Fact Checking the 2014 State of the Union address

By Glenn Kessler,

Here is a guide through some of President Obama’s more fact-challenged claims, in the order in which he made them. At the end, we also examine one fishy fact in the Republican response. As is our practice with live events, we do not award Pinocchio rankings, which are reserved for complete columns.

“The more than eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years.” The president is cherry-picking a number that puts the improvement in the economy in the best possible light.

“A manufacturing sector that’s adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s.” The only reason Obama can tout a gain in manufacturing jobs “for the first time since the 1990s” is because, before the recession, manufacturing had been on a slow decline for many years.

“Our deficits — cut by more than half.” The United States still has a deficit higher than it was in nominal terms and as a percentage of gross domestic product than it was in 2008 and a debt much greater as a percentage of the overall economy than it was prior to the recession.

“Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled.”
Close readers of the president’s speeches might have noticed an interesting shift in the president’s rhetoric. Just in December the president gave a speech on economic mobility in which he three times asserted that it was “declining” in the United States. But earlier this month, renowned economists Raj Chetty, Emmanuel Saez and colleagues published a paper based on tens of millions of tax records showing that upward mobility had not changed significantly over time. The rate essentially is the same now as it was 20 years ago.

“Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment.” There is clearly a wage gap, but differences in the life choices of men and women — such as women tending to leave the workforce when they have children — make it difficult to make simple comparisons. Obama is using a figure that makes the disparity appear the greatest. … the Labor Department, … concluded that when such differences are accounted for, much of the hourly wage gap dwindled, to about 5 cents on the dollar.

“More than nine million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage.” Obama carefully does not say these numbers are the result of the Affordable Care Act, but he certainly leaves that impression. But the Medicaid part of this number — 6.3 million from October through December — is very fuzzy and once earned a rating of Three Pinocchios.

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