"Was 11.6 million jobs added to the U.S. economy by Trump during the pandemic?"
Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here Facing Democratic rival U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris for a debate in October 2020, Vice President Mike Pence attempted to give credit to his boss, President Donald Trump, for developing policies that rebounded the economy after unprecedented losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 pandemic In particular, Pence said the U.S. workforce added millions of jobs since the early days of the outbreak because of Trump's fiscal and regulatory policies. He said: We're going through a pandemic that lost 22 million jobs at the height, we've already added back 11.6 million jobs, because we had a president who cut taxes, rolled back regulation and unleashed American energy, fought for free and fair trade. [...] We literally have spared no expense to help the American people and the American worker through this. In other words, he claimed the Trump administration spearheaded a variety of initiatives that added 11.6 million jobs in summer and fall 2020, regaining nearly half the roughly 22 million jobs lost at the start of the pandemic. The comment echoed multiple statements by Trump in which he, too, attempted to praise the administration's successful balance of public health and economic interests. "Our strategy to kill the China virus has focused on protecting those at greatest risk while allowing younger and healthy Americans to safety return to work and safely return to school," he said in August. "We added 1.8 million new jobs in July, exceeding predictions for the third month in a row, and adding a total of over 9.3 million jobs since May." said To determine the legitimacy of such assertions, we referred to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) "seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll," which is the standard measurement for determining how U.S. wage and salary jobs change over time. The payroll data are compiled monthly via a survey of about 145,000 businesses and government agencies across the country, excluding people who are self-employed, or work for farms or private households. compiled When a news story stated that, for instance, the economy added "661,000 new workers," that number was typically a reference to the month-to-month change in nonfarm payrolls  661,000 more jobs were added in September compared to August 2020. 661,000 new workers We obtained monthly nonfarm payroll data, which showed:   According to our analysis of the month-by-month statistics, the economy tallied almost 1.4 million less jobs in March compared to February. Then, the recession deepened, and April recorded 20.8 million less jobs than the month prior  the steepest decline since the Great Depression. since While Pence did not provide an explanation for his labor statistics at the debate, we assumed he was referencing the sum of job losses in March and April, showing employers cut about 22 million jobs during those two months, per the BLS data. Then, after that, the country started a slow, steady recovery. The data show the following increases in job totals, all approximations, on a month-by-month basis: (We should note here: The monthly employment figures for August and September 2020 were both preliminary and subject to revision, as of this writing.) Looking at the data, yes, about 11.4 millions jobs were added to the U.S. economy between May and September  and the Trump administration's comments about the economy showing significant job growth since the early weeks of the pandemic were true at face value. However, that upward trend had little to do with the White House and everything to do with how businesses on a grand scale adapted to new rules on social distancing to curb the spread of the deadly virus. In March, for instance, California issued the first statewide "stay at home order" and New York City closed all non-essential businesses  both decisions that contributed to April's historic job loss. March Then, over the weeks, employers developed plans for operating under public health officials' recommendations to curb the spread of COVID-19 and, as a result, were able to bring back workers who had been furloughed or reopen after a temporary shut down. Those trends significantly impacted job growth in the U.S.  not Trump.  Additionally, a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan  which was developed by Congress, not the White House, via the March Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act  helped some small businesses bring back lost positions or keep workers who would otherwise have been laid off. That stimulus packages direct payments to Americans who earned 75,000 annually or less (or families that made up to $150,000 annually) may have also driven spending in the summer months and, consequently, kept some employers afloat after initial shock to their profits earlier in the year. Paycheck Protection Program Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act stimulus package All of that said, no evidence showed that the Trump administration enacted policies  whether related to taxes or trade  that "added back" the jobs but rather economic trends shifted from the early days of the outbreak, during mass furloughs and business closures. Here's the bottom line: Presidential administrations often exaggerate their influence on the economy  especially when employment is showing somewhat positive signs  no matter if they're leading the country during a crisis like the COVID-19 outbreak or comparatively normal times. As Neil Irwin wrote for The New York Times in January 2017, just days before Trumps inauguration: wrote The reality is that presidents have far less control over the economy than you might imagine. Presidential economic records are highly dependent on the dumb luck of where the nation is in the economic cycle. And the White House has no control over the demographic and technological forces that influence the economy.  Additionally, the White House had little influence on how businesses quickly adapted recommendations by public health officials to safely operate during the pandemic.  For those reasons, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truth and falsehoods. It was true that the country added back about half of the jobs lost during the early months of the pandemic, though it was a false misinterpretation of economic conditions to tie that job growth to Trump policies  or that he "cut taxes, rolled back regulation and unleashed American energy, fought for free and fair trade," like Pence alleged, and that those moves directly added jobs.  Here's video footage of Pence making the claim on the vice presidential debate stage, courtesy of C-SPAN: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4913299/user-clip-vp-pence-jobs-claim   Factba.se. "Press Conference: Donald Trump Holds A Coronavirus Pandemic Briefing In Bedminster - August 7, 2020."
 Accessed 9 October 2020. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "BLS Data Viewer."
 9 October 2020. Reuters staff. "Timeline: How the Global Coronavirus Pandemic Unfolded."
 Accessed 12 October 2020.
