FactChecking the State of the Union

Summary

President Joe Biden put his spin on some facts, particularly about the economy, in his Feb. 7 State of the Union address:

• Biden boasted that the 12.1 million jobs created in his first two years were more than the number of jobs added in four years under any president. But that job growth was fueled by a post-pandemic recovery that started under his predecessor, and his comparison doesn’t account for population growth.
• The president said “take-home pay has gone up,” which is true, but the rise is not as fast as inflation. “Real” weekly earnings, which are adjusted for inflation, have gone down.
• Biden said he has cut the deficit by a record $1.7 trillion, but most of that was due to expiring emergency pandemic spending.
• He said “no president added more to the national debt in any four years” than his predecessor, Donald Trump, and that “nearly 25% of the entire national debt” was added by Trump. It’s accurate, but trillions of dollars of the accumulated debt under Trump were due to bipartisan coronavirus relief packages.
• Biden said “for too many decades, we imported projects and exported jobs,” but now “we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs.” In fact, U.S. imports of goods and services have continued to exceed exports under Biden.
• The president repeated a claim popular among Democrats during the midterms, suggesting that some Republicans would “sunset” Medicare and Social Security. The claim exaggerates the support for a proposal from Sen. Rick Scott that would have brought up all federal legislation for a vote every five years.
• With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the U.S. is “replacing poisonous lead pipes that go into 10 million homes in America, 400,000 schools and childcare centers,” he said. But the law didn’t provide enough funding to replace all lead pipes.
• As he did last year, Biden said U.S. infrastructure had “sunk to 13th in the world.” But some have questioned the report behind that statistic.

Analysis

Jobs

In boasting about job growth, the president said that more jobs were created in his first