Did Biden Waive Sanctions on Russia-to-Germany Pipeline?
In May 2021, numerous media outlets reported that U.S. President Joe Bidens administration would be waiving sanctions on vessels, corporate entities and the CEO of Nord Stream AG, an international consortium of five major companies overseeing the construction of Russias Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany. However, the administration still expressed opposition to the construction of the pipeline. The claim was originally reported by the news website Axios on May 20, 2021. In the original report, the publication cited two sources who had been briefed on the decision. Axios Snopes contacted the State Department and was told the agency had submitted a report to Congress on May 19 saying the U.S. was lifting sanctions on five entities, four vessels, and Nord Stream 2 AG CEO Matthias Warnig. Unknown at the time of this writing was which specific entities would be waived. These sanctions were currently required under the Protecting Europes Energy Security Act (PEESA).  PEESA Nord Stream 2 is a wide pipeline network of offshore natural gas lines that run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. The pipelines have largely been opposed by the U.S. and some European nations that believe their creation would increase Russias influence in the region. Under PEESA, the U.S. is granted the authority to advance national security and foreign policy objectives, in particular, to address Russian pipeline projects that use coercive purposes and create risks to U.S. national security, threaten Europes energy security, and that could endanger Europes political and economic welfare. Nord Stream 2 PEESA  Map of the proposed Nord Stream 2. Samuel Bailey/Public Domain  Samuel Bailey/Public Domain   Russia uses its energy export pipelines to create national and regional dependencies on Russian energy supplies, leveraging these dependencies to expand its political, economic, and military influence, weaken European security, and undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, wrote the Bureau of Energy Resources in an April 9 statement. These pipelines also reduce European energy diversification, and hence weaken European energy security. statement A spokesperson for the State Department referred our team to this statement written by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 19, 2021. this statement I have determined that it is in the national interest of the United States to waive the application of sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, its CEO Matthias Warnig, and Nord Stream 2 AGs corporate officers, wrote Blinken. Todays actions demonstrate the Administrations commitment to energy security in Europe, consistent with the Presidents pledge to rebuild relationships with our allies and partners in Europe. While the Biden administration supported waiving sanctions on some elements associated with Nord Stream AG, the administration maintained its opposition to construction of Nord Stream 2  and that seemed at odds with statements made by Blinken during his Jan. 19 nomination hearing, when he said the administration would do whatever we can to prevent that completion of Nord Stream 2. Jan. 19 nomination hearing, Sanctions are placed on companies that the U.S. determines meet certain criteria/specifications that suggest a danger to national security. The State Department, in conjunction with the Biden administration, can also determine when they want to waive  or temporarily pause the application of  such sanctions. Blinken said that the administration would continue to oppose the completion of the project that it acknowledged would weaken European energy security and that of Ukraine, the Eastern flank NATO, and EU countries. However, the sanctions that were waived  not lifted, as some media reports claimed  allowed for the continuation of various transactions and activities involving the Marine Rescue Service, which are unrelated to Nord Stream 2 construction. These activities include a range of search and rescue, environmental, and other missions. Issuance of this waiver also provides space for diplomatic engagement with Germany to address the risks a completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline would pose to Ukraine and European energy security, an official with the State Department told Snopes in an interview. In the statement sent to Snopes, Blinken reiterated that the administration would continue to oppose completion of the project. Our opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is unwavering, Blinken continued. Though we may not always agree, our alliances remain strong, and our position is in line with our commitment to strengthen our Transatlantic relationships as a matter of national security.