In May 2022, a website purporting to be a local news site for the western portion of Illinois' Cook County, the state's most populous county that covers the Chicago metro, published an article falsely claiming that Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF) officials were set to implement a "race-based grading system." The article alleged that administrators would make it mandatory for "teachers next school year to adjust their classroom grading scales to account for the skin color or ethnicity of its students." published an article  The website was called "West Cook News," and the article featured a cropped version of OPRF Administrator Laurie Fiorenza's Twitter profile photo. The contents of the article stemmed from a presentation that she gave during a recent school board meeting (a video of it posted on May 26 and is displayed below). In the presentation, she discussed research around grading students more fairly, known as "equitable grading," and shared findings with school board members for their consideration. Neither she nor any other member of the board announced policy changes that would require teachers to change how they grade students, much less make it mandatory for them to assess students based on their race or ethnicity. For these reasons, we're marking this claim  Twitter profile photo The school said in a statement published to its website: said in a statement The article contains a variety of misleading and inaccurate statements. The articles mischaracterization of the Board meeting is unfortunate and has caused unnecessary confusion [...] At no time were any statements made recommending that OPRF implement a race-based grading approach. At the above-mentioned school board meeting, Fiorenza gave a brief presentation about the progress of a board committee that researches professional development strategies for teachers, called the Transformative Education Leadership Team (TELT). Fiorenza noted that during the school year, teachers had read several books about "equitable grading," or strategies to assess students on a non-biased basis. That said, Fiorenza did not say that teachers were required to implement equitable grading (which is not "race-based grading"). Here's a video of the meeting:  We reached out to Karin Sullivan, the executive director of communications at OPRF, who told us that "there are no changes being proposed. This was a report on the committees research of best practices." The rumor that OPRF was implementing a race-based grading system appeared to largely stem from a misunderstanding of the term "equitable grading." Ralph Matire, secretary of the OPRF School Board, said during the meeting: OPRF School OK, equitable grading. People are going to hear that, and they are not going to understand that. So I want to be very clear that equitable grading practice [is] the objective assessment of academic mastery. It is not a dumbing down. It is not making concessions for this, that, or the third thing. It's finding a way to be objective about determining whether a student has mastered the academic content, because too often, subjective evaluation can be off and that's where inequity comes in. So it's getting to an objective measurement of student mastery of academic content. The community needs to hear that. It's an important thing. Margaret Sullivan, an associate director at EAB, a consulting firm specializing in education institutions, wrote about equitable grading in November 2021: wrote Course failure rates more than doubled during the pandemic, reducing student confidence in school and their chances of pursuing postsecondary education. But lack of learning isnt the only driver of course failures. Up to 40% of traditional student grades include non-academic criteria that do not reflect student learning gains  including participation and on-time homework submission. As a result, traditional grading may inadvertently penalize underprivileged students who struggle to meet non-academic expectations. One of the goals of equable grading is to focus on whether students understand course material, no matter their timeline for doing so, as opposed to testing them for points on specific dates. For example, supporters say, to achieve more equitable grades, teachers should drop zeroes on assignments from grade books when students demonstrate that they know the material from those assignments. During the presentation, Matire talked about how the latter change could give teachers a better assessment of a student's performance, saying: So, a kid scores zero points on a quiz, then three weeks later demonstrates complete mastery of the material that was in that quiz, why should that zero points hold down that kid's grade when the kid has demonstrated mastery of the academic content? That's what moving to an equitable grading system is. It's understanding that students grow at different paces. And it's teachers interacting with and assessing their students in a manner that allows them to objectively determine that the student has inf act mastered the content. Karin Sullivan told us that there had been "no school-wide recommendation or implementation" of equitable grading at OPRF, and that this presentation was just a "discussion of research-based best practices." If a teacher does implement equitable grading into their instruction plan, Sullivan said, "any teachers using such practices would have to use them across the board for all students, regardless of race." West Cook News' article carried the sensational and false title "OPRF to implement race-based grading system in 2022-23 school year." As noted above, the school simply was not implementing a new grading system, and the grading strategies that officials discussed at a recent school board meeting (equitable grading) had nothing to do with students' race or ethnicity. Despite (or perhaps because of) the inaccuracy of this headline, screenshots of West Cook News' article spread widely on social media. When Libs of Tiktok, a social media account that has gained a massive following thanks to its ability to stir up conservative outrage with claims that are often misleading, false, or stripped of context (no, litter boxes haven't been installed at schools because kids "identify" as cats), spread this rumor, they added screenshots from the presentation that highlighted specific passages: Libs of Tiktok litter boxes haven't been installed at schools   Neither of these highlighted passages stated that OPRF officials were implementing a race-based grading system. What these passages refer to, again, is equitable grading, or an attempt to remove bias from the classroom so that teachers can grade students purely on their mastery of a given subject.  The school explained in their statement:  explained in their statement As part of the Board of Educations strategic plan, the OPRFHS Grading and Assessment Committee was formed to examine national research on objective, unbiased practices for determining whether students have mastered academic content. Again, the presentation slides do not state that teachers at OPRF will implement a race-based grading system. Rather, the slides note that teachers had read books about how take non-academic factors (such as attendance) out of the equation could give them a more objective view of a student's mastery of a subject.  