President Biden State of the Union 2023 fact-check

President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union deal with to a cut up Congress on Tuesday, Feb. 7, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats controlling the Senate. Biden addressed some of the most urgent points dealing with Americans at house and overseas, together with the unsure financial local weather, inflation, gun violence and the battle in Ukraine. In addition, he credited his administration with wins from the previous 12 months, similar to lowering the deficit and capping insulin costs. 

Following Biden’s deal with, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered a short response for the GOP, the place she known as for a brand new technology of Republican management.  

The VERIFY crew fact-checked claims from Biden’s deal with and the GOP response. 

President Biden: “My administration cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion – the largest deficit reduction in American history.”  

The deficit did shrink by a file quantity in the final two years, as Biden claimed. But his declare is lacking essential context attributing this decline to the finish of short-term COVID-19 aid spending.

A budget deficit is the end result of the authorities spending more cash than it receives in income from taxes and different sources in a given 12 months.

The deficit fell from a file excessive of roughly $3.13 trillion throughout President Donald Trump’s administration in 2020 to about $1.38 trillion in 2022, Treasury Department data show. This quantities to a lower in the deficit of about $1.75 trillion.

That is the largest deficit discount in American historical past, as Biden claimed, based on information from the Federal Reserve.

But Biden’s declare leaves out essential context about the deficit decline. 

The deficit “ballooned” in fiscal years 2020 and 2021, “largely due to COVID relief and the resulting recession,”  May MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), instructed VERIFY.

All of the 2022 deficit decline was the end result of “shrinking or expiring COVID relief,” based on the CRFB. 

By fiscal 12 months 2024, the final of Biden’s present time period, the deficit “will likely be higher than it is today,” MacGuineas mentioned. This is due partially to the Biden administration approving practically $5 trillion in new borrowing over the subsequent 10 years to this point, she mentioned. 

President Biden: “Unemployment rate [is] at 3.4%, a 50-year low.”

Yes, the present unemployment fee is the lowest it has been in 50 years.

The unemployment fee is measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2023, the unemployment fee was 3.4% – the final time it was that low was 54 years in the past in May 1969.

Josh Bivens, the director of analysis with the Economic Policy Institute, instructed VERIFY that unemployment is seeing file low numbers partially as a result of of the fiscal assist that was supplied after the pandemic recession. The U.S. government spent at least $5.2 trillion to fight COVID-19 and its financial impression.  

Unemployment was additionally stored down as a result of of the discount in the measurement of the labor power following the pandemic, Bivens mentioned. The labor force participation rate in 2022 was lower than previous to what it was earlier than the pandemic. 

President Biden: “We have created a file 12 million new jobs – extra jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in 4 years.”  

No, President Biden has not created extra jobs in two years than any president has in 4 years. There was a four-year interval the place former president Bill Clinton created extra jobs when he was in workplace.

While President Biden has created greater than 12 million jobs in a two-year interval, that isn’t greater than another president has created throughout a four-year interval.  

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), when Biden took workplace in January 2021, there have been practically 143 million jobs. Two years later, there are actually 155 million jobs, a development of greater than 12.1 million jobs. 

Using information from the BLS that goes again to 1939, VERIFY discovered that there was one four-year interval the place extra jobs had been created — between 1996 and 2000, throughout Bill Clinton’s presidency. More than 12.4 million jobs had been added to the United States economic system throughout that point.

If we solely take a look at single presidential phrases, Biden is true: no different president has added extra jobs in a single time period. But he did not say phrases, he mentioned “in four years.”

Those 4 years span Clinton’s first and second time period in workplace, so the development wasn’t simply in a single time period. Still, it occurred over one four-year span, making this declare false.

President Biden: “Nearly 25% of the entire national debt, a debt that took 200 years to accumulate, was added by [the Trump] administration alone.”

It’s true that almost 25% of present U.S. debt was added throughout Trump’s presidency. But the declare that the Trump administration is answerable for all of that spending wants context.

As of Jan. 6, 2023, the U.S. nationwide debt is greater than $31.4 trillion.

Using information from the U.S. Treasury’s Debt to the Penny tool, VERIFY discovered that the nationwide debt elevated by greater than $7.8 trillion throughout Trump’s presidency. 

That’s practically 25% of the present nationwide debt, as Biden claimed. 

However, not all of that debt might be instantly attributed to the Trump administration’s coverage selections.  

Both events are at fault for the debt that’s been amassed over the previous a number of many years, Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow in financial research for the Brookings Institution, wrote in a blog post.

Republican tax cuts, together with these enacted during the Trump administration, had been a big contributor to the nationwide debt. 

But a lot of the nationwide debt’s development isn’t the end result of legislative motion in any respect, based on Sawhill. Instead, it’s “the consequence of the automatic growth of entitlement spending programs,” similar to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, she mentioned. 

Comparing the four-year debt enhance below Trump to a 200-year benchmark can be lacking context. The nation’s debt elevated by greater than $25 trillion in the final 20 years: that’s 79.6% of the nation’s present debt. 

Trump’s presidency  isn’t distinctive. More than $9.3 trillion of debt was added throughout Obama’s 8-year presidency (29.6% of present debt), and $3.7 trillion has been added since Biden took workplace (11.8% of present debt).

President Biden: “Ban assault weapons once and for all. We did it before. I led the fight to ban them in 1994.”

Yes, there was an assault weapons ban earlier than and President Biden did lead that effort at the time.

In November 1993, then-Senator Joe Biden was the sole sponsor of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1993. That crime invoice, together with one other House invoice, had been mixed to create the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which was passed into law below the Clinton administration in September 1994.  

The invoice prohibited civilian use of semi-automatic weapons that had been outlined as assault weapons, or firearms that used sure giant capability magazines as ammunition. 

But there was a sundown provision – or expiration date – on the invoice. It expired after 10 years and hasn’t been renewed. There isn’t at present a ban on assault weapons in the United States. 

President Biden: “We capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare.”

Yes, the value of insulin is capped at $35 a month for Medicare sufferers.

The Inflation Reduction Act capped insulin costs for Medicare sufferers at $35 a month, however not for folks with non-public insurance coverage. 

More than 63 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare, and one out of each three Medicare sufferers has diabetes, based on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Gov. Sarah Sanders: “100,000 Americans a 12 months are actually killed from drug overdoses, largely from fentanyl pouring throughout the southern border.”

According to most up-to-date CDC information, there have been greater than 100,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. from Aug. 2021 via Aug. 2022, and the majority of them had been from artificial opioids. But we can not VERIFY whether or not these deadly medication had been all fentanyl, and whether or not they came visiting the southern border.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of Aug. 2022, there have been 101,552 overdose deaths in the U.S. over a 12-month interval. That is the newest federal drug overdose information obtainable. 

That half of what Sanders mentioned is true; there have been greater than 100,000 Americans killed from drug overdoses. 

However, she additionally mentioned the overdose deaths had been triggered “largely from fentanyl pouring across our southern border,” and there’s merely not sufficient information at present to VERIFY that declare.  

Over that very same 12-month interval, there have been 68,740 overdose deaths attributed to artificial opioids. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, however so are different medication similar to tramadol. 

And whereas a three-year-old report from the Drug Enforcement Administration does say a majority of medication like fentanyl and heroin are smuggled into the U.S. over the southern border, the federal authorities doesn’t monitor the origin of medication concerned in deadly overdoses. 

Casey Decker, Kelly Jones, Meg Loe, Trevin Smith, Bryce Robinson, Eleni Hosack, Lindsay Claiborn and Sara Roth contributed to this report.