PolitiFact fact-checked Vice President Kamala Harris and her working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, of their first joint interview since accepting the Democratic nominations for president and vice chairman on the social gathering’s conference in Chicago. The section, hosted by Dana Bash, aired Aug. 29 on CNN.
PolitiFact has rated Harris on our Reality-O-Meter 52 occasions since 2012, and rated Walz thrice up to now this 12 months. We additionally fact-checked their remarks on the Democratic Nationwide Conference.
Harris: “We created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.”
This determine is shut, however it comes with caveats.
The most up-to-date figures present the rise is barely lower than that — a acquire of 765,000 manufacturing jobs added in the course of the Biden-Harris administration. That acquire adopted a pointy decline in manufacturing employment in the course of the early a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, so a number of the features mirror a return of employees to present jobs as soon as public well being circumstances had improved.
Manufacturing employment is now 173,000 jobs greater than the prepandemic degree. (These numbers might change in February 2025 after once-a-year revisions develop into official, however for now, these are the official figures.)
Through the previous few a long time, the commonest end result after an financial recession was for manufacturing jobs to say no in contrast with their prerecession peak.
Evaluating historic patterns 45 months since a recession’s onset, together with the latest one in 2020, reveals Biden-era manufacturing employment to be the strongest post-recession bounceback in 72 years, and the second strongest for the reason that finish of World Conflict II.
One word: No presidents deserve full credit score for creation or erosion of jobs on their watch, as a result of different elements, from world occasions to technological modifications, additionally play a task.
Harris: “I made (my opposition to fracking) clear on the controversy stage in 2020 that I’d not ban fracking. As vice chairman, I didn’t ban fracking. As president, I cannot ban fracking.”
Harris’ 2024 place helps fracking, however it wasn’t all the time the case. Bash recounted how Harris as a Democratic main candidate in 2019 was towards fracking, a standard and controversial method used to entry hard-to-reach oil and gasoline in rock formations. The problem is essential to voters in the important thing battleground state of Pennsylvania, which has skilled a fracking growth, significantly within the western half.
Harris’ response to Bash targeted on her feedback as President Joe Biden’s working mate in 2020, and never her robust opposition to fracking within the Democratic presidential main. Her feedback in 2020 mirrored Biden’s view.
Harris mentioned throughout a CNN city corridor in 2019, “There is not any query I am in favor of banning fracking, so sure. And beginning — and beginning with what we are able to do on Day 1 round public lands, proper? After which there must be laws, however sure — and that is one thing I’ve taken on in California. I’ve a historical past of engaged on this challenge.
“And to your level, we’ve to simply acknowledge that the residual impression of fracking is gigantic by way of the impression on the well being and security of communities.”
However after Biden picked Harris as his working mate in 2020, Harris aligned along with his insurance policies, which didn’t contain a fracking ban. Through the 2020 vice presidential debate with Republican Mike Pence, Harris mentioned, “Joe Biden is not going to finish fracking.” Harris didn’t say she not supported a fracking ban, however that Biden wouldn’t pursue one.
Harris: “Within the first 12 months of being in workplace, (we) … lengthen(ed) the kid tax credit score in order that we reduce baby poverty in America by over 50%”
That is correct however wants clarification. The drop didn’t final.
The American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed in 2021, elevated the annual baby tax credit score from $2,000 to $3,600 for youngsters youthful than 6 and to $3,000 for youngsters 6 to 17. Beneficiaries acquired as much as half the credit score in month-to-month funds from July 2021 to December 2021.
General, supplemental poverty numbers present poverty amongst all U.S. kids dropped from 9.7% in 2020 to five.2% in 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau mentioned — a 46% decline. About 5.3 million individuals had been lifted out of poverty, together with 2.9 million kids.
The availability lapsed after that, going through opposition from Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin, now I-W.Va., who argued that increasing the credit score would worsen inflation. When the expanded tax credit score expired, baby poverty spiked. Supplemental baby poverty rose from 12.1% in December 2021 to 17% in January 2022 — a 41% change. This meant 3.7 million extra kids had been dwelling under the poverty line.
The supplemental poverty measure, launched in 2011, labored to replace the “official poverty measure,” formulated within the Sixties. The supplemental poverty measure contains money and noncash advantages and subtracts obligatory bills — comparable to taxes and medical bills — and accounts for presidency packages designed to help low-income households.
Harris: “When Joe Biden and I got here into workplace in the course of the peak of the pandemic, we noticed over 10 million jobs had been misplaced.”
That is correct. The economic system misplaced virtually 22 million jobs basically in a single day when the COVID-19 pandemic began. By the point Biden and Harris took workplace in January 2021, employment rebounded by about 12 million, leaving employment about 10 million jobs wanting the prepandemic degree.
By June 2022, employment was again to its prepandemic degree. Since then, the quantity has risen by greater than 6 million jobs.
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CORRECTION, Aug. 31, 2024: The variety of jobs misplaced in the course of the novel coronavirus pandemic was 22 million. An earlier model of this story misstated the quantity.
