'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' FactCheck Biden’s Numbers, July 2024 Update

As Biden enters the final months of his presidency, we look at various statistical measures of what's happened during his term.

Summary

President Joe Biden isn’t running for reelection, but his record will still be on the ballot in the fall. Here we look at how the U.S. has performed under the Democratic president:

• The economy added 15.7 million jobs. The number is now 6.3 million higher than before the pandemic.
• The unemployment rate dropped back and has stayed lower, longer than at any time during the previous administration.
• Inflation surged to its highest level in over 40 years. Despite recent moderation, consumer prices are up more than 19% overall. Gasoline is up 46%.
• Average weekly earnings haven’t kept pace with prices. After adjusting for inflation, “real” weekly earnings dropped 2.3%.
• The U.S. economy has continued to expand under Biden, growing at 2.8% in the second quarter estimate released July 25 — double the rate of growth in the first quarter.
• Violent crime has gone down. Figures from large cities show a 9.1% drop in murders from 2020 to 2023, and data from more than 200 cities show a continuing decline so far this year.
• Fewer people lack health insurance. The uninsured went down by 2.1 percentage points or 6.6 million people.
• Crude oil production increased. The daily average for the most recent 12 months is 15.3% higher than the average in 2020, and it’s higher than the pre-pandemic average.
• Apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally are up 273% for the 12 months ending in June, even as the monthly figure for June dropped significantly.
• The average number of refugees admitted per month is 117% higher than the average under his predecessor.
• Corporate profits are up 36%.
• The international trade deficit for goods and services went up 22.3%.
• The number of people receiving food stamps has decreased by more than half a million.
• The debt held by the public has grown by 28.5%
• The S&P 500 has increased 42.9%.

Rare Criminal Trial of a 4-Star Admiral Heats Up with Allegations of Lies, Affairs, and Competing Stories

The company accused of being part of a bribery scheme, along with a retired four-star Navy admiral who was arrested in May, has responded to the allegations and the indictments of its two top executives in a new court filing. The company seeks to have the case of its executives separated.

Robert Burke, a retired admiral who served as commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and U.S. Naval Forces Africa from 2020 to 2022, was arrested on federal bribery charges on May 31. In a motion filed in federal court on July 19, lawyers for the executives of a leadership training company argued that they were misled by Burke and that a $100 million contract they spent years pursuing with the Navy seems to have never materialized.

The request to split or "sever" their cases comes less than two months after federal prosecutors arrested Burke, as well as the co-CEOs of Next Jump, Charlie Kim and Meghan Messenger, on allegations that they gave him a cushy job in exchange for the four-star's work to steer contracts to the company.

Lawyers for Kim and Messenger said that they "intend to offer evidence at trial that, in an effort to influence contracts between [Next Jump] and the Navy, Burke may have deliberately and repeatedly misled [the pair] to believe that he could lawfully engage in employment discussions."

Online Rumors Baselessly Claim Biden Experienced Medical Emergency After COVID-19 Diagnosis

On July 21, President Joe Biden announced he was no longer running for president in the 2024 election. Just four days before, while campaigning in Las Vegas, he tested positive for COVID-19, leading him to fly to Delaware that evening to isolate. He remained in isolation at his beach house and was not seen in public again until July 23, when his symptoms had “resolved” and he tested negative for COVID-19, according to his physician.

Daily letters from Biden’s doctor show that the president never got seriously ill and he continued to perform his duties. But since his COVID-19 diagnosis — and particularly after his announcement that he would no longer seek the presidency — online posts have trafficked in unfounded rumors and speculation about Biden’s health.

Posts Misrepresent States’ Efforts to Teach the Bible in Public Schools

Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, issued a directive on June 27 that all the state’s public schools “incorporate the Bible … as an instructional support into the curriculum,” the New York Times reported.

Walters said the Bible is “a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system,” the Times reported. “Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom,” Walters said.

Walters’ directive and other recent efforts by conservative-led states to introduce religion into public schools — which are facing legal challenges — have generated attention on social media. But some posts mischaracterize what changes have been made to public school curricula and where these changes have taken place.

A July 11 Threads post misleadingly claimed, “States of Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana all ordered that the Bible be taught in public schools.” Similar posts have been shared on Facebook, including a post that shows a group of students praying in a classroom.

Conservative leaders in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas have all sought to expand the role of religion in public education, but only Oklahoma’s education department has ordered that the Bible be taught in classrooms.