US President Joe Biden is facing backlash from fact-checkers after he gave a speech on Thursday hailing economic progress his administration has made during his tenure in the White House.
Biden spoke at the Steamfitters Local 602 in Springfield on Thursday. In his speech, he made several claims about the current state of the economy, reported Fox News.
However, fact-checkers from CNN and the House Ways and Means committee called his claims false and misleading. CNN reporter Daniel Dale accused the US President of making misleading statements.
Mr Dale in his piece examining Biden's remarks said, "Some of Biden's claims in the speech were false, misleading or lacking critical context, though others were correct."
In his speech, Mr Biden claimed that his administration has "funded 700,000 major construction projects - 700,000 all across America," the White House admitted that's not the case.
Mr Dale wrote, "Biden's '700,000' figure is wildly inaccurate; it adds an extra two zeros to the correct figure Biden used in a speech last week and the White House has also used before: 7,000 projects."
Not just that, the CNN reporter also talked about Mr Biden's claim that only "3.5 million people had been - even had their first vaccination" when Donald Trump left office in January 2021.
However, the actual number was around 19 million, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Further, Mr Biden was scrutinised over his claim that billionaires "pay virtually only 3 per cent of their income now - 3 per cent, they pay."
Mr Dale in his report said that Biden's '3%' claim is incorrect. For the second time in less than a week, Biden inaccurately described a 2021 finding from economists in his administration that the wealthiest 400 billionaire families paid an average of 8.2% of their income in federal individual income taxes between 2010 and 2018." He added, "After CNN inquired about Biden's '3%' claim on Thursday, the White House published a corrected official transcript that uses '8%' instead."
