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.
The Truth-O-Meter was working overtime last week, checking claims about the pay gap between men and women. That was likely a fitting task in a week that included “Equal PayDay.” According to a presidential proclamation, April 8 marked how far into the new year women had to work to earn the same as men earned in 2013.
We also fact-checked claims about how many Georgians have college degrees and how many new mothers, babies and children are getting healthful food through a federally funded program that’s administered by the Georgia Department of Public Health.
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Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
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Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel: Seventy-two percent of Georgians did not have a chance to finish college.
Handel and her supporters have turned GOP rival David Perdue’s remarks about her not graduating from college into a campaign issue she hopes will bring Georgia voters to her side May 20 in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate.
“David’s either an elitist or just arrogant. But either way, he thinks he’s better than 72 percent of Georgians who did not have the chance to finish college,” former Georgia Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Everhart was quoted saying in a Handel campaign email.
Handel campaign manager Corry Bliss said the statistic, supplied to Everhart by the campaign, came from Census Bureau data. The federal agency’s statistics show 27.8 percent of Georgians older than 25 have a bachelor’s degree or higher. The national average is slightly higher, at 28.5 percent.
These numbers, however, do not include two-year degrees. One U.S. Department of Education chart shows 35.5 percent of Georgians had an associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree or higher in 2010. There’s a little context missing in the Handel campaign’s claim, but it’s mostly on the mark.
We rated the email statement from the Handel campaign as Mostly True.
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Georgia Department of Public Health: “Georgia has the nation’s fifth largest Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Supplemental Nutrition program, serving more than 270,000 mothers, babies and children every day.”
As its name suggests, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Supplemental Nutrition program is meant to supplement what’s already in the pantry. The average WIC participant received $45.47 worth of groceries a month in 2013, probably not enough on its own to keep body and soul together.
Georgia’s program is 100 percent federally funded, and according to a recent Department of Public Health blog post, it’s the nation’s fifth-largest. But when we checked, that’s how it was for four years, from 2009 to 2012.
For 2013, it ranks seventh behind California, Texas, New York, Florida, Puerto Rico and Illinois. Enrollment in the program was down 14,340 from 2012. It peaked in 2009, as the economy was crumbling, at 323,353, state data show.
We rated the statement in the blog from the Georgia Department of Public Health as Mostly True.
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Conservative pundit Genevieve Wood on Tuesday, April 8th, 2014 in comments on CNN: Young women today in metropolitan areas who are childless and single are out-earning childless, single young males.
Why is it that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns?
To many Democrats, it symbolizes an unfairness in the pay structures of jobs across America. But conservatives say the situation is more complex, that it’s as much about life choices as some fundamental inequality.
Conservative pundit Genevieve Wood, during a discussion on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” said: “Young women today in metropolitan areas, for example, who are childless, single young women are actually outperforming males in that same category all over the country.”
The statement, which we decided to check, tracks back to a credible analysis of 2008 Census Bureau data that looks at median incomes in metropolitan areas — a fact that Wood ignores.
But she gets most of the other details correct, and while the information is now 6 years old, we were unable to track down more recent research to confirm or disprove the point.
Wood’s statement is accurate but needs clarification.
We rated it Mostly True.
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Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Nunn: “On average, women make 77 cents for every dollar men make.”
Democrats and Republicans have yet again found an issue to disagree on — the gender pay gap — and one U.S. Senate candidate’s comments about it drew the attention of our Truth-O-Meter.
“On average, women make 77 cents for every dollar men make,” Nunn has said in statements and on her Facebook page.
Is this statistic true?
A 2010 U.S. Census Bureau study looked at the total wages earned by male and female workers. It found men’s total wages were about 23 percent higher than the total amount of women’s wages. But that discrepancy was due in part to the fact that men generally work more hours.
Nunn’s statement began with the qualifier “on average.” She also did not say there was a pay gap for women doing the same work as men.
We rated Nunn’s statement Mostly True.
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