How does PolitiFact Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter work?
Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.
To fact-check a claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.
The fact check then moves on to a panel of veteran editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
PolitiFact Georgia made what some might see as the not-so-quantum leap from politics to potties last week.
Our fact-checkers were intrigued by the claim that a toilet rebate program in the 15-county metro Atlanta region is helping saving 2.4 million gallons of water a day. We probably had a bit too much fun getting to the bottom of that one.
Tom Toles, Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist for the Washington Post, tackled the touchy topic the day after the U.S. Treasury announced that the portrait of a woman would be featured on a redesigned $10 bill.
We also ran through the Truth-O-Meter a statement by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman that might provide some perspective on the hand-wringing about Greece’s financial problems.
In addition last week, we continued our occasional series on the ever-growing list of 2016 presidential hopefuls with a look at past fact-checks on former U.S. Senator and Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee. Coming Monday: The Donald Trump file.
Abbreviated versions of our fact checks from last week are below.
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Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/
Paul Krugman on Sunday, July 5th, 2015 in an interview on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos
“Greece is not a big economy. It’s about the size of metropolitan Miami.”
Greek voters stuck a wrench into European finances with their rejection of an austerity-bailout package on July 5, 2015. With the referendum results all in, the possibility that Greece might ditch the Euro, the European Union’s common currency, became more likely than ever.
Before the vote though, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman warned that the greatest worry might have less to do with Greece than with other shaky economies in the Euro zone. On ABC’s This Week, Krugman downplayed the impact of the Greek economy per se.
“Greece is not a big economy,” Krugman told host George Stephanopoulos, “It’s about the size of metropolitan Miami. So if you asked how much direct spillover there is from whatever happens in Greece, not that much.
PolitiFact decided to check Krugman’s comparison of Greece to the greater Miami area.
Krugman has not rested on his Nobel Prize laurels. He is correct.
The latest estimate of the Gross Domestic Product of the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan area, according to Washington’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, was $281 billion in 2013.
The same year, the CIA estimated the size of the Greek economy at $282.6 billion in 2013. Another estimate, from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, put Greece’s GDP at about $283 billion.
Either number supports Krugman’s point, and the only caveats are technical.
We rated Krugman’s statement True.
Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District in a Tuesday, June 16th, 2015 press release
Replacing 100,000 old toilets with water-efficient models has saved 2.4 million gallons of water every day.
The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District recently celebrated its rebate program, helping homeowners in the 15-county metro Atlanta region replace 100,000 older model toilets with water efficient models.
The total savings: 2.4 million gallons of water every day.
“One of the beautiful things about changing out a toilet is you get a rebate, but you also permanently save on your water bill,” said Katherine Zitsch, the water district’s director. “It’s not behavior based. You do what you normally do and you get those savings for as long as the toilet lasts.”
We checked the district’s math on the savings.And a comparable federal calculator shows that the district is being conservative in estimating the region’s move toward water efficiency.
The water savings since the rebate program is 2.4 million gallons of water a day, enough to fill 1,363 Olympic-size swimming pools every year.
We rated the district’s claim True.
Cartoonist Tom Toles on June 18th, 2015
A “working woman” will earn $7.70 on $10.
The day after the U.S. Treasury announced that the portrait of a woman would be featured on a redesigned $10, the editorial cartoonist at the Washington Post offered his take.
Tom Toles’ cartoon showed a portrait of “U.S. Working Woman” in the center, and the $10 note was worth $7.70. The motto: “Close Enuf 4 U” and signed by “Hugh Ken Wait.”
The same idea – that women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man makes – has been the subject of repeated claims by politicians, with varying degrees of success.
Toles – like politicians from President Obama down to Connie Stokes, a candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia – isn’t pulling that 77 percent figure out of thin air.
The U.S. Census found in 2010, that the female-to-male earnings ratio of full-time, year-round workers was 0.77. Put into dollars, that means women working full-time made 77 cents for every dollar earned by men who worked full time.
An updated report for 2012 found the same gap, looking at all male and female full-time workers across the nation, regardless of occupation.
The catch: The statistic is based on total wages.
The Census report did not account for the fact that men generally work more hours. So the large discrepancy exists in part because it does not examine pay for the same work, or the same number of hours worked.
That’s why the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reached a different conclusion of the gap. Its 2012 study analyzed pay by weekly wages and found that women earned 82 cents on the dollar for men’s median weekly earnings.
Other BLS data have shown that the gap also diminishes when comparing women and men, in the same exact job, with the same levels of education and experience. In those cases, the gap falls to somewhere in the 91 percent range.
We rated it Mostly True.
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