PolitiFact.com
Statements about Workers
Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney

Half-True

Are border patrol agents bureaucrats?

"You can hire lots of bureaucrats.  That’s what the president’s done.  He’s added 135,000 people to the government workforce."

Matt Wingard

Matt Wingard

Half-True

Number's right, meaning's relative

"Oregon’s per capita income is 9 percent below the national average and getting worse. This is a state that’s actually getting poorer."

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich

Mostly False

Gingrich overplays an otherwise fair point

"The only reason the unemployment rate is going down is because … twice as many people dropped out of the employment pool as the number of jobs were created."

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich

Mostly False

Two sectors that have actually done pretty well under Obama

President Barack Obama "has now spent three years proving that he kills jobs in energy, he kills jobs in manufacturing."

Mike Tate

Mike Tate

Half-True

Reduced, not slashed

Says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker "slashed" pensions and benefits for public employees.

Philip Keefe

Philip Keefe

False

Misquoting his own evidence

"If they made no changes whatsoever, the [state employees pension] plan still had enough money to go forward for approximately the next 16 years."

David Mellon

David Mellon

False

Unconfined by facts

"The job [of correctional officer] lowers your life expectancy . . . Metropolitan did a study in, I believe it was 1998, and the life expectancy was 58."

Kathleen Connell

Kathleen Connell

False

Closer to 22 percent

"Sixty-percent of the state retirees...don’t get Social Security.’’

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum

Half-True

Right for college grads; too high for non-college grads

"The unemployment rate among (the) non-college-educated is well into the double digits in America. It's 4 percent or 5 percent for people who have college degrees."

Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort Educational Fund

Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort Educational Fund

Half-True

Nuances in the numbers

"People are five to seven times more likely to be murdered in workplaces that allow firearms than in those that prohibit it."

Lincoln Chafee

Lincoln Chafee

False

Hardly new

"If Rhode Island does a hybrid [retirement] plan we’ll be the first state in the nation to do this.’’

Facebook posts

Facebook posts

Pants on Fire!

Claim is based on a statistical quirk

Congressional Republicans have introduced dozens of bills on social issues and other topics, but "zero on job creation."

George Nee

George Nee

Half-True

True for R.I., not for U.S.

"This is the first time in our state, and one of the first times in the country, where benefit reductions . . . has happened to people who are retired."

David Quiroa

David Quiroa

True

From 2002-2003

"Under Governor Almond the RI DMV had a program that allowed undocumented [people to] use their Personal Tax Identification Number . . . to apply [for] and receive a RI driver’s license."

Alan Grayson

Alan Grayson

True

Even Wikipedia can be right sometimes

"According to Wikipedia, there are only five countries in the entire planet that are more unequal than the United States in the distribution of our wealth."

Herman Cain

Herman Cain

Mostly False

Employers pay half of that

"Every worker pays 15.3 percent payroll tax."

Occupied Wall Street Journal

Occupied Wall Street Journal

Half-True

The numbers have merit, but some definitions aren't accurate

"More than 25 million Americans are unemployed. More than 50 million live without health insurance. Perhaps 100 million live in poverty."

Facebook posts

Facebook posts

False

Chart from a student paper goes viral

Say the ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay in the U.S. is 475 to 1.

Matthew Rothschild

Matthew Rothschild

Mostly True

It's fallen a bit since 2010 number

U.S. unemployment among people ages 16 to 24 is "18.4 percent, which is a 60-year high."

David Axelrod

David Axelrod

Mostly True

Stuck in time when it comes to earnings

"The typical white male worker in this country is making in real terms what he was making in 1973" and "the average worker is making what they were making in 1996."

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