As the race between Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Republican challenger Scott Brown heats up, the attacks are growing more intense. In a recent radio ad, Shaheen accused Brown of being too friendly with Wall Street when serving as a senator from neighboring Massachusetts from 2010 to 2012. Heres the 60-second ads narration: Wonder why Scott Brown lost re-election in Massachusetts? Well, he was working for Wall Street, not the people. Scott Brown blocked a major financial reform bill until he could water it down and save Wall Street $19 billion. Scott Brown really delivered for Wall Street, said the Boston Globe. Even after the bill passed, news reports show Brown was secretly serving the interests of Wall Street, working behind the scenes to help the big banks, not consumers. Wall Street thanked Scott Brown by giving him more campaign contributions than any other candidate -- $5.3 million. Now, Scott Brown wants New Hampshire to send him to Washington. Wall Streets once again spending millions to help. Scott Brown says he really cares about New Hampshire. Come on, dont be fooled. No matter where he lives, Scott Brown will always put Wall Street first. And thats good for Scott Brown, but not New Hampshire. Thats a lot to chew on. PolitiFact New Hampshire already checked a claim by a pro-Shaheen group that Browns actions had saved big banks $19 billion in taxes, rating itMostly False. But what about the ads claim that Wall Street gave him more campaign contributions than any other candidate -- $5.3 million? We decided to take a closer look. The Shaheen campaign pointed us to calculations by the Center for Responsive Politics, whoseopensecrets.orgwebsite tracks a wide variety of campaign-finance data. Its a trusted source that weve used many times in the past. The Shaheen campaigns $5.3 million figure refers to how much Brown received in the 2012 campaign cycle -- when he lost his seat to Democrat Elizabeth Warren -- from donors categorized as being part of the finance, insurance and real estate sector. Theirdollar figure is correct-- as is Browns No. 1 ranking among all Senate candidates for donations from that sector -- but Shaheens ad stretches a bit when it calls this Wall Street. Most finance firms have a reasonable claim on being part of Wall Street, but a lot of the insurance and real-estate sectors fall outside that category. Also, not everyone working at these firms is a financial mogul, but their individual donations still count towards the total. So we decided to drill down a little deeper. We found a few sub-categories of finance/insurance/real estate that are a closer fit to Wall Street. They include: Securities and investment: Brown ranked first among Senate candidates in the 2012 campaign cycle with$2,682,872. Private equity and investment firms: Brown ranked first with$556,092in donations. Hedge funds: Brown ranked first with$306,800in donations. Venture capital: Brown ranked first with$262,081in donations. This provides support for the notion that Brown ranked No. 1 in these types of donations. But he ranked a little lower in two other categories: Finance and credit companies: Brown ranked ninth with$54,450in donations. Commercial banks: Brown ranked third with$297,539in donations. Meanwhile, Browns total haul from these six categories was about $4.2 million, or about one-fifth lower than what the ad said. This is not the first time that Shaheens campaign has used somewhat loose language in describing Browns donors. When a previous Shaheen ad claimed that Big Oil gave Scott Brown $454,260, we rated that claimHalf True, noting that only about 11.5 percent of Browns haul came from companies and individuals affiliated with the biggest multinational companies -- what most viewers would consider Big Oil. When we contacted Browns staff, spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton said, Scott Browns fundraising is no different than Jeanne Shaheens in that they both accept contributions from the financial services industry. The only difference is that Jeanne Shaheen is hypocritically attacking him for it. However, in the 2012 election cycle -- when Brown was receiving $5.3 million from the finance/insurance/real estate sector -- Shaheen accepted just $64,139 from the same sector, ranking 65th among all Senate candidates. In the current cycle, she has accepted $565,935 from the finance/insurance/real estate sector, ranking her 21st among Senate candidates. Our ruling Shaheens ad said that in 2012, Wall Street gave Scott Brown more campaign contributions than any other candidate -- $5.3 million. If you put together six categories that might reasonably be considered Wall Street, Brown received about $4.2 million in all, and he finished first among Senate candidates in four of those six categories. However, the total amount is short of the $5.3 million claimed in the ad. The statement is generally accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly True. Claim:  Lockheed Martin is going to lay off 123,000 workers due to military downsizing but is not sending out layoff notices at the behest of the Obama administration.  OF AND  INFORMATION Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2012] My son-in-law works at Lockheed Martin and we just found out that Lockheed is going to lay off 123,000 defense workers due to Obama's downsizing of the military.  This hit the Drudge report yesterday.  We are livid.  This is true! The law requires Lockheed to give 60-day notice to all to-be-fired employees within 60 days.  That drop dead date would be November 1st. Since this would be bad for the election, Obama has promised that our government would cover all Lockheed severance packages to fired employees if Lockheed would not release the names and locations of those losing their jobs until after the election! Origins:   In August 2011 Congress passed, and President Obama signed, the Budget Control Act of 2011 in order to resolve the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis and prevent the federal government from heading into default over its debt.  