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FACT BRIEF

Did Biden’s chief of staff get all his statistics exactly right in a tweet about recent economic indicators?

Saturday, June 12, 2021
By Stevie Rosignol-Cortez
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NO

Ron Klain, President Biden's chief of staff, on June 10 tweeted a series of claims about the economy. He noted—accurately—recent positive trends in overall jobless claims, pandemic unemployment assistance claims, monthly job growth and economic growth.

He misstated a detail about the latest consumer price data. The May increase (0.6% vs. April) was down from the April increase (0.8% vs. March) but not, as he stated, from the March increase, which was also 0.6%.

The claim generating the most skepticism on Twitter, however, was his assertion that gas prices were down. According to the May consumer price data gasoline prices were down 0.7% from April, making Klain technically correct.

That data appears at odds with both the anecdotal evidence of many Twitter users as well as the widely-cited AAA index. As of June 11, 2021, the AAA said gas prices were up 0.4% from a month ago.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Initial unemployment claims
US Department of Labor Weekly unemployment claims, June 10
US Department of Labor Weekly unemployment claims, May 13
Economic Policy Institute Jobs and unemployment
Federal Reserve System Summary of Economic Projections (March 17 2021)
Macrotrends US GDP growth since 1961
US Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index summary, May 2021
AAA Gas Prices National average gas prices
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Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.