West Cook News is part of a so-called "pink slime news" network, a network of websites purporting to be local news outlets (despite having few or no local reporters) that publish politically biased content. The website is run by Local Government Information Services (LGIS), which is part of the Metric Media Foundation, a pink slime network that operates more than 1,200 "local news" outlets. A 2019 investigation by the New York Times found that these networks received "at least $1.7 million from Republican political campaigns and conservative groups." "pink slime news" network pink slime network that operates more than 1,200 "local news" outlets 2019 investigation by the New York Times A disclaimer on the site about its funding read: "Funding for this news site is provided, in part, by advocacy groups who share our beliefs in limited government." While West Cook News presented itself as a local news outlet covering the suburban area west of Chicago, the majority of the stories published by this website were written with an algorithm, according to co-founder Brian Timpone. The Columbia Journalism Review reported in 2018: Columbia Journalism Review reported Most of the stories published on LGIS news sites are written by algorithm, co-founder Brian Timpone says in an interview with CJR, using software that analyzes data (school test scores, for instance) and splices it by region to deliver to local publications around the state. [...] When stories are written, their authors are usually freelancers, many of whom report their stories from well beyond the Illinois state line. The story about "race-based grading" carried no author byline. Instead, the article stated it came from the "LGIS News Service." The Times reported that this network also publishes "pay-for-play" content. Or, in other words, clients can pay to have stories written and published on this network of sites. While reputable news websites would either label this type of content as "paid content" (or, more likely, simply avoid it altogether), these paid advertisements were published by the Metric Media Foundation as if they were regular news stories. The New York Times reported: New York Times reported Internal documents show how much influence the clients have. "The clients pay us to produce a certain amount of copy each day for their websites," said one tool kit for new writers. "In some cases, the clients will provide their own copy." No.  This rumor can be traced back to an article published on a pink slime news network in May 2022 that mischaracterized a presentation slide about equitable grading. School officials did not say they were preparing to implement any changes to their grading system, much less adjustments that would force teachers to account for a student's race or ethnicity. Furthermore, any potential future changes to how students are graded would apply to all students, not just students of a specific race.  OPRF said in a statement: "OPRFHS does not, nor has it ever had a plan to, grade any students differently based on race." OPRF said in a statement We reached out to West Cook News with questions about the article, but did not receive a reply by publication time. [From the Snopes archives: Did Oregon Officials Say Showing Work in Math Class Is White Supremacism?] Did Oregon Officials Say Showing Work in Math Class Is White Supremacism Advocacy Groups and Metric Media Collaborate on Local Community News. Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/community-newsmaker-metric-media-local-news.php/. Accessed 1 June 2022. Alba, Davey, and Jack Nicas. As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place. The New York Times, 18 Oct. 2020. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/technology/timpone-local-news-metric-media.html. Editor, Henry Scott |. for and Publisher. Exploiting the Local News Desert: Are Political and Foreign Interests Profiting from the Locals Loss? Editor and Publisher, https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/exploiting-the-local-news-desert,207894. Accessed 1 June 2022. Follow The Money: Right-Wing Funding Of Pink Slime Websites Tracked In New Study. News, 4 Nov. 2021, https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2021/11/03/follow-the-money-right-wing-funding-of-pink-slime-websites-tracked-in-new-study. Gabbatt, Adam. The Fake News Sites Pushing Republicans Critical Race Theory Scare. The Guardian, 17 Nov. 2021. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/17/fake-news-sites-republicans-critical-race-theory-scare. Hundreds of Pink Slime Local News Outlets Are Distributing Algorithmic Stories and Conservative Talking Points. Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/hundreds-of-pink-slime-local-news-outlets-are-distributing-algorithmic-stories-conservative-talking-points.php/. Accessed 1 June 2022. Press, Associated. Republican Retracts False Claim Schools Placing Litter Boxes for Furry Students. The Guardian, 29 Mar. 2022. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/29/nebraska-lawmaker-litter-boxes-claim-debunked. Romain, Michael. Conservative Site Seeking to Fill News Void Invites Suspicion. Oak Park, 27 Apr. 2021, https://www.oakpark.com/2021/04/27/conservative-site-seeking-to-fill-news-void-invites-suspicion/. D97 Updates Board on Racial Equity Analysis Tool. Oak Park, 20 May 2020, https://www.oakpark.com/2020/05/20/d97-updates-board-on-racial-equity-analysis-tool/. Statement Regarding Grading Practices. https://www.oprfhs.org/news/1742090/statement-regarding-grading-practices. Accessed 1 June 2022. The Metric Media Network Runs More than 1,200 Local News Sites. Here Are Some of the Non-Profits Funding Them. Columbia Journalism Review, https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/metric-media-lobbyists-funding.php/. Accessed 1 June 2022. Tugade, F. Amanda. Building out Equity Projects Goal of OPRFs Equity Chief. Oak Park, 1 Feb. 2022, https://www.oakpark.com/2022/02/01/building-out-equity-projects-goal-of-oprfs-equity-chief/. Why Equitable Grading Policies Matter. 15 Nov. 2021, https://eab.com/insights/expert-insight/district-leadership/why-equitable-grading-policies-matter/. In December 2022, a FedEx email scam was going around that claimed to be a "package delivery notification" from the company, which said, "Your package is held in our warehouse." The scam was being sent around at the same time that people across the world were ordering and receiving packages for gift-giving holidays. We previously looked at similar scams for UPS, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), and other package delivery companies. In fact, one of our previous stories about a FedEx package delivery email scam was published a decade ago. Needless to say, scammers have been doing this for a long time. UPS U.S. Postal Service (USPS) published According to a copy of the FedEx email scam that we reviewed, the message came from admin@america-groups.xyz. This was not an official FedEx email address.  The message read as follows: Your package delivery Notification ID#0164278468-735 'Fedex' admin@america-groups.xyz via walisdom.biz Important Message for (name)Your package delivery Notification FedEx  Order 29194773US Your package is held in our warehouse You have (1) package waiting for you in our warehouse, ready for delivery. Use your order number to track and receive your package! TRACK YOUR PACKAGE Order numberOrder 29194773US DeliveryExpected delivery: 1 - 2 days The tracking number was real, but the package associated with it had already been delivered in April 2022. The scammers sent the email in the hope that people might click the link, not look up the tracking number. We investigated the link in the email and found that it was a phishing scam, meaning that the scammers were looking to obtain personal information and financial data. The link in the scam email led to the URL, storage.googleapis.com/pemotion/tixrin.html, which was followed by a long string of additional code that likely was for the scammers' own tracking purposes. Upon clicking on the URL, we were led to mooltay.com, then redirected toponnel.com, a website that displayed an "Express" logo without the word "Federal" in front of it.  On the ponnel.com scam website, we were guided through a series of questions about the supposed package delivery issue. One step falsely claimed that there would be a $1.95 charge to release the nonexistent package from a customs distribution hub.  