PolitiFact Wisconsin's 'High Five' for February 2020

President Donald Trump has often boasted of how well the U.S. economy is doing on his watch.

During the State of the Union address, Trump said unemployment was the lowest it has been for half a century, but it was a related claim that was our most-clicked item in February 2020.

Here’s a look at PolitiFact Wisconsin’s "High Five"for the month:

1. Trump: "Very close to 160 million people are now working in the United States. Nobody's ever even come close to that number."

According to unadjusted Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, 60.8% of the population on average was working in 2019 -- a percentage that has increased gradually since 2010, when the country began to bounce back from the recession.

The president was on point with those numbers, but they are partly due to the fact there simply are more people in the labor force today. When the number of  people employed is compared against the number in the labor force, the nation is not quite at its peak. 

That peak occurred from 1998 to 2000, according to BLS data, when the      employment-population ratio was around 64%. The numbers today are trending back in that direction, said Nicholas Jolly, an associate professor of economics at Marquette University.

We rated the claim Mostly True.

 2. U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah: "In #WI, over 44,000 jobs depend on trade with Mexico and Canada." 

Grothman made the claim in a tweet in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 29, 2020, signing of the new USMCA -- United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement -- trade agreement.

When asked for backup, Grothman’s staff pointed to numbers from the National Association of Manufacturers, which included a tally of 44,361 jobs. 

The wrinkle: Grothman’s claim spoke of jobs in general that depend on trade with Canada and Mexico, not just manufacturing jobs which -- obviously -- is a smaller segment.

In a phone call with PolitiFact Wisconsin, Grothman acknowledged the mixup.

The real total of all jobs tied to Canada and Mexico trade is 231,000. To be sure, Grothman’s claim undershot the total. But it could also give the impression that only 44,000 jobs depend on trade with Canada and Mexico -- a figure that is off the mark by an estimated 187,000 jobs. 

We rated the claim Half True. 

3. State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin: "Violent crime rates increased in all but two Wisconsin cities between 2008 and 2017." 

In the GOP Weekly Radio Address on Feb. 13, 2020, Sanfelippo used a series of numbers to support bills he said would "help keep Wisconsin communities safe."

But any comparison should have factored in 2018 data, which was available at the time. The comparisons shouldn’t include the many places where reporting practices changed. And even the use of the word cities is wrong since the dataset includes towns and villages.

Most importantly, Sanfelippo misstated the claim he was trying to repeat. 

In actuality, there are more than 100 Wisconsin municipalities where the crime rate did not rise — more than half the communities included in the best available FBI data. The errors made the claim not only false, but ridiculous. 

We rated the claim Pants on Fire.

4. Gov. Tony Evers: "I delivered on my campaign promise for a 10% tax cut for Wisconsin families." 

On the 2018 campaign trail, Democrat Evers pledged that all married filers with an income under $150,000 would see a 10% tax cut. But that’s not what happened.

The final changes passed into law will yield a 10% tax cut for only about one-fourth of that group, according to the latest projections. On average that sub-$150,000 group will see a tax cut of 4.9% -- half of what was promised.

Only married filers with incomes between $30,000 and $60,000 are expected to see an average cut of 10% of more. In other words, there’s an element of truth, but it ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. 

We rated the claim Mostly False. 

5. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett: Since he took office, the city has seen the creation of 7,000 new affordable housing units. 

When asked for the evidence to back up the claim, Barrett’s staff directed PolitiFact Wisconsin to a Department of City Development report that showed as of October 2019, a total of 7,261 affordable housing units had been developed since Barrett took office in 2004. 

The numbers are easy to track because they were developed through a federal tax credit program that requires units to be set aside for those who fall below certain income thresholds.

Of the 7,000-plus, 690 were downtown and 6,571 were outside downtown. All were rental units.

We rated Barrett’s claim True.