Please Box
Truth-O-Meter rulings
The goal of the Truth-O-Meter is to reflect the relative accuracy of a statement.
The meter has six ratings, in decreasing level of truthfulness:
TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
FALSE – The statement is not accurate.
PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.
This year’s Super Bowl had plenty of drama from the pre-game deflate-gate scandal to that 1-yard line pass and interception, sealing New England’s win. In between we found fodder for the Truth-O-Meter: a 45-second television commercial from insurance company Nationwide stating that the No. 1 cause of childhood deaths is “preventable accidents.”
PolitiFact scribes also checked claims this week about the jobs that have been created in Georgia during Nathan Deal’s tenure as governor, about deaths on the state’s highways and about the ongoing austerity cuts to K-12 education. Could the state’s school systems be looking at being shorted nearly $500 million next year, based on the state’s funding formula?
Abbreviated versions of this week’s fact checks are below. Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
Want to to comment on our rulings or suggest one of your own? Just go to our Facebook page (
). You can also follow us on Twitter (
).
Nationwide on Sunday, February 1st, 2015 in an ad during the Super Bowl:
“The No. 1 cause of childhood deaths is preventable accidents.”
Super Bowl XLIX had everything a fan could hope for (unless you’re from Seattle).
But despite the genuine on-field fireworks, it was once again a commercial that had many people talking. And not necessarily for good reasons.
A 45-second commercial by insurance company Nationwide was widely panned for its haphazard attempt to tug at the heart strings by imagining the long-term consequences of a child’s accidental death.
In it, a boy, lamenting that he won’t ever be able to ride a bike explains, “I couldn’t grow up, because I died from an accident.”
The following text on the screen appears: “The number one cause of childhood deaths is preventable accidents.”
We reached out to Nationwide but didn’t hear back. The company released a statement on its website after the public’s reaction, saying: “Preventable injuries around the home are the leading cause of childhood deaths in America. Most people don’t know that.”
The company’s statement claimed that “preventable injuries around the home are the leading cause of childhood deaths.”
The claim is based on hard numbers from the CDC, and the general trend has been consistent for the last decade and a half.
The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
We rated the Nationwide claim Mostly True.
Georgia DOT overhead sign at I-85 and Spaghetti Junction on Saturday, January 24th, 2015:
“GEORGIA ROADWAY FATALITIES THIS YEAR: 59 PLEASE DRIVE SAFELY”
Twenty-four days into the New Year, and the message board on I85 was announcing that 59 people had died on Georgia roadways.”GEORGIA ROADWAY FATALITIES THIS YEAR: 59,” We contacted Natalie Dale, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Transportation, who told us that number was already outdated and had hit 70 by Jan. 28th.
DOT data shows that roadway deaths in the state have declined slightly year over year — going from 1,503 in 2008 to 1,147 last year, despite there being nearly a half-million more vehicles on the road.
(The state had 8.5 million registered vehicles in 2008 and just less than 9 million vehicles in 2014, according to data we obtained from the Georgia Department of Revenue).
State officials offer several potential explanations for the decline in roadway deaths.
Dale said safety enhancements, including raised medians, have been DOT priorities.
Raised medians have a track record of reducing all accidents by 55 percent and pedestrian accidents in urban areas by 90 percent, she said.
Harris Blackwood, director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, said greater seatbelt use is likely a factor.
“We’re seeing some of the highest seat belt use — somewhere north of 95 percent,” Blackwood said.
We rated the DOT post True.
Nathan Deal on Wednesday, January 14th, 2015 in his State of the State address:
“Since I took office, over 319,000 new private sector jobs have been created in Georgia with nearly 93,000 of those coming in the past 12 months.”
Gov. Nathan Deal gave an optimistic view of Georgia jobs in his State of the State address.
“Since I took office, over 319,000 new private sector jobs have been created in Georgia with nearly 93,000 of those coming in the past 12 months,” Deal said.
By most measures, the job market in Georgia and nationwide has been looking up. PolitiFact Georgia wondered, though, if the state has added 300,000 jobs – the equivalent of combining the populations of Alpharetta, Dunwoody, Roswell and Sandy Springs– since Deal took office in January 2011.
A Deal spokeswoman referred us to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Deal, she said, was referencing the seasonally adjusted, private-sector figures, comparing January 2011 and the preliminary figures for November 2014.
We checked, and the numbers were spot on.
Deal said more than 319,000 private sector jobs were created during his first term. Even if that increase only replaces jobs lost before he took office, the data show his estimates were accurate and even conservative.
The caveat: The jobs created have only just replaced those lost in the Great Recession. It has taken seven years to get back to the job figures of 2007, meaning only going forward will the state see net increases (and lower the unemployment rate).
We rated Deal’s statement True.
Alan Essig, executive director, Georgia Budget & Policy Institute in a blog post on January 22, 2015
The governor’s budget proposal reduces the state austerity cut to education to under $500 million for 20:
Georgia’s public schools haven’t been fully funded under the state’s education funding formula since 2002.
That’s expected to still be the case in the fiscal year that starts July 1, although the financial picture for schools is looking up.
Last year, with the governor and all 236 members of the General Assembly facing re-election, the so-called state austerity cut to K-12 education was reduced by about $314 million.
Now Gov. Nathan Deal wants to go further.
His nearly $21.8 billion budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts July 1 would commit an additional $280 million to K-12 education and says local school systems would have flexibility to spend the money to reduce or eliminate furlough days, increase instructional days or raise salaries.
If lawmakers support the governor’s plan, the austerity cut to schools would fall below $500 million for Fiscal Year 2016, Alan Essig, executive director of the left-leaning Georgia Budget & Policy Institute said in a recent blog post.
Deal’s budget proposal earmarks an extra $280 million for education.
That would reduce the austerity cut from about $746 million to about $466 million.
The exact amount,is likely between $460 million and $470 million but is determined by the state Department of Education, Essig told PolitiFact.
We rated Essig’s statement as True.
About the Author
