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 the 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 editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
PolitiFact and PolitiFact Georgia last week checked out claims about jobs, education spending and the financial state of Georgia families.
Two of the claims emerged from Gov. Nathan Deal’s election-year State of the State address. One was that the Deal administration had increased funding for education by nearly $1 billion. The other focused on the employment picture in life after the worst recession in decades.
We followed up by looking at one of the claims made by state Sen. Jason Carter of Atlanta in the Democratic response to Deal’s speech. It focused on how the family paycheck fared through recent tough times.
We also looked at a member of Congress’ claim that “if you have a job in this country, (there’s a) 97 percent chance that you’re not going to be in poverty.”
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Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
Gov. Nathan Deal: “During my administration, funding for education has increased by over $930 million.
The governor spent a portion of his State of the State address on Jan. 15 discussing a major election-year issue: public education.
“Since spending on education has always been the largest part of our state budget, representing over half of all spending, it was to be expected that it would be reduced during these hard times,” Deal told a packed House chamber. “However, during my administration, funding for education has increased by over $930 million.”
Deal failed to mention that the calculation included a $547 million increase in education spending that he’s just put before the Legislature.
If history holds true, lawmakers will likely approve Deal’s proposal. But to count it before any vote has been taken is premature.
We rated Deal’s statement as Half True.
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Gov. Nathan Deal: (M)ore Georgians have jobs than at any other time since October 2008.”
In his State of the State address, Deal had at times an almost Reaganesque air of optimism. “The state of our state is excellent, and it is a great day in Georgia,” the Republican said.
After a lingering recession, Deal said, things are getting better, particularly the job market.
“(M)ore Georgians have jobs than at any other time since October 2008,” the
governor said in his prepared remarks.
We wondered whether he was correct and turned to the Georgia Department of Labor. Based on info from the department, Georgia in October 2008 had 4,076,000 people in the workforce, a number that continued to trend downward and was under 4 million in February 2010. The numbers were back close to the October 2008 level last November, when 4,072,200 people had jobs.
The job market is expected to continue to improve in 2014, but no one’s certain what kinds of jobs they will be. Some prominent economists have projected that only one
in five jobs added in 2014 will pay more than $60,000 a year, the AJC reported.
To sum up, Deal said in his State of the State address that more Georgians
have jobs than they did at any time since October 2008. Data from the state’s
Labor Department supports the governor’s argument.
We rate Deal’s claim True.
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U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla. on “Fox News Sunday: “If you have a job in this country, (there’s a) 97 percent chance that you’re not going to be in poverty.”
Five decades after President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the War on Poverty, “Fox News Sunday” invited U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., among others, to discuss the anniversary.
Host John Roberts asked Southerland about ending current programs and moving to a system of block grants.
Southerland responded: “I think you have to look at the indicators — the fundamentals of these programs. Look what causes poverty. We know that two-parent families (are) a child’s greatest opportunity to avoid poverty. We know that a good quality education with daily parent involvement … reduces poverty. … If you have a job in this country, (there’s a) 97 percent chance that you’re not going to be in poverty. And so, therefore, I think there’s a better way.”
Census Bureau data from 2012 supports his claim. The Census Bureau found that 2.9 percent of Americans between ages 18 and 64 who worked full time, year-round, in 2012 were in poverty.
There is a caveat. Southerland said “if you have a job” — and there are people in the United States who have jobs, but not full-time, full-year jobs. Among Americans ages 18 to 64 who have part-time jobs, the poverty rate is 16.6 percent. And among all workers — Americans who have either a full- or a part-time job — the rate is 7.3 percent.
So a more accurate number for the likelihood of poverty “if you have a job” is 92.7 percent, or, rounding up, 93 percent. That’s very close to 97 percent but slightly off.
We rated Southerland’s claim Mostly True.
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State Sen. Jason Carter in the Democratic response to Gov. Nathan Deal’s Jan. 15 State of the State address: “Adjusted for inflation, the average Georgia family in effect makes $6,000 less than the average family did 10 years ago. That’s a real pay cut.”
Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, said Georgians have taken a pay cut. Adjusted for inflation, the average Georgia family is making $6,000 less than the average family did 10 years ago, he said.
He actually was conservative in saying what’s happened to Georgia’s median family income. He said it was down $6,000. A U.S. Census Bureau report said that when inflation is factored in, it was actually $6,682 less in 2012 than in 2002.
In 2012 dollars, the median family income in that period fell from $54,803 to $48,121, the report states. That brought Georgia down considerably in the state rankings, Carter pointed out.
Experts generally believe — and officials in the governor’s office say — that the fall in the median family income occurred because the epicenters of the past two recessions were industries that account for an above-average proportion of Georgia’s economy. Specifically, the dot-com, or 9-11, recession hit Georgia’s outsized information industry and air transportation industries.
Then Georgia got hit harder than the nation by the Great Recession and underperformed during the first years of the recovery because of its heavy dependence on construction and real estate development, said Jeff Humphreys, the director of economic forecasting at the University of Georgia. The state took direct hits in those industries and indirect hits in our large building materials manufacturing and forestry industries, he said.
Deal administration officials cite other numbers showing that the economy is improving. They point out that Georgia’s unemployment rate — while 40th for the nation at 7.7 percent in 2012 — is still the lowest in five years.
That leaves a question to ponder: Can an economy produce more jobs and yet have families with declining buying power?
We rated Carter’s statement True.
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