That piece of legislation identified $1.2 trillion in budget cuts to be made over 10 years and called upon Congress, through the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (also known as the "super-committee"), to come up with a plan to cut the budget deficit by another $1.5 trillion (through revenue increases and/or spending reductions) by 23 November 2011.  If that committee failed to come up with a viable deficit reduction plan by the deadline, or if Congress failed to approve the committee's plan, then the legislation called for automatic, across-the-board cuts (known as "sequestration") to go into effect.   The super-committee did not agree on a deficit reduction plan, stating that "After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline," so unless and until lawmakers can agree on a solution to the budget impasse, the sequestration budget cuts are set to take effect  with the 2013 budget.  Since those cuts, if they take place, may include large reductions in Pentagon spending, some defense contractors are anticipating that they may have to engage in significant layoffs of personnel in the upcoming year, and under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, enacted in 1989, most employers with 100 or more employees are required to issue 60-day advance notification of mass layoffs. WARN When one such defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, announced on 1 October 2012 that it would abide by White House guidance not to issue WARN Act-mandated layoff notices to thousands of employees just before the November presidential election, Republican critics contended that President Obama was engaging in a partisan political ploy to protect votes in a key battleground state (Lockheed Martin has a large business presence in Virginia) at the expense of workers who might soon find themselves without jobs: contended U.S. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte released the following statement on Obama Administration guidance issued instructing defense companies and other government contractors not to issue mass layoff notices to their employees, as is required under the WARN Act, in anticipation of the $109 billion in across-the-board budget cuts scheduled to occur under sequestration on January 2, 2013: Today, President Obama put his own reelection ahead of the interests of working Americans and our national security by promising government contractors that their salary and liability costs will be covered at taxpayer expense if they do not follow the law that requires advance warning to employees of jobs that may be lost due to sequestration. The WARN Act exists to protect workers by providing at least 60 days' notice of layoffs from government contracting work.  But today, the Office of Management and Budget published guidance for the defense industry and other government contractors that they do not have to provide that notice now even though, under current law, $109 billion in across-the-board budget cuts scheduled to occur on January 2 are estimated to result in as many as 1 million lost defense jobs.  Apparently, President Obama puts politics ahead of American workers by denying them adequate time to plan their finances and take care of their families. The people who work in the defense industry and other government contracting companies deserve as much notice as possible that they are on track to lose their jobs. At issue is a Training and Employment Guidance letter issued by the Department of Labor (DOL) on 30 July 2012, and reiterated in a 28 September 2012 memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), advising employers that the issuance of WARN Act notifications in anticipation of sequestration was not required by law and would be a waste of resources because it is currently unknown which contracts might be affected by potential budget cuts and when the effects of those budget cuts might take place.  The DOL's letter also informed employers that if they followed the DOL's advice and refrained from issuing WARN Act notifications in anticipation of sequestration, and they later had to engage in mass layoffs due to sequestration, the government would cover any legal costs they incurred as a result: letter memo Although it is currently known that sequestration may occur, it is also known that efforts are being made to avoid sequestration. Thus, even the occurrence of sequestration is not necessarily foreseeable.  In addition, the sequester's impact on particular accounts will depend at least in part on Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 funding that Congress has not yet enacted.  Perhaps more importantly, Federal agencies also have some discretion in how to implement the required reductions if sequestration were to occur.  Given that Federal agencies, including DOD, have not announced which contracts will be affected by sequestration were it to occur, and that many contracts may be completely unaffected, the actual contract terminations or cutbacks that will occur in the event of sequestration are unknown.  Thus, in the absence of any additional information, potential plant closings or layoffs resulting from such contract terminations or cutbacks are speculative and unforeseeable.    