At the end of the steps, the ponnel.com website redirected to webwinnalists.com, a page that asked for personal information and a credit card number. We strongly advise against giving any of these websites your data. On FedEx.com, one of the scams the company advises that its customers be on the lookout for was, "Unexpected requests for money in return for delivery of a package, often with a sense of urgency." That's exactly what this FedEx email scam for a "package delivery notification" was all about. FedEx.com By email, FedEx shared the following statement with us: FedEx does not send unsolicited text messages or emails to customers requesting money or package or personal information. Unfortunately, scammers often invoke the names of trusted brands when attempting to take advantage of the public and FedEx is one of many companies whose brand has been abused in this way. Any suspicious text messages or emails should be deleted without being opened and reported toabuse@fedex.com. For more tips on detecting online scams, visit the FedEx Customer Protection Center athttps://www.fedex.com/us/security/prevent-fraud. abuse@fedex.com https://www.fedex.com/us/security/prevent-fraud This story will be updated if further details come to light. Source: "Recognize & Report Fraud." FedEx.com, https://www.fedex.com/en-us/trust-center/report-fraud.html. Dec. 14, 2022: This story was updated to add a statement from FedEx. For much of this gubernatorial campaign, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has been defending his record against charges from Republican challenger John Kasich that he has done too little to stem job losses in Ohio and responding to accusations that he still oversees a bloated state government.Stricklands running mate, Yvettee McGee Brown, in her own campaign speeches has echoed the governors. Recently she tackled a charge by Republicans that Ohio still has too many employees on the state payroll by evoking the name of one of the GOPs favorite sons.Ohio today has the fewest number of state employees since the Reagan administration, McGee Brown said in an Aug. 4 speech at a candidates forum in Columbus.Clearly, recent well-chronicled state layoffs and hiring freezes almost assure Ohio has fewer state employees than when Strickland took office in 2007. But could it be fewer than in the 1980s when Reagan was president, as Brown contends?The Strickland campaign is looking to reverse long-held Republican opinion that Democrats favor higher taxes and bigger government.The higher taxes issue will loom for whomever is Ohios next governor, given that the state faces up to an $8 billion budget deficit in the next operating budget with seemingly few options other than raising personal income taxes.But the big government question is something Strickland has dealt with since 2009 when the last biennial budget was set and the administration laid off state workers, froze hiring in some areas and otherwise shrunk government by attrition.Now McGee Brown has gone a step further by stating that under Strickland, Ohio now has the fewest state employees since Reagan, who was president from 1981 through 1988.Stricklands campaign communications team offered uneven explanations for where McGee Brown got her information. It first stated it came from a state data chart that officials could not find until, PolitiFact began inquiring three weeks after McGee Browns speech. It then said the information was in an October 2009 news release from the Strickland administration that the campaign never produced.But the Ohio Department of Administrative Services bailed them out. It discovered annual employee data in a trends report that contained information dating back to 1983 and updated to include recent years.The report shows that as of December 2009, Ohio had 58,622 employees, the lowest number since 1983 when the state had 60,292 workers. That 28-year stretch includes a period from 1991 through 2006 when Ohios governors were Republicans and the state had more than 65,000 employees.We rate McGee Browns statement as True. Comment on this item. I just saw a post on Facebook: THE KOCH BROTHERS BUY NPR "After making large donations to National Public Radio (NPR), the radio network charged with delivering an alternative viewpoint to Americans, NPR has slashed its environmental and climate change coverage. Is anyone surprised?  On 28 November 2014, the Facebook group Vocal Progressives posted the meme displayed above to its page without corroborating information or news links, and alarmed many readers who feared corporate interests had compromised the integrity of National Public Radio (NPR). Referenced in the image are Charles Koch and his brother David, the politically active owners of the corporation Koch Industries. David Koch is a board member of several organizations, among them the political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity (which opposes the imposition of taxes levied to address climate change issues). While David Koch (and to a lesser extent Charles) remains openly engaged on specific political issues, the claim regarding NPR and the Kochs is of dubious origin. In part, it appears to trace back to an article published on 24 October 2014 on Inside Climate News titled "NPR Reduces Its Environment Team to One Reporter": article The move to shift reporters off the environment beat was driven by an interest to cover other fields more in depth, said Anne Gudenkauf, senior supervising editor of NPR's science desk."We'll think of a project we want to do and the kind of staff that we need to do it, and then organize ourselves that way," she said. "One of the things we always do is change in response to the changing world." Gudenkauf also said she doesn't "feel like [the environment] necessarily requires dedicated reporters" because so many other staffers cover the subject, along with their other beats. The article in question addressed NPR's decision to reduce its allocation of coverage to climate change as a separate beat (in favor of folding that topic into standard news coverage); nowhere in the article were David Koch or Charles Koch mentioned by name, despite the presence of several other articles on the site covering the Koch brothers' interests in the Keystone XL pipeline environmental issue. As such, it's reasonable to assume that had the Koch brothers been germane at all to Inside Climate News's NPR story published in October 2014, the publication would have made that connection at the time. Although Inside Climate News's piece was critical of NPR's decision to combine climate coverage with other news, the move was not framed as one made under any political or funding pressure whatsoever. Three days after the original Inside Climate News article was published, an unrelated article involving the Koch brothers and NPR appeared in a different publication. Titled "Did You Hear the Koch Brothers Just Gave a Million Bucks to NPR to Cover Healthcare?", that piece was deliberately misleading in its frame: It opened by explaining the million dollar Koch donation hadn't happened, but another organization had donated a large sum to NPR. The near-concurrent appearance of the two articles may have loaned credence to the idea that NPR slashed its climate change coverage to appease the Kochs in October of 2014. article Another article, published in May 2013, may have fueled the belief NPR's reduction of dedicated environmental coverage stemmed from Koch donations. The New Yorker ran a piece at the time about PBS affiliate WNET's handling of content involving the Kochs. In that item, WNET's president Neal Shapiro disclosed conversations with David Koch about a 2013 film release: a piece That Friday, Shapiro initially said, he called Koch at his office and told him that the Gibney film "was going to be controversial," noting, "You're going to be a big part of this thing." Shapiro offered to show him the trailer, and added that he hoped to arrange "some sort of on-air roundtable discussion of it, to provide other points of view." It could air immediately after the documentary. (Shapiro told me, "We did this after Ken Burns's film on baseball, too. We like to have a local angle.") Shapiro asked Koch, "Do you want to be involved?" He also offered Koch the opportunity to provide a written response, which the station could air after the show.Shapiro acknowledges that his call to Koch was unusual. Although many prominent New Yorkers are portrayed in "Park Avenue," he said that he "only just called David Koch. He's on our board. He's the biggest main character. No one else, just David Koch. Because he's a trustee. It's a courtesy." Shapiro, who joined WNET six years ago, from NBC News, added, "I can't remember doing anything like this  I can't remember another documentary centered around New York and key people in the city, and such controversial topics." However, that article addressed content pertaining to the Koch brothers' overall influence and was not specific to climate change, and the controversial claims made in the piece concerned PBS, not