Category: America’s Heartland

“There are 1,000 billionaires in America. You know what the average federal tax rate for these billionaires is? … 8.2 percent! That’s far less than the vast majority of Americans pay. No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, or a nurse!”

This is another favorite line — the president has referenced this “fact” in more than 30 appearances over the past year — but Biden is comparing apples and oranges. We’ve given the president two Pinocchios for this claim.

The “lower tax rate” refers to a 2021 White House study concluding that the 400 wealthiest taxpayers paid an effective tax rate of 8 percent. But that estimate included unrealized gains in the income calculation. That’s not how the tax laws work. People are taxed on capital gains when they sell their stocks or other assets. So this is only a figure for a hypothetical tax system.

According to IRS data on the top 0.001% — 1,475 taxpayers with at least $77 million in adjusted gross income in 2020 — the average tax rate was 23.7 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers (income of at least $548,000) paid nearly 26 percent.

As for less-wealthy Americans, few, such as schoolteachers or firefighters, pay even the lowest rate of 10 percent because of deductions, exemptions and the like.

According to the Tax Policy Center, about 60 percent of all tax returns are filed by those with income under $50,000 — and about half of those pay no income tax at all; 22 percent paid an effective tax rate of less than 5 percent and another 22 percent paid less than 10 percent.

Among taxpayers with income between $50,000 and $100,000, about 60 percent paid an effective tax rate below 10 percent.

And how about The USA Today?

“Since I’ve come to office, our GDP is up.”

Biden is correct that GDP has grown since he came to office in January 2021, but this is hardly a unique achievement. Every president since Harry Truman has experienced GDP growth from the beginning to the end of their presidency, according to data from the U.S. Federal Reserve.  

“Inflation has dropped from 9% to 3% – the lowest in the world!”

Biden is simply wrong here.

The inflation rate refers to the annual percent change in consumer prices compared to the previous year’s prices. That number was 3.1% in the U.S. for the year ending in January 2024, a reduction from 3.4% the previous January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But that’s not the lowest in the world.

The latest data from the International Monetary Fund shows the U.S. has a higher inflation rate than dozens of countries. Those with lower rates include G7 countries such as Canada and France (2.4% and 2.5% respectively) and other advanced economies such as New Zealand, Italy, Switzerland, Finland and China. The global average inflation rate is currently 5.8%, according to the IMF.

And far left Factcheck.org

Biden boasted that “wages keep going up, inflation keeps coming down.” But over the entirety of Biden’s presidency, wages are down when adjusted for inflation.

Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers went up 14.8% during Biden’s first three years in office, according to monthly figures compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But inflation ate up all that gain and more. “Real” weekly earnings, which are adjusted for inflation and measured in dollars valued at their average level in 1982-84, actually declined 3.1% since Biden took office.

Biden continues to misleadingly claim, as he did during his address, that’s he’s “already cut the federal deficit by over $1 trillion dollars.”

Budget deficits have declined from the record spending gap of $3.1 trillion in fiscal year 2020, the last full fiscal cycle before Biden took office. In FY 2021, the deficit was about $2.8 trillion; in FY 2022, it was almost $1.4 trillion; and in FY 2023, which ended Sept. 30, it was roughly $1.7 trillion.

But as we’ve explained several times, the primary reason that deficits went down by about $350 billion in Biden’s first year, and by another $1.3 trillion in his second, is because of emergency COVID-19 funding that expired in those years.

On multiple occasions, Biden has left the misleading impression that new jobs in U.S. semiconductor factories would pay above $100,000 annually for those without a college degree.

But only those with a bachelor’s degree ($120,000) or a graduate degree (over $160,000) had wages that topped six figures. Workers with a high school education or less could expect to earn a little more than $40,000. Those with at least some college experience could make $60,000, while earning an associate’s degree could increase that to $70,000.