The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification generally requires employers with at least 100 employees to provide written notice to affected employees 60 days before ordering certain plant closings or mass layoffs if they are reasonably foreseeable. DOL concluded that it is neither necessary nor appropriate for Federal contractors to provide WARN Act notice to employees 60 days in advance of the potential sequestration because of uncertainty about whether sequestration will occur and, if it did, what effect it would have on particular contracts, among other factors: In reaching this conclusion, DOL explained that giving notice in these circumstances would waste States' resources in undertaking employment assistance activities where none are needed and create unnecessary anxiety and uncertainty for workers.  Despite DOL's guidance, some contractors have indicated they are still considering issuing WARN Act notices, and some have inquired about whether Federal contracting agencies would cover WARN Act-related costs in connection with the potential sequestration. To further minimize the potential for waste and disruption associated with the issuance of unwarranted layoff notices; this memorandum provides guidance regarding the allowability of certain liability and litigation costs associated with WARN Act compliance. Specifically, if (1) sequestration occurs and an agency terminates or modifies a contract that necessitates that the contractor order a plant closing or mass layoff of a type subject to WARN Act requirements, and (2) that contractor has followed a course of action consistent with DOL guidance; then any resultingemployee compensation costs for WARN Act liability as determined by a court, as well as attorneys' fees and other litigation costs (irrespective of litigation outcome), would qualify as allowable costs and be covered by the contracting agency, if otherwise reasonable and allocable. GOP critics maintain the legality of the DOL's advice is questionable and amounts to "giving contractors a free pass" in exchange for a "multi-billion dollar campaign contribution": As a result of the OMB guidance, the Department of Defense will have to allow companies to claim repayment for the salaries of workers who are laid off but did not receive the required WARN notices  a cost to the taxpayer that could be as much as $4 billion.  In addition, DOD will have to reimburse companies for any legal damages paid to workers who are laid off but did not receive the required WARN notices  a cost that is inestimable.  Facing intense lobbying by defense companies and other government contractors for financial protection if they agreed not to issue WARN notices, the Obama Administration is giving contractors a free pass and will have potentially stuck the taxpayers with a multi-billion dollar campaign contribution. We also have questions regarding the legal authority of OMB to interpret the WARN Act as it has, and to obligate the Federal government to pay billions of dollars of potential claims from private contractors arising as a result of this interpretation. The Obama Administration is cynically trying to skirt the WARN Act to keep the American people in the dark about this looming national security and fiscal crisis.  The president should insist that companies act in accordance with the clearly stated law and move forward with the layoff notices. Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as recently as three days ago, called on the president to work with us to avert the looming threat of sequestration to our national security. Other labor officials contended that the DOL's advice to employers about implementation of the WARN Act was consistent with the law: William Gould, a Stanford Law School professor emeritus specializing in labor law and a former chair of the National Labor Relations Board appointed by President Bill Clinton, said the Labor Department was correct when it said the possibility of sequestration-induced layoffs did not warrant Warn notices. "The courts have been very clear that mere conjecture does not trigger the obligation," he said. Rick McHugh, an attorney with the National Employment Law Project, agreed. "The obligation to give notice arises once the employer believes or should have known that a mass layoff or plant closing is going to happen at a particular worksite. At this point, no one knows with any certainty [whether] layoffs will be taking place or not at a particular worksite," he said. Lockheed Martin never announced that it was planning to lay off 123,000 workers (a number which represents the entirety of the company's workforce).  What happened was that in June 2012 a Lockheed Martin official expressed frustration with the uncertainty of the sequestration issue and stated that if it weren't resolved soon, the company would have to send WARN Act notices to  the "vast majority" of their workers because they had received no guidance on the issue from the government and thus had no idea who might be affected: Right before Election Day, the company is likely to notify the "vast majority" of its 123,000 workers that they're at risk of being laid off, said Greg Walters, the company's vice president of legislative affairs. Walters's comments are some of the most specific threats yet from an industry that's trying to head off the $500 billion in automatic cuts in defense spending set to begin taking effect Jan. 2. Called sequestration, the cuts are being phased in over 10 years, with about $55 billion slated for 2013. Unless Congress reaches a deal to stave off the cuts, "we will find it necessary to issue these [layoff] notices probably to the vast majority of our employee base," Walters [said]. The company