Fact Check from President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union Address

The VERIFY team analyzed the claims during their 2023 State of the Union address.

President Joe Biden delivered his second address to the US Congress on Tuesday, February 7, when Republicans control the House of Representatives and Democrats control the Senate. Biden touched on some of the most pressing issues facing Americans at home and abroad, including an uncertain economic climate, inflation, gun violence and the war in Ukraine. In addition, he credited his administration for the past year’s successes, such as cutting deficits and capping insulin prices.

After Biden’s speech, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered a brief response to the Republican Party calling for a new generation of Republican leadership.

The VERIFY team verified the facts from Biden’s address and the Republican Party’s response.

CLAIMS

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

SOURCES

This needs context.

The deficit did shrink by a record amount in the past two years, Biden claimed. But his statement lacks an important context to explain this decline by the end of temporary COVID-19 aid spending.

WHAT WE FOUND

A budget deficit is the result of the government spending more money than it receives in tax revenue and other sources in a given year.

The deficit fell from a record high of about $3.13 trillion during the administration of President Donald Trump in 2020 to about $1.38 trillion in 2022, according to the Treasury Department. This amounts to a deficit reduction of about $1.75 trillion.

According to the Federal Reserve, this is the largest deficit reduction in American history, Biden said.

But Biden’s statement misses the important context of deficit reduction.

The deficit “swelled” in fiscal 2020 and 2021 “largely due to COVID relief and the resulting recession,” Mae McGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee on a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), told VERIFY.

All deficit reductions in 2022 were the result of “the reduction or expiration of COVID aid,” according to the CRFB.

By fiscal year 2024, Biden’s last current term, the deficit “is likely to be higher than it is today,” McGuineas said. That’s partly because the Biden administration has approved nearly $5 trillion in new loans over the next 10 years, she said.

CLAIMS

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

SOURCES

ANSWER

It's right.

Yes, the current unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 50 years.

WHAT WE FOUND

The unemployment rate is measured by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2023, the unemployment rate was 3.4% – the last time it was so low 54 years ago, in May 1969.

Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, told VERIFY that unemployment is at record lows due in part to fiscal support provided in the wake of the pandemic-induced recession. The US government has spent at least $5.2 trillion to fight COVID-19 and its economic impact.

Unemployment has also fallen due to the post-pandemic workforce contraction, Bivens said. The labor force participation rate in 2022 was lower than before the pandemic.

CLAIMS

President Biden: “We have created a record 12 million new jobs – more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years.”

SOURCES

ANSWER

This is not true.

No, President Biden hasn’t created more jobs in two years than any other president in four years. There was a four-year period where former President Bill Clinton created more jobs while in office.

WHAT WE FOUND

While President Biden has created more than 12 million jobs in two years, that’s no more than any other president has created in four years.

There were nearly 143 million jobs in the country when Biden took office in January 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Two years later, there are now 155 million jobs, an increase of more than 12.1 million jobs.

Using BLS data going back to 1939, VERIFY found that there was one four-year period when more jobs were created between 1996 and 2000, during Bill Clinton’s presidency. During this time, more than 12.4 million jobs have appeared in the United States economy.

If we only look at individual presidential terms, Biden is right: no other president has added more jobs in a single term. But he did not name the terms, he said “in four years.”

These four years span Clinton’s first and second terms, so the rise didn’t just happen in one term. However, this happened within a single four-year period, making this claim false.

CLAIMS

President Biden: “Nearly 25% of the entire national debt, a debt that has been accumulating for 200 years, has been added [the Trump] only the administration.

SOURCES

ANSWER

This needs context.

It is true that almost 25% of the current US debt was added during the Trump presidency. But the claim that the Trump administration is responsible for all of these costs requires context.

WHAT WE FOUND

As of January 6, 2023, the US national debt is over $31.4 trillion.

Using data from the US Treasury’s Debt to Penny tool, VERIFY found that the national debt increased by more than $7.8 trillion during Trump’s presidency.

This is almost 25% of the current public debt, as Biden argued.

However, not all of this debt can be directly attributed to the Trump administration’s policy decisions.

Both sides are to blame for the debts that have piled up over the past few decades, Isabelle V. Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic research at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a blog post.

Republican tax cuts, including those enacted under the Trump administration, have made a significant contribution to the national debt.

But much of the rise in public debt is not the result of legislative action, according to Sawhill. Instead, it is “a consequence of the automatic growth of benefit spending programs” such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, she said.

Comparing a four-year increase in debt under Trump to a 200-year benchmark also misses context. The country’s debt has increased by more than $25 trillion over the past 20 years: this is 79.6% of the country’s current debt.

The Trump presidency is not unique. More than $9.3 trillion of debt has been added over the 8-year Obama presidency (29.6% of current debt), and since Biden took office, $3.7 trillion (11.8% of current debt).

CLAIMS

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

SOURCES

ANSWER

It's right.

Yes, there used to be a ban on assault weapons, and President Biden was leading the effort at the time.

WHAT WE FOUND

In November 1993, then-Senator Joe Biden was the sole sponsor of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1993. This crime bill, along with another House bill, was combined to create the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. which was adopted under the Clinton administration in September 1994.

The bill prohibited the use by civilians of semi-automatic weapons, which were defined as assault weapons, or firearms that used certain high-capacity magazines as ammunition.

But there was a provision in the bill for a zakat or expiration date. It expired after 10 years and was not renewed. There is currently no ban on assault weapons in the US.

CLAIMS

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

SOURCES

ANSWER

It's right.

Yes, the cost of insulin is capped at $35 per month for Medicare patients.

WHAT WE FOUND

The Inflation Reduction Act capped insulin prices for Medicare patients at $35 per month, but not for people with private insurance.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), more than 63 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare, and one in three Medicare patients has diabetes.

CLAIMS

Gov. Sarah Sanders: “100,000 Americans die every year from drug overdoses, mostly from fentanyl spilled across the southern border.”

SOURCES

ANSWER

This needs context.

From August 2021 to August 2022, there were more than 100,000 overdose deaths in the US from August 2021 to August 2022, most of them due to synthetic opioids, according to the latest data from the CDC. But we can’t VERIFY if these lethal drugs were all fentanyl and if they were smuggled across the southern border.

WHAT WE FOUND

As of August 2022, there were 101,552 overdose deaths in the United States over a 12-month period, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This is the latest federal drug overdose data available.

This part of what Sanders said is true; More than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses.

However, she also said that the overdose deaths were caused “mostly by fentanyl spilling over our southern border” and there is simply not enough data at this time to VERIFY that claim.

During the same 12-month period, there were 68,740 overdose deaths from synthetic opioids. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, like other drugs such as tramadol.

And while a three-year-old DEA report says that most drugs, such as fentanyl and heroin, are smuggled into the US across the southern border, the federal government does not trace the origin of drugs that cause lethal overdoses.

Casey Decker, Kelly Jones, Meg Lo, Trevin Smith, Bryce Robinson, Eleni Hosack, Lindsey Claiborne and Sarah Roth contributed to this report.

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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