President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address was filled
with several repeat claims about the economy, tax cuts and immigration
that we’ve fact-checked before, as well as new false and misleading
statements on auto plants, judicial appointments and development aid.
- Trump
claimed credit for 2.4 million new jobs “since the election,” when more
than a half a million of those jobs were created under then-President
Obama.
- He claimed that wages are “finally” going up, when they’ve been on a generally upward trend since the 1990s.
- Trump
boasted that the African American unemployment rate was the “lowest
rate ever recorded” and that Hispanic unemployment was at the “lowest
levels in history.” True, but both rates have been in steady decline for
about seven years. And the recent Hispanic rate matches the record low
in October 2006.
- Trump falsely said car companies have
not built or expanded plants in the U.S. “for decades.” Two new assembly
plants were announced and others expanded in the last nine years.
- The
president said he had appointed “more circuit court judges than any new
administration” in history. True, but appointments by Presidents Nixon
and Kennedy had a greater impact since there were far fewer appellate
court seats back then.
- Trump said the U.S. does “more than any
other country … to help the needy, the struggling, and the
underprivileged all over the world.” In raw dollars of development aid,
it’s true. But as a proportion of gross national income, the U.S. ranked
22nd in 2016.
- The president wrongly said that the U.S. is “an
exporter of energy to the world.” The Energy Information Administration
estimates the U.S. won’t be a net exporter of energy until 2026.
- Trump
again wrongly said that “we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in
American history.” There have been larger cuts as a percentage of gross
domestic product and in inflation-adjusted dollars
- The
president said the new tax law gives “tremendous relief for the middle
class.” The middle quintile in terms of income gets an average tax cut
of $930 in 2018, but the top quintile gets a little more than 65 percent
of the tax cut benefits.
- Trump said cutting the
corporate tax rate will “increase average family income by more than
$4,000.” This is a rosy, long-term estimate from White House economic
advisers based on questionable assumptions.
- Trump
wrongly said the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program “hands out green
cards without any regard for skill … or the safety of the American
people.” There are both education or work experience requirements, and a
background check for all who are selected.
- Trump said that
“America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade
deals.” But the trade deficit that he promised to reduce has grown
larger during his presidency.
- Trump said the U.S. is “restoring
our … standing abroad.” But a recent Gallup Poll found “approval of U.S.
leadership across 134 countries and areas stands at a new low.”
The
president’s speech on Jan. 30 clocked in at an hour and 20 minutes (and 31 seconds), the third longest dating back to 1966,
according to the American Presidency Project. That means there was plenty of time for repeat claims and some new twists on the facts.
Trump claimed credit for creating 561,000 jobs that actually were
added before he took office, and for starting a rise in wages that began
years earlier.
Trump said: "Since the
election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new
jobs in manufacturing alone. Tremendous number. After years and years of
wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages".
Trump claimed credit for creating 561,000 jobs that actually were
added before he took office, and for starting a rise in wages that began
years earlier.
Trump: Since the
election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new
jobs in manufacturing alone. Tremendous number. After years and years of
wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.
As he has done numerous times recently, Trump boasted about
record-low unemployment rates for black and Hispanic Americans. That’s
accurate, but unemployment rates for African American and Hispanic
Americans — as well as for all Americans — have been in steady decline
for about the last seven years.
Trump said:
"And something I am very proud of, African American unemployment stands
at the lowest rate ever recorded. And Hispanic American unemployment has
also reached the lowest levels in history"
As
we noted
when Trump recently claimed the black unemployment rate is the lowest
in recorded history “because of my policies,” the years-long downward
trend in unemployment rates has continued under Trump, but at a slower
pace than in recent years.
When Trump took office in January 2017,
the black unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, the lowest it had been in
nearly 10 years, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Under Trump, it dropped a full percentage point to 6.8 percent in
December. That’s the lowest rate since the bureau began regularly
breaking out unemployment rates by race in 1972.
A similar drop of
1 percentage point was recorded during the same 11-month period in
2016. But even larger drops were recorded in each of the three years
before that. The rate fell 1.9 percentage points in 2015, 1.5 percentage
points in 2014 and 1.8 percentage points in 2013.
The gap between
white and black unemployment remains largely unchanged under Trump.
While black unemployment fell to 6.8 percent in December, the
white unemployment rate that
month was 3.7 percent. So the white rate is 46 percent lower than the
black rate, about the same as the gap in December 2016.
The
Hispanic unemployment rate dipped
to 4.8 percent in June, October and November, matching a record low
recorded in October 2006. The rate dropped by a full percentage point
under Trump, from 5.9 percent in January 2017 to 4.9 percent in
December. But again, despite remaining constant during 2016, the rate
has been declining for years, going from 12.9 percent in December 2010
to 6.2 percent in December 2015.
Trump made a series of misstatements in talking about the auto industry.
Trump said: "Many
car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United
States — something we haven’t seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a
major plant from Mexico to Michigan. Toyota and Mazda are opening up a
plant in Alabama — a big one. And we haven’t seen this in a long time.
It’s all coming back".
There is a lot to unpack here,
but let’s start with the fact that the president is wrong when he says
the U.S. has not seen the construction of new auto plants and expansion
of existing ones “for decades.”
The Center for Automotive
Research, a government-funded research group based in Michigan, tracks
auto manufacturing investments in the U.S.
Kristin Dziczek,
the center’s director of the industry, labor & economics group,
told us that most investments in recent years have been for “expansion
and retooling of existing facilities.” But, she said, two new auto
assembly plants were announced in the nine years before Trump took
office.
For example, Volkswagen
chose Chattanooga, Tennessee, as the hub of its U.S. manufacturing operations in 2008. Volvo announced its
first U.S. plant in 2015, and BMW expanded its South Carolina facility
as recently as 2016.
Trump was also wrong when he said, “Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan.” In early January, Fiat Chrysler
announced plans to move production of its heavy-duty trucks from Mexico to the United States, but the Mexico plant is
expected to continue its operations and switch to a new vehicle line.
The president has gotten the facts wrong about Fiat Chrysler before, including in a
recent tweet where he claimed Chrysler “is leaving Mexico and coming back to the USA.”
Trump
is right that Toyota and Mazda have announced the construction of a
joint auto assembly plant in Alabama. But it’s not clear how much credit
Trump can claim.
In a
press release
announcing the new plant, Toyota said it has been negotiating a joint
venture with Mazda for two years — ever since the two companies entered
an agreement in
May 2015 to partner on business ventures.
The $1.6 billion investment is part of a
commitment that Toyota made
in January 2017 before Trump took office to invest $10 billion in the
U.S. over five years. At the time, Toyota President Akio Toyoda
told reporters, “We’re always considering ways to increase production in the United States, regardless of the political situation.”
Read more of the detailed facts here: FactChecking Trump's State of the Union - FactCheck.org