has little choice, he explained, because federal law requires large employers to provide two months' notice to workers facing layoffs. "We would see a requirement, an obligation, to issue [layoff] notices 60 days prior to sequestration taking effect," he said. The layoffs, of course, won't all happen on Jan. 2, as it would likely take months for sequestration to begin affecting contractors' bottom lines. But the timing of the cuts  along with the requirement of 60-day notice  provides an opportunity for the defense industry to ratchet up the pressure on President Barack Obama and congressional leaders to tackle the issue before November. Only a fraction of Lockheed's workers ultimately would be let go as a result of the cuts. But the company plans to send out mass notifications because it is unsure exactly which employees would be affected. The White House Office of Management and Budget has not yet provided guidance for how sequestration would be carried out. "We've wanted a dialog about what sequestration could look like," Walters said. "But as of right now, no, we have no answers from OMB." (In a July 2012 memo, Lockheed Martin projected a much lower figure of potential layoffs, stating  that "Our very rough estimate of the number of employees who could be affected [by sequestration], based on the limited information available to us from the government, is about 10,000.")  projected Ultimately, Lockheed Martin announced on 1 October 2012 that after "careful review of the additional guidance" provided by the government, they would not be issuing sequestration-related WARN notices this year:  announced For the better part of this year, we and others in industry and government have worked to raise awareness in Congress as to the devastating effects of sequestration  the federal law passed last year through the Budget Control Act that forces automatic across-the-board cuts in government spending.  In July, we informed you that, without clear direction from the government about how these cuts would be implemented, the corporation could issue conditional Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices to a substantial number of employees.  We have been working closely with the government to understand our obligations under the WARN Act and to ensure our employees are provided fair treatment and appropriate notice, if their jobs are impacted by sequestration. On Friday afternoon the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Defense (DOD) released guidance clarifying responsibilities under the WARN Act and outlining their timeline for making sequestration-related program decisions.  After careful review of the additional guidance provided by the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Defense, we will not issue sequestration-related WARN notices this year. The additional guidance offered important new information about the potential timing of DOD actions under sequestration, indicating that DOD anticipates no contract actions on or about 2 January, 2013, and that any action to adjust funding levels on contracts as a result of sequestration would likely not occur for several months after 2 Jan.  The additional guidance further ensures that, if contract actions due to sequestration were to occur, our employees would be provided the protection of the WARN Act and that the costs of this protection would be allowable and recoverable.   We remain firm in our conviction that the automatic and across-the-board budget reductions under sequestration are ineffective and inefficient public policy that will weaken our civil government operations, damage our national security, and adversely impact our industry.  We will continue to work with leaders in our government to stop sequestration and find more thoughtful, balanced, and effective solutions to our nation's challenges. If sequestration were to happen, we are compelled to comply with the law and will do so as respectfully and as ably as we can. While we work to stop sequestration we will also continue to petition the government to outline exactly how sequestration will be implemented so that we can responsibly prepare for the impact to our employees and our business. Finally, as political reporter Bob Woodward noted, the sequester in the Budget Control Act that could result in automatic defense spending cuts in 2013 was put there not as part of an Obama administration policy to "downsize the military," but as means of prodding Congress into coming up with a concrete plan for addressing the deficit issue: No one thought [sequestration] would happen. The idea was to design something ... that was so onerous that no one would ever let it happen. Of course, it did, because [Congress] couldn't reach agreement. They all believed that the supercommittee was going to come up with a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction plan, so there would be no sequestration. Of course, the supercommittee failed and so the trigger went off, which has all of these very Draconian [budget] cuts. Last updated:  27 October 2012    Munsil, Leigh.  "Bob Woodward: Obama 'Mistaken' on Sequester."   Politico.  23 October 2012.    Pender, Kathleen.  "U.S. to Contractors: No Layoff Notices."   San Francisco Chronicle.  1 October 2012.    Wright, Austin.  "Lockheed Martin Eyes Layoffs This Fall."   Politico.  