Fact check: Obama’s State of the Union

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(USA NEWS, USA TODAY)

President Obama largely stuck to the facts in his State of the Union address, although he did cherry-pick data and exaggerate at times to put the best spin on his accomplishments.

Some highlights:

• Obama made the inflated claim that “more than half of manufacturing executives have said they’re actively looking to bring jobs back from China.” A survey showed most “expressed interest” in it, but are not “actively looking” at doing it.

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• Total

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The president delivered his sixth State of the Union address

MANUFACTURING JOBS

Obama made the inflated claim that “more than half of manufacturing executives have said they’re actively looking to bring jobs back from China.”

The president was referring to an August 2014 survey

While 54% of those surveyed “expressed interest in reshoring,” only 16% said they are “already bringing production back from China to the United States,” a 20% increase from the 2013 survey. And 20% of those polled said that “they would consider returning production in the near future,” up 24% from 2013.

Obama also said that since 2010 “[o]ur manufacturers have added almost 800,000 new jobs.” That’s true enough, but there has been a net loss of manufacturing jobs during the president’s time in office.

Since January 2010, the time frame used by the president, the U.S. has seen an increase of 777,000 manufacturing jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

In a recent study

“Much of the growth since 2010 appears to be caused by a cyclical recovery as demand, particularly for motor vehicles and other durable goods, returns,” the ITIF report said.

VPC

ECONOMIC GROWTH

The president fudged a bit when he said economic growth and job gains are the best in 16 years.

Obama:

Not quite.

As for how fast “our economy is growing,” official figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis

The BEA’s figures show real GDP grew at a rate of 6.9% in the third quarter of 2003, and at 7.8% in the second quarter of 2000.

And as for “creating jobs,” the White House has pointed to a preliminary figure of 2.95 million job

But the president spoke in present tense — saying the economy “is … creating jobs” at the fastest clip since 1999. And by more immediate measures the pace is not quite the most rapid since 1999. BLS puts the gain in total nonfarm employment during the most recent three-month period (ending in December) at 866,000 jobs. That’s a respectable number, but not the best three-month gain since 1999.

The BLS figures show other three-month stretches in 2010, 2006, 2004 and 2000 when even more jobs were added.

SICK PAY

Obama exaggerated when he said the United States was “the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave.”

While Canada and Japan have social insurance programs that would cover an extended leave for cancer treatment, they don’t have guaranteed paid leave for an illness that lasts a few days. And Obama made the claim in calling for “a bill that gives every worker in America the opportunity to earn seven days of paid sick leave.”

A 2009 report by the Center for Economic and Policy Researchfunded by various labor groups and foundations

The report says that 11 countries guaranteed full pay for an illness requiring five sick days. Others paid for some missed time, but not all five days (and in a few cases not even one full day), because of waiting periods before the financial support would kick in.

Obama also said that the U.S. was the “only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee … paid maternity leave to our workers.” A 2014 reportInternational Labour Organization

The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act

However, the International Labour Organization report went on to say that the benefits in more than half of those 185 countries “were neither generous nor sufficiently long-lasting.” It calls for 14 weeks of pay equal to two-thirds of previous earnings, a standard met by 85% of developed countries.

And not all women are eligible for benefits. “Only 28.4 per cent of employed women worldwide would receive cash benefits in case of maternity,” the report said.

VPC

PRIVATE SECTOR JOB GROWTH

The president was correct when he said the U.S. has gained 11 million private sector jobs in the past five years.

Obama:

That’s true as far as it goes. The economy gained 11,215,000 private sector jobs

Of course, the president said nothing of the 4,210,000 private sector jobs that were lost

Overall, since Obama took office, the net gain in private sector employment is just over 7 million. And the gain in total during his time in office is lower than that — just under 6.4 million. That’s because of a net loss in government jobslocal school systems

ABORTION AND TEEN PREGNANCIES IN DECLINE

Obama was right when he said “teen pregnancies and abortions are nearing all-time lows.”

Obama

The rate of teen pregnancies in the U.S. has been on the decline for decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Vital Statistics

However, despite this progress, teen pregnancies in the U.S. still outpace many other developed countries including Canada and the United Kingdom, according to United Nations statistics

As for abortions, the Guttmacher Institute reported

CHINA’S ‘COMMITMENT’ ON EMISSIONS

In a section of his speech dealing with efforts to address climate change, Obama touted a recent agreement with China.

Obama

Committed? Not exactly.

In a joint announcement

The agreement was hailedstatement

As we wrote

HEALTH INSURANCE

Obama’s boast about the decline in the uninsured is supported by early estimates from inside and outside his administration.

Obama:

That figure is echoed by a quarterly survey conducted by the Urban Institute and a report by researchers with the Department of Health and Human Services and Harvard School of Public Health.

But we don’t yet know if Obama can claim that “more of our people are insured than ever before,” as he said earlier in his speech. An analysis of the percentage of uninsured by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers shows that, but compares the second quarter of 2014 to years past. We don’t have the full 2014 federal numbers yet.

The Urban Institute’s Health Reform Monitoring Survey

An earlier estimate from researchers with the Department of Health and Human Services and Harvard School of Public Health put the decline of the uninsured at 10.3 million adults from January 2012 through June 2014. Their report, published in The New England Journal of Medicine

Estimates from the most recent National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics

Obama cited a statistic from his own Council of Economic Advisers in saying that “more of our people are insured than ever before.” The CEA used National Center for Health Statistics data and estimated

The data go back to 1963, and CEA had to make some adjustments due to changes in survey construction over the years. As we said, figures for all of 2014 aren’t yet available, so CEA compares the percentage of uninsured for the second quarter of 2014 (11.3%) to figures from past years

The figure for the first six months of 2014, not just the second quarter, is higher, however, at 12.2% (see Table 1

The National Center for Health Statistics’ trend numbers for those without health insurance under age 65 (see Table 3percentage of the uninsured under age 65

DEFICITS

In ticking off his accomplishments, Obama listed this one: “our deficits cut by two-thirds.” That’s accurate, but as we have written before, the deficits have fallen from high levelson pace to return to high levels

When Obama took office in January 2009, the federal deficit for fiscal year 2009 was already on pace to be $1.2 trillion and topped $1.4 trillion by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2009. Annual deficits remained above $1 trillion for three more years

The U.S. finished the most recent fiscal year with a deficit of $483 billion

But, as we noted in our quarterly report on Obama’s presidencyIn a report it issued in August

DRONES

Obama said his administration has “worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained.” Whether the use of drones has been “properly constrained” is a subjective matter. The Stimson Center, a global security think tank, for one, warned

But as a matter of independent analysis, Obama has ordered many more drone strikes than his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Obama

No official figures are available, and for a time the Obama administration would not even publicly admit that such CIA-controlled attacks were taking place. But independent reports have found a dramatic increase in the use of covert, remote-controlled drones and missiles to attack targets in Pakistan and Yemen.

An independent estimate by the nonpartisan New America Foundationwe notedBureau of Investigative Journalism

— Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, D’Angelo Gore, Carolyn Fante and Eden Everwine

For a full list of sources, see FactCheck.org

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