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.
What do political rivals Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz have in common?
They all took a recent ride on the AJC Truth-O-Meter, courtesy of the fact-checking scribes at PolitiFact and PolitiFact Georgia.
Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
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Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
Ted Cruz on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016, during a town hall meeting in Henniker, N.H.:
“During eight years under Ronald Reagan, African-American median income rose by about $5,000.”
The actual increase was a little over $2,000. And the increase was significantly larger under a subsequent Democratic president, Bill Clinton.
We rate Cruz’s statement Mostly False.
Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, during an editorial board interview with The Concord Monitor:
“We now have more jobs in solar than we do in oil.”
The numbers don’t support Clinton’s claim.
For the oil industry, she didn’t look at the whole picture. And self-reported calculations by both the solar and oil and gas industry aren’t close. Oil and gas reports 10 times more jobs.
Independent data from the federal government also show more jobs in oil and gas compared with solar.
We rated Clinton’s claim False.
Hillary Clinton on Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, during a CNN town hall meeting:
When terrorists killed more than 250 Americans in Lebanon under Ronald Reagan, “the Democrats didn’t make that a partisan issue.”
Clinton has a strong point that the Democrat-held House did not react as forcefully to the 1983 Beirut bombings as the Republican-held House reacted to the 2012 Benghazi attack, which killed four.
But it’s not totally accurate to say the Democrats didn’t make it a partisan issue. Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale, running against Reagan in 1984, and some congressional Democrats repeatedly said Reagan had failed personally regarding Lebanon.
We rated Clinton’s claim Half True.
Bernie Sanders on Monday, Feb. 1, 2016, in a political ad:
“While our people work longer hours for lower wages, almost all new income goes to the top 1 percent.”
The individual data suggest that people work the same or fewer hours. But family data analyzed by the Brookings Institution and only showing a limited slice of the population show that mothers are working longer hours.
Wages have, in general, been going up, although barely at all compared with the gains seen among the rich.
And while the super-rich may have accumulated 91 percent of the new wealth from 2009 to 2013, the latest analysis shows that the ratio is now 58 percent since 2009, 55 percent since 1993. It’s a stretch to say that it’s “almost all.”
We rated Sanders’ statement Half True.
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