NPR. Additionally, in NPR's ethics manual, guidelines for the interaction of funding sources and NPR journalists are detailed: ethics manual Our journalism is made possible by a diverse coalition of funding sources, including donations from members of the public, grants from foundations and government agencies, and paid sponsorships and underwriting. While we value all who support our work, those who fund us do so in the knowledge that our journalism serves only the public. We believe our strength as a business is premised solely on high-quality, independent journalism in the public interest. All NPR employees  journalists as well as sponsorship, communications and development staff  are committed first and foremost to that service. At NPR, the journalists  including senior news managers  have full and final authority over all journalistic decisions. We work with all other divisions of the company towards the goal of supporting and protecting our journalism. This means we communicate with our sponsorship and development departments to identify areas where we hope to expand our reporting. It also means we may take part in promotional activities or events such as coordinated fund drives, listener support spots and public radio audience-building initiatives. But we observe a clear boundary line: NPR journalists interact with funders only to further our editorial goals, not to serve the agendas of those who support us. NPR also addressed the specific issue of whether the Kochs were major donors (or donated at all) during controversy over coverage of the People's Climate March in September 2014. At that time NPR confirmed that while critics believed David and Charles Koch were NPR donors, there was no record of the Koch brothers of having made any donation (large or small) to NPR, and the broadcasters clarified their position on climate change and their objectives when covering environmental issues: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lisbon-portugal-february-17-2014-photo-177163448In a related note, many emailers seemed to think that the brothers David and Charles Koch are donors to NPR. If so, no one at NPR knows about it. The development office did several days of searching and could find no record of their giving. Not that the Kochs couldn't give if they wanted to. The critics might be confusing NPR with WGBH, the public TV and radio station in Boston; David Koch is a long-time supporter and board member there and formerly of other public radio stations like WNET. In its coverage of climate change, NPR long ago crossed the bridge to conclude that, based on the science, climate change is real and we humans are contributing to it. Some of the email writers seem to want NPR to be an advocate on the issue, but beyond drawing attention to it, NPR isn't one and shouldn't be. It reports dissenting views when newsworthy, though in its framing of stories overall and in its emphasis on the facts, I find the coverage avoids the trap of "false equivalence." As of 2018, David Koch's name no longer appears on the WGBH's Board of Trustees' page. However, Koch still supports the PBS science series "NOVA"  which PBS says affects its direction not at all. page still supports In early January 2023, we received reader mail that asked if it was true that a Florida man was arrested after allegedly throwing a Christmas tree at his wife. Attached to one reader's email was a screenshot of a headline that read, "Florida man arrested, allegedly struck wife with Christmas tree." We found that this was a real headline publishedby ABC6 News on WATE.com, as well as other local news websites. The article cited reporting fromFox 35 Orlando, which was originally printed on Dec. 13, 2022. WATE.com Fox 35 Orlando According to the story, 52-year-old Richard Atchison had allegedly thrown a Christmas tree at his wife after drinking alcohol.The arrest occurred on the night of Dec. 12 in the city of Fruitland Park. We confirmed via the Lake County Sheriff's Department website that Atchison was arrested at 7:16 p.m. local time on suspicion of false imprisonment, violation of injunction, and battery. According to the records, this was Atchison's second time arrested on suspicion of battery. He was released the following day. website By email, the Lake County Sheriff's Office provided us with the arrest affidavit, written by Officer K. Richetti. It read as follows: The defendant stated the victim slammed a utensil into hot food which in turn splashed the right side of his face. The defendant advised he "lost his temper" and stated he was leaving, packed clothes, and walked out to his truck. The defendant then decided to return to the residence, as he had been drinking and told the victim to leave instead. The defendant stated the argument was verbal only and no physical contact was made that evening. I then spoke with the victim, who advised she was making dinner when the defendant became angry with her for asking for help. They engaged in a verbal argument, at which point she put a spoon in the sink, accidentally, splashing the defendant and escalating his temper. The defendant began packing his things and went out to his vehicle. The defendant then returned stating she should be the one to leave. The victim attempted to leave out the front door, but the defendant used both hands and pushed the victim in her shoulder area away from the door, to which she stumbled. The victim then went into the living room and sat with her friend. The defendant picked up the Christmas tree in the corner of the room and threw it towards the kitchen, where it broke in half. The defendant then took the Christmas tree and threw it at the victim, subsequently striking her. The victim went into her bedroom and closed the door, in an attempt to separate herself from the defendant. At this time, the defendant kicked the bedroom door attempting to enter. The victim again tried to leave through the front door, but the defendant was blocking the exit and was yelling at her when law enforcement arrived. It should be noted that the front door is the only door to exit located within the residence. I observed no visible redness or injuries on the defendant. I observed slight redness to the victim's left and right arms, but no other visible injuries. I observed a partial black shoe print on the lower center half of the bedroom door. According to the rest of the affidavit, a witness corroborated the victim's story, including the part about Atchison throwing the Christmas tree. FOX 35 News Staff. "Florida Man Accused of Hitting Wife with Christmas Tree after Asked to Help with Dinner." FOX 35 Orlando, 13 Dec. 2022, https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/florida-man-accused-of-attacking-wife-with-christmas-tree-when-asked-to-help-with-making-dinner. "Richard Daniel Atchison." Lake County Sheriff's Office, 12 Dec. 2022, https://www.lcso.org/inmates/mugshot_booking_detail.php?bookingnumber=22008209. Richetti, Officer K.Arrest Affidavit/First Appearance Form for Richard Daniel Atchison. Lake County Sheriff's Office, 12 Dec. 2022. Sloan, Kaycee. "Florida Man Arrested, Allegedly Struck Wife with Christmas Tree." WATE 6 On Your Side, 15 Dec. 2022, https://www.wate.com/news/florida-man-arrested-allegedly-struck-wife-with-christmas-tree/. Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman questioned Democrats who want to raise the federal minimum wage and offered a flurry of statistics to help make his point. Speaking Sunday on ABC'sThis Week, Portman suggested that raising the $7.25 an hour minimum wage could force employers to cut jobs. If you want to deal with income inequality, the No. 1 way to do it is to get people to work. That's what all the statistics show. About 2 percent of Americans get paid the minimum wage. Of that group, by the way, less than .3 of 1 percent of Americans are both under poverty -- under the line of poverty and on minimum wage. So it's a lot of young people. About 50 percent of them are between 16 and 24 years old. For a lot of them, it's a part-time job. So what you don't want to do is raise the minimum wage to the point that you're actually losing jobs. That exchange includes a bunch of different statistics, but here well be checking this one: About 2 percent of Americans get paid the minimum wage. We wont get into the question of what this means for minimum-wage policy here; for now, well just look at the numbers. To do so, we turned to a study published by Bureau of Labor Statistics -- the federal governments official chronicler of employment and wage data -- titled, Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2012. It was released on Feb. 26, 2013. The study found that a little under 3.6 million workers were paid either at or below the federal minimum wage. (The study did not look at whether workers were paid higher minimum wage rates set by their state, as many states have done.) To determine the percentage,we looked at the number of Americans employed. That number ranged between about 133 million and 134 million during 2012. If you divide the two numbers, it turns out that, by the official statistics, roughly 2.6 percent of all American workers were earning the minimum wage in 2012. Thats slightly higher than Portman indicated, but his estimate was definitely in the ballpark. That said, we do see a few caveats, none of which strike us as particularly troublesome for the accuracy of his comment. Portman said 2 percent of Americans, but to be entirely accurate, he really should have said 2 percent ofworkers. To figure out the percentage of Americans earning the minimum wage, we turned to the U.S. Census Bureau, whichestimatedthat the U.S. population in 2012 was 313,914,040. That would mean that minimum-wage workers accounted for just over 1 percent of Americans. That said, dividing by the number of Americans would not be a very useful number -- it includes a lot of people who arent old enough to work or who have retired. Portman referred to people who get paid the minimum wage. Actually, the numbers he cited refer to Americans who either get paid the minimum wage or get paidless thanthe minimum wage. How can you get paid less than the minimum wage? The minimum-wage law actuallyexempts whole classes of workersfrom the $7.25 standard -- vocational education students, full-time students employed by retail or service establishments, agriculture, or institutions of higher education, and those impaired by a physical or mental disability. This is not a trivial population -- for 2012 at least, the number earning less than the minimum wage (about 2 million) actually exceeded the number who earned the minimum wage exactly (about 1.6 million). In addition, its worth noting that workers in tipped professions, such as wait staff, get a legal minimum wage thatswell below $7.25. By factoring in tips earned, the employer only has to pay workers a minimum of $2.13 an hour. One other note: The BLS offers some words of caution about its data. It counted only minimum-wage workers who are actually paid by the hour. Salaried and other non-hourly workers are excluded from the BLS analysis. BLS says the number of salaried workers earning at or below the minimum wage is probably modest, but the data is sufficiently opaque that the agency warns that the actual number of workers with earnings at or below the prevailing federal minimum is undoubtedly understated. BLS also warns that this study is based on a sample, and samples are imperfect. Our ruling Portman said that about 2 percent of Americans get paid the minimum wage. He didnt word the statement with complete accuracy; he would have been better off saying that, according to official statistics, about 2 percent of American workers get paid at or below the federal minimum wage. Still, his number is close to accurate, and his general point -- that workers who are paid the federal minimum-wage represent a small percentage of the entire working population -- is backed up by official data. We rate his claim Mostly True. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO During the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic of 2020, social media was rife with misinformation about the disease and potential treatments for it, as exemplified by the following meme:   All of the substantive statements contained in this meme are false or purely speculative, as detailed below: "The COVID-19 vaccine will be mandatory in order to go back to school." As of this writing (mid-2020), no effective COVID-19 vaccine exists, nor is it known when (or if) one will become available. Should such a vaccine be produced, whether children will be required to take it before returning to school is a decision that will be made at local levels and based on a variety of factors. No one can assert at this time with any reliability that all schoolchildren everywhere will have to be vaccinated to attend school again. "They will contain RFID chips." The notion that citizens will be subjected to compulsory, involuntary implantation with RFID chips (so the government can better track them) is an old conspiracy theory trope with no basis in fact. The specific claim that the COVID-19 pandemic is being used as a pretext to push a vaccine with a microchip capable of tracking Americans (along with the rest of the world's population) is one that we have already debunked at length. RFID chips debunked at length "The Bible says you will break out into boils."  The Bible does not say that humans will "break out into boils" as a result of COVID-19 vaccinations or RFID chips. The Bible is silent on both these subjects, as vaccination and RFID technologies were not developed until many centuries after the texts that comprise the Bible were written and compiled. "Many kids will die from the COVID-19 vaccine. Just to remind you the 4 kids that took the vaccine, died immediately." As no effective COVIO-19 yet exists, no one can say that "many kids" will die from it, nor, obviously, that any children have already died from it. The latter rumor is also one we previously debunked at length here on Snopes.com debunked at length Claim:  A badly behaved dog wreaks havoc while two fellows stand by silently, each thinking it's the other guy's pooch. LEGEND Examples:  [Brunvand, 1989] A woman is invited to call at the home of a woman who is wealthier than she is. From the moment she is invited, the caller is unsure about how to behave  how to sit, how to take tea, etc. And matters are made worse when the time of the visit arrives. A large, lively, dirty, beast of a dog is sitting in the front yard, and when the hostess welcomes the caller into the house, the dog follows her inside. While the caller tries to respect the social amenities, that darn dog does not. It tracks mud about the room, sniffs the cookies, and paws the furniture. The caller makes small talk, but the conversation becomes strained. Still, both parties keep a stiff upper lip, observing proper etiquette. Finally, the visit comes to an end. As the caller rises to leave, the hostess, with one eye on the wreckage, remarks icily, "And don't forget to take your dog!" "My dog?" the caller says. "I thought it was yours!"  [Regis, 1987] In January 1946 Bigelow came down to Princeton for an interview with Von Neumann. He was a couple of hours late . . . Julian Bigelow got out of the car and walked up to the house.  "Von Neumann lived in this elegant lodge house on Westcott Road in Princeton," Bigelow says. "As I parked my car and walked in, there was this very large Great Dane dog bouncing around on the front lawn. I knocked on the door and Von Neumann, who was a small, quiet, modest kind of a man came to the door and bowed to me and said, 'Bigelow, won't you come in,' and so forth, and this dog brushed between our legs and went into the living room. He proceeded to lie down on the rug in front of everybody, and we had the entire interview  whether I would come, what I knew, what the job was going to be like  and this lasted maybe forty minutes, with the dog wandering all around the house. Towards the end of it, von Neumann asked me if I always traveled with the dog. But of course it wasn't my dog, and it wasn't his either, but von Neumann  being a diplomatic, middle European type person  he kindly avoided mentioning it until the end."  [Mahoney, 1983] In passing I must make mention of a funny situation in which I became involved while visiting Field Marshal Lord Alexander and his wife at their home near London.  I motored there to have luncheon with them, and as I emerged from my car, a huge dog appeared in the driveway.  