phase. Finally, it's worth noting that job creation can be affected by presidential policies, but they are just one factor. "When I was vice president, the president asked me to focus on providing help needed to address the root causes of migration. And it helped keep people in their own countries instead of being forced to leave. The plan was working, but the last administration decided it was not worth it." This is exaggerated. The Obama administration in 2014 approved more aid to Central American countries to tackle issues causing people to migrate to the United States. The Trump administration proposed cuts to that aid, and annual funding for the strategy declined from $750 million in fiscal year 2017 to $505.9 million in fiscal year 2021. Amid increased migration in 2019, the Trump administration suspended aid while it negotiated asylum agreements with El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. By 2020, U.S. agencies restored the once-suspended aid, according to the Congressional Research Service. There's limited information on how U.S. assistance has improved conditions in Central America and U.S. agencies have reported mixed results for some projects. Immigration experts have said that it takes time to see the impact of foreign assistance. While aid might have kept some people in their home countries, it didn't stop all migration from Central America. "In the 1990s, we passed universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that hold 100 rounds that can be fired in seconds. … Mass shootings and gun violence declined. But in the early 2000s, that law expired, and we've seen the daily bloodshed since." The data on this question varies significantly, but some studies have found evidence supporting Biden's assertion. The 1994 law, part of an anti-crime package authored by then-Sen. Biden, banned the "manufacture, transfer and possession" of certain semiautomatic firearms classified as assault weapons, as well as certain high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds. A 2016 book by Louis Klarevas, research professor at Columbia University's Teachers College, looked at incidents over three decades — before, during and after the 1994 ban — in which six or more people were shot and killed, not including the perpetrators.  In the decade before the 1994 ban, there were 19 such incidents. During the decade with the ban in effect, there were 12 incidents. In the decade after the ban expired, there were 34 incidents. In addition, two researchers whose earlier analyses were more uncertain about the legislation's real-world impact have released more recent papers suggesting that the ban, especially the one on high-capacity magazines, had an impact on reducing gun deaths. However, a 2020 review of past studies by the RAND Corp. found "inconclusive evidence for the effect of assault weapon bans on mass shootings." "Nearly 90% of the infrastructure jobs created in the American Jobs Plan don't require a college degree. 75% don't require an associate's degree." The White House based his claim on an analysis by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. The analysis, which looked at $1.5 trillion of spending within Biden's infrastructure proposal, comes with caveats. First, different people count different things as infrastructure, and calling $1.5 trillion of the proposal "infrastructure" is one of the more generous definitions. Still, we found at least $683 billion of the proposal clearly qualifies under a traditional definition of infrastructure. Second, no bill has been written yet; a final version could include significant changes. That said, the analysis found that 16% of the jobs would require less than a high school degree, another 37% would require a high school degree, 14% would require some college but no degree, 8% would require a secondary vocational certificate, and 10% would require a two-year associate's degree.  All together, that's 85% of the jobs that don't require a bachelor's degree, which is close to the 90% that Biden cited. And 75% of the jobs would not require an associate's degree or higher, which is what Biden said. "Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we are on track to cut child poverty in America in half this year." No one can predict the future, but experts say the analyses undergirding Biden's assertion are credible. However, the drop in child poverty only lasts for one year because the benefits will expire under current law. Biden's idea builds on an existing $2,000 child tax credit but expands it for lower- and middle-income families. The idea is that this additional monthly income would push many American families over the poverty line. The primary evidence usually cited by backers is a January analysis by Columbia University's Center on Poverty and Social Policy. According to the analysis, Biden's proposal would cut the overall poverty rate to 9% from 12.6%, and by larger amounts for some subgroups. For children, the poverty rate would fall to 6.6% from 13.4%, which is where the "cut by half" language comes from. For Black families, it would fall to 13.3% from 20.3%. Hispanic families would see the largest decline of all, from 18.9% to 11.4%. "Let's raise the minimum wage to $15. No one working 40 hours a week should live below the poverty line." This lacks context. Whether a person earning below $15 an hour is living in poverty depends upon various factors, including the size of their household. The White House previously pointed to an example of a family of four with one full-time income using the federal government's poverty guideline. Using that measurement, that family with a paycheck of $13 an hour would live below the poverty line. At $15 an hour, the same family would be above the poverty line.  Experts say generalizing a "poverty wage" to a specific number ignores the different circumstances that families face. Other experts said the federal definition of a poverty level is out of date and needs changing. "During these 100 days, an additional 800,000 Americans enrolled in the Affordable Care Act when I established a special sign-up period to do that. 800,000 in that period."  This appears accurate but needs context.  Biden did create a special enrollment period for Americans to sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace plans, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That special enrollment period began Feb. 15 and will run through Aug. 15. According to numbers released by the Department of Health and Human Services, 528,000 Americans enrolled in health insurance coverage since that special enrollment period began through March 31. A senior administration official said that Biden's reference to the 800,000 new sign-ups reflected the most up-to-date tally, though it hasn't been previously announced. "When I was sworn in on Jan. 20, less than 1% of seniors in America were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. One hundred days later, 70% of seniors over 65 are protected. Senior deaths from COVID-19 are down 80% since January." This is largely accurate, but there are some uncertainties in the data.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Data Tracker, 0.8% of those over age 65 had been vaccinated on Jan. 20. So Biden is correct on this point.  As of April 28, the CDC reported the number of those over age 65 who have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and are fully protected is nearly 70% — it's at 68.3%. The percent who have received at least one dose is actually higher: 82%. A senior administration official provided CDC mortality data for all Americans, but not statistics specifically about seniors. That data shows the COVID-19 daily death rate dropped by nearly 80% from Jan. 20 to April 27.  The Associated Press reported on April 22 that the best available data appeared to show COVID-19 deaths for those 65 and older had declined by more than 50% since a peak in January, but said the "picture is not entirely clear because the most recent data on deaths by age from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is incomplete and subject to revision."  "We won't ignore what our intelligence agencies have determined to be the most lethal terrorist threat to the homeland today: white supremacist terrorism." We've rated a similar claim True. FBI director Christopher Wray has told lawmakers that a significant number of domestic terrorism investigations involved racially-motivated, violent extremist-motivated terrorist attacks.  "Racially-motivated violent extremists over recent years have been responsible for the most lethal activity in the U.S.," Wray said in September 2020. "Now this year, the domestic terrorism, lethal attacks we've had have, I think, all fit in the category of anti-government, anti-authority, which covers everything from anarchist violent extremists to militia types. We don't really think in terms of left, right." "A recent study shows that 55 of the nation's biggest corporations paid zero in federal income tax last year." This is Mostly True, backed by an April 2 study by the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Some critics say the financial disclosures used to compile the report are imperfect estimates of what the companies actually paid in taxes, because the accounting rules are different for the two types of filings.  However, separate data from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is based on actual tax returns, has supported the study's general point. RELATED STORY: Fact-checking Tim Scott's GOP response to Joe Biden Share Tweet Forward The Latest from PolitiFact How many states use the federal minimum wage? Sen. Joe Manchin said he supports raising the minimum wage to $11 an hour, but not as high as $15. Besides, he said, most states have a higher wage than the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour: "There's very few, I would think, if any, are at $7.25." We rated that False. Twenty-one states have a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour —  more than 40% of states. Fact-checking Biden's approval ratings. Online bloggers claimed Biden's 100-day approval rating "is the lowest in American history." We rated that False. Just over half the country approves of the job Biden is doing as of his 100th day in office. That's low — relative to other presidents since World War II — but not the lowest. Former President Donald Trump's approval rating of about 42% at his 100-day mark was the lowest recorded in American history. Biden takes credit for school openings. Biden recently said his administration's efforts have led to more school reopenings. We rated that Half True. While some of the Biden administration's actions helped, many states and schools were already moving toward more in-person learning. Other factors also played a role, including COVID-19 infection rates, overall vaccination rates, pressure from parents and decisions by local and state officials. Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help   Yes, I support PolitiFact! Make a tax-deductible donation to make this message go away. PolitiFact's Biden Promise Tracker hits the 100-day mark How is President Biden doing as he approaches the 100-day mark? Not bad, experts say, given the scale of the crisis he's tackling and the political opposition he faces in Congress. PolitiFact is tracking his campaign promises on the Biden Promise Tracker: Out of 100 promises, we've rated just over 30 either Promise Kept or In the Works. We'll continue monitoring these promises over the four years of his presidency. In an extended report, we looked in depth at what Biden has accomplished over the past 100 days. Three big actions are ramped-up coronavirus vaccine distribution, the passage of the American Rescue Plan, and the return to the Paris Climate Agreement. Read our full report for the rundown of what Biden has and hasn't accomplished so far >>>.  One final note: Some of Biden's accomplishments are intangible. "One word sums it up: normality," said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College.  "We can now skip the news for a day or two without worrying that we've missed a scandal or a crazy presidential tweet. Biden has made mistakes, such as having to backtrack on refugee policy, but they are the kind of mistakes that presidents normally make early in their term." Joe Biden bans burgers? Fox News, GOP politicians fuel false narrative One day after Biden pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half, Fox News and Fox Business Network personalities repeatedly and baselessly claimed that the move would also force Americans to say goodbye to hamburgers and steaks. "To meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has to, get this, America has to stop eating meat," said Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, a former economic adviser to President Donald Trump, on April 23. "No burger on July 4. No steaks on the barbecue." Biden's climate plans do not include restrictions on red meat consumption, a White House official confirmed to PolitiFact. Biden never mentioned red meat when he announced his plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030, a move that would double the U.S.'s commitment under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The false claims about Biden restricting access to meat originated with a Daily Mail article that linked Biden's goals to an unrelated January 2020 study on meat consumption. The article speculated that "Americans may have to cut their red meat consumption by a whopping 90% percent," citing a University of Michigan study that had no link to Biden's plan. "The study was published in January 2020, when Trump was still president, so it had nothing to do with Biden or his climate change plan," said Tulane University professor Diego Rose, one of the study's three co-authors. "It's all just sensational goo from 'Fox & Friends.'" We rated the claim False. Our full report documents how the false talking point spread on Fox News, and when the network ultimately corrected itself. Quick links to more fact-checks & reports  No, the Biden administration isn't buying Kamala Harris' book for migrant children   Ted Cruz's dubious claim that GOP didn't "rig" SCOTUS confirmations   No proof of military equipment giveaway soaring under Biden, as Black Lives Matter claimed   What happened during the Jan. 6 call between Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy?   9 experts dispute Joe Rogan's vaccine advice for healthy 21-year-olds Do you smell smoke?  Here's your Pants on Fire fact-check of the week:  A video shows Kim Jong Un calling Joe Biden a "thug," "coward," and "mentally unstable" Viral TikTok video of Kim Jong Un uses made-up English subtitles See what else we've rated Pants on Fire this week.  Don't forget: We're getting reading for our LIVE festival of fact-checking on May 10-13! Register today >> Have questions or ideas for our coverage? Send me an email at holan@politifact.com. Put "Fact-checking" in the subject line. Thanks for reading! Angie Drobnic Holan  PolitiFact Editor-in-Chief  Send this link to your friends so they can sign up for this email! Copyright © 2021 PolitiFact, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website, attended one of our events, or communicated with us. Our mailing address is: PolitiFact 801 3rd St S 33701 St. Petersburg, FL 33701 Add us to your address book  Want to change how you receive these emails? You can *update your preferences or *unsubscribe from this list.  Subscription Information This email was sent to Webmaster220 Bible Study Blog