Dogs always made a dead set for me, and I wasn't worried when it began jumping around and wagging its tail.  But I did feel some concern when it followed me to the doorway and walked in as if it owned the house. A family pet, I felt sure, as it settled down to a corner of the living room as Lord and Lady Alexander greeted me warmly.  At luncheon the dog settled down at my feet and the begging for food began.  Lady Alexander's attention became riveted upon me: "Mr. Mahoney," she said charmingly, "I wish you would send your dog outside." And not until then did it dawn upon me that they thought the stray dog was mine! Origins:  Though this story has often been told as an actual event in an important person's life, its first appearance came in a 1924 Lucy Maud Montgomery book, Emily Climbs. In Chapter   12, Emily's call on socially-superior Miss Janet Royal is interrupted by the antics of a very large muddy dog that follows her into the elegant parlor, where it proceeds to act up.  to the legend, only after the beast has made a shambles of things and Emily is about to leave does the subject of the dog's ownership arise, each girl thinking up until that time the horrid thing belonged to the other. From those early beginnings, the "Not my dog" anecdote has gone on to reach a succession of new audiences, as new storytellers emerge and claim it as their own. Burt Reynolds is rumored to have told this story (starring himself as the embarrassed visitor) to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in the 1980s. A common element in this story is unequal status between visitor and visited. The one who comes calling feels inferior for reasons relating to social standing, comparative wealth, or the celebrated householder's achievements. Whatever the cause, he comes hat in hand, filled with a determination to make a good impression  a certain recipe for social disaster! The story is one of horrific embarrassment; the faux pas being perceived as being that much more flamboyant because it plays out before someone looked up to. That matters are straightened out before the visit ends by the caller blurting out, "My dog? I thought he was yours!" doesn't change the  momentary flash of mortification experienced or the knowledge that the sought-after host had sat there for quite a while thinking decidedly evil thoughts about his guest. The story is also a poke at the strictures of etiquette. Neither host nor guest feels it would be proper to comment negatively on the dog's behavior, so both endure the worsening state of affairs in stoic silence. The legend underscores common misperceptions about etiquette, that the rules of polite behavior are often impractical and adherence to them results in ridiculous situations a more direct approach would head off at the pass. Those who resent the genteelly-voiced demands of Miss Manners and long for less structured, more direct forms of social interaction get to savor a moment of self-congratulation through this story because it proves right what they've been saying all along. As old as this story is (1924, remember?) it continues to pop up, and even at times changes in dramatic ways. We picked up the following non-canine version of the tale during our Internet travels, again proving that no story can't stand a little improving: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] The story goes along the lines of a young Indo-asian couple who after a non-arranged marriage, decide to get a house together. A few weeks after they move in, the husband returns from work to find an older woman in the living room of the house. Knowing they have broken with tradition by having a non-arranged marriage, the husband greets his mother-in-law, only to receive a hard silent stare. She is evidently not happy at their recent union. That evening the old woman joins the couple at the dinner table, and continues to join them for every meal for the next month, never uttering a word. Eventually the once-close couple become hostile to one another, unhappy that 'Mother' has been allowed to move in with them. They stop talking and avoid one another. A few days later the situation escalates into an argument about the old woman. The creepy truth is revealed as the wife exclaims "My mother? I thought she was yours!" Barbara "vinegar mother" Mikkelson Last updated:  2 August 2011 Curses! Broiled Again!   Brunvand, Jan Harold.  Too Good To Be .  New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.   ISBN 0-393-04734-2  (pp. 55-57). Too Good To Be    Mahoney, Patrick.  Barbed Wit & Malicious Humor.  New York: Citadel Press, 1956.  (p. 100).    Regis, Edward.  Who Got Einstein's Office?   Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1987  (p. 110).   Healey, Phil and Rick Glanvill.  Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths.  London: Virgin Books, 1996.  ISBN 0-86369-969-3  (pp. 105-106). Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths   The Big Book of Urban Legends.  New York: Paradox Press, 1994.  ISBN 1-56389-165-4  (p. 39). The Big Book of Urban Legends Claim:  Barack Obama filed a lawsuit to require banks to "make loans to poor people." false Example:  [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] In 1994, a class-action lawsuit was filed against CitiBank, demanding that loans be made to poor people, and others who could not show proof that they could pay the money back. The basis of the lawsuit was the 14th Amendment, which requires 'fair and equal' treatment for all citizens. The legal theory was that failing to loan money to poor/indigent/unemployed people was, on it's face, a discriminatory act by lending institutions. Thousands of loans were processed, and of course many went into default, in part explaining why we're in the financial mess we're in. Now, it's easy for some people to point the finger of blame at Pres. Geo. Bush for this crisis, because he's sitting in the hot seat. What many people don't know is the suit was filed during the Clinton Administration. The lawyer filing the suit was none other than: Barak Hussein Obama. Origins:  This item seeks to dump much of the blame for America's current economic woes on Barack Obama by claiming that as a young lawyer, Obama filed a lawsuit requiring financial institutions to lend money to"poor people" and "others who could not show proof that they could pay the money back."  Although there is a (very) vague element of fact underneath this politicking, the piece quoted above is woefully wrong in all its particulars. The 1994 case of Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank had nothing to do with requiring lenders to do business with people "who could not show proof that they could pay the money  Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank back."  The case was a class-action lawsuit against Citibank Federal Savings initiated by a black Chicago woman, Selma Buycks-Roberson, who claimed she was unfairly denied a mortgage based on her race.  The lawsuit sought to end the practice of redlining, a discriminatory practice by which banks, insurance companies, and other business institutions refuse or limit loans, mortgages, insurance, etc., based solely on the geographic area in which the applicant lives (a practice that commonly excludes minorities in inner-city neighborhoods, regardless of their income or ability to pay).  Specifically, the lawsuit charged that Citibank "rejected loan applications of minority applicants while approving loan applications filed by white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories."  The case was eventually settled out of court, with some class members receiving cash payments and Citibank agreeing to help ease the way for low- and moderate-income people to apply for mortgages. redlining Although Barack Obama was involved with the Buycks-Roberson case, he did not file the lawsuit, nor was he the lead attorney in the matter.  He was a junior member of an eight-lawyer team that worked on the case: Obama admits he played a mostly behind-the-scenes role at his law firm, Miner Barnhill & Galland. He researched the law, drafted motions, prepared for depositions and did other less glamorous work during his three years full-time and eight years "of counsel" to the firm.  "He wrote lots of substantial memos, but he didn't try any cases," said Judson Miner, a partner in the firm who was Obama's boss. Obama represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, charging the bank systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods. "I don't recall him ever standing up and giving an impassioned speech  it was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff," said Fay Clayton, the lead lawyer on the case. "He was the very junior lawyer in that case," said attorney Robert Kriss. "He had just graduated from law school. I don't recall him being in court at any time I was there. I was the lead lawyer for Citibank and he was not very visible to me." Kriss, Clayton and every other co-counsel and opposing counsel interviewed for this story praised Obama's legal ability, temperament and everything about his courtroom demeanor, even though, they agree, he didn't say much in the courtroom.  On Feb. 23, 1995, Obama billed 2 hours and 50 minutes for an appearance before Judge Ruben Castillo on behalf of his client, and also for reviewing some documents in advance of a deposition. That cost Citibank  which ultimately had to pay the winning side's fees  $467 at Obama's hourly rate of $165. Miner commanded the higher rate of $285 an hour. During his appearance before the judge, Obama said he would need more time to file a response to a motion, and the judge agreed. That was all Obama said during the half-hour hearing. His final bill on the case was 138 hours, or $23,000. Last updated:  5 September 2012    Associated Press.  "Some Cases Obama Worked on in His Career as an Attorney."   20 February 2007. Healthcare reform has been a perennial political project in American politics, from the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and those of Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now Donald Trump. Both those for and against the concept of the United States' adopting a universal health care system often use comparisons between the U.S. and other countries to advocate for their positions, as exemplified by a 20 April 2018 post on the "U.S. Democratic Socialists" Facebook page featuring a widely-shared meme purportedly outlining the main features of the Japanese healthcare system: meme   We examine this meme point-by-point below: 1. 100 percent of Japanese have health insurance. This is basically true. Japan has universal health care, which means that everyone who lives there (except undocumented immigrants and short-term visitors) can access affordable care and is required by law to be covered by some form of insurance. For the most part, residents do this through two kinds of insurance, which are administered by the government: employment-based health insurance, and National Health Insurance (known as "Kokumin Kenko Hoken"). care Kokumin Kenko Hoken However, Japan's aging population, low birth rate, and economic stagnation have placed a burden on the country's universal health care system, so reforms to that system are under way. reforms 2. Costs are half of what is spent for healthcare in the United States. By the two most commonly-used metrics, this is about right. A country's health spending is most often measured in a couple of ways: the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) spent on healthcare, and healthcare spending per capita (the total amount spent on health care divided by the number of people living in the country). According to 2016 data published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States spends 17.2 percent of its GDP on healthcare, by far the highest proportion among developed countries. Japan spends 10.9 percent of its GDP, about two-thirds the relative amount the United States does. data In 2016, total healthcare spending in the United States worked out to be $9,892 per person per year, again by far the highest level in the developed world. In Japan that figure was $4,519 per person, which is less than half than the United States spends. 3. Japanese can choose their own doctors and see them twice as often as Americans Japan has what is known as a "free access" system, which means  as the meme correctly states  that for the most part patients can use whichever doctors and hospitals they choose.  According to the Health and Global Policy Institute, patients should get a referral letter before presenting at larger hospitals. This is partly because the free access system can sometimes mean individuals with only minor ailments present at hospital emergency rooms, creating a backlog for patients in more urgent need of care.  referral letter backlog Japanese people visit doctors even more than twice as often Americans do, at least according to OECD data. Figures from 2011 (the most recent year for which a direct comparison is possible) show that United States residents averaged four doctors' consultations per person that year in the United States, while in Japan the figure was more than three times higher, at 13 doctors' consultations per person that year. (In 2014, that figure was 12.7 doctors' visits per person per year in Japan.) Figures 4. Japanese have the world's longest life expectancy and the second lowest infant mortality.  This is true. According to United Nations data, a Japanese person born in 2014 could expect to live, on average, until the age of 83.6, the highest life expectancy figure of more than 200 countries. (Children born in Hong Kong can expect to live to 84, but Hong Kong is a territory of China, not a sovereign nation.) data Research has shown that the relatively healthy diet and lifestyle of Japanese people, as well as good healthcare, plays a significant role in their longevity. Research United Nations data also show that in 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, Japan had the joint second-lowest rate of infant mortality in the world, defined as the number of children who died under the age of one for every 1,000 live births. With 2.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, Japan was ranked second, along with Finland and just behind Iceland and Luxembourg. data 5. 95 percent of Japanese healthcare is not-for-profit. It's not clear what this claim means, so we can't really evaluate its accuracy. Does this mean 95 percent of healthcare providers operate on a not-for-profit basis? That 95 percent of procedures are performed on a non-profit basis? That 95 percent of all health care expenditures relates to not-for-profit providers? We do know that by law, hospitals in Japan cannot operate for profit, with the exception of large for-profit companies who build hospitals for their own employees. According to an analysis by Ryozo Matsuda, a health policy expert at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, 80 percent of hospitals are privately run. Facilities that provide care for elderly and disabled people (e.g., nursing home care, respite care, home care) can operate for profit, and according to Matsuda, most do.  analysis 6. The government sets all fees for medical services and drugs. That's true. More specifically, the fees are set by a government-appointed body called the Central Social Insurance Medical Council. A 2016 study in the journal Risk Management and Healthcare Policy described the system as "a uniform fee schedule at national level," noting that "All providers, no matter whether private or public, share the same prices for their medicines, devices, and services under this nationwide fee schedule." body study Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (Japan).  "Overview of Medical Service Regime in Japan."
  Accessed 25 April 2018. Reich, Michael R. and Kenji Shibuya.  "The Future of Japan's Health System -- Sustaining Good Health with Equity at Low Cost."
  The New England Journal of Medicine.  5 November 2015. Otake, Tomoko.  "April 1 Marks Start of Japan's New Medical Fees and Processes."
  Japan Times.  13 February 2018. Dum, Bel.  "Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity in Japan."
  Scientific American.  12 July 2016. Matsuda, Ryozo.  "The Japanese Health Care System."
  The Commonwealth Fund.  October 2016. Zhang, Xing and Tatsuo Oyama.  "Investigating the Health Care Delivery System in Japan and Reviewing the Local Public Hospital Reform."
  Risk Management and Healthcare Policy. 18 March 2016.