24 June 2012. In March 2020, the prospect of the U.S. government's sending out $1,200 stimulus checks to individual taxpayers as part of a $2 trillion emergency economic package for dealing with the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic created a prime opportunity for grifters who engage in scams that involve luring victims by mailing checks to them. In particular, one several-year-old, check-scam warning was widely recirculated via social media:  Such warnings served a useful purpose in alerting many viewers to be wary of receiving checks in the mail from unexpected sources. However, they also poorly served audiences in misstating how the underlying scams connected with those checks work. It is not the case, as claimed in the warning reproduced above and in the following news clip, that the scammers who mail out these checks "do this in hopes of getting your account information when you deposit the check," and then using that information to clean out your bank account:  A little common sense would be relevant here: If your simply depositing a check provided the sender of that check with the means to obtain your personal banking information and drain your bank account, it would be unsafe for any bank customer to ever deposit any check  and clearly that is not the case, as millions of people maintain checking accounts without regularly falling victim to scammers. All such check scams have two essential components: 1) Scammers mail out counterfeit checks (often made out in the names of real organizations) to lure their victims into believing they are receiving money. 2) Scammers instruct their victims to send back some of the funds they supposedly received from depositing the fake checks (usually via wire transfer, Western Union, PayPal, or gift cards). The scammers count on the fact that funds from deposited checks are often made available to bank customers before the banks can confirm that the checks are authentic and have cleared. The victims of these scams, mistakenly believing they have received "free money" once they have deposited their fake checks, are then usually receptive to sending some of that money back to the scammers for some legitimate-sounding purpose. But by the time the victims' banks discover the deposited checks were bad, the scammers already have the money their victims forwarded to them, and the victims are stuck paying all of those funds back to their banks: deposited checks The person running the scam convinces a victim to cash a check and then send, via wire transfer, a portion of the money to another location. The portion kept by the victim can be called payment for a job, part of a commission, or a prize. However, the check turns out to be a very convincing fake. Banks in the United States are required to make funds available within a few days, but it can take weeks for a fraudulent check to be discovered. This means the wire transfers will happen long before the bank, or the victim, discovers that the initial check was fake. This scheme is effective because many consumers aren't fully aware of how the check-clearance process works: check-clearance Unfortunately, the term clear sometimes gets used prematurely. An item has cleared only after your bank receives funds from the check writers bank. Bank employees might tell you that a check has cleared, and your banks computer systems might show that you have those funds available for withdrawal, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can spend the money risk-free. In many cases, when a bank employee tells you an item cleared, they are saying you can spend that money with your debit card, withdraw cash from an ATM, or set up a payment online. Most of the time, this informal terminology is fine because funds typically arrive as expected. Most of the confusion around checks comes from bank policies and federal laws that allow you to spend money before a check really clears. Banks are required to make a portion of your deposit available quickly -- usually the first $200 or, on certain official checks, $5,000 -- and they might need to release the remaining funds after several business days. But that policy might prematurely provide access to the money. It does not mean the funds successfully arrived from the check writers bank. If a check bounces, the bank reverses the deposit to your account -- even if you already spent some or all of the money from that deposit. If you don't have enough money in your account to cover the reversal, you end up with a negative account balance, and you could start bouncing other payments and racking up fees. Ultimately, you are responsible for deposits you make to your account, and youre the one at risk. The lures that scammers use to dupe their victims into sending them the illusory proceeds from the depositing of counterfeit checks are many and varied: o Mystery Shopping Scam: Scammers engage victims to act as "mystery shoppers" by making purchases from various vendors in order to rate their service. The scammers then send out counterfeit checks to their victims, instructing them to keep a portion of the funds to cover the costs of purchasing and returning the goods and to compensate them for their time, then wire back the rest of the money. o Reshipping Scam: Scammers engage job-seekers to act as work-at-home re-shippers, receiving (possibly stolen) goods and sending them on to other locations. Then the counterfeit checks those re-shippers are sent to compensate them for their efforts and to reimburse them the shipping charges they incurred bounce, and they're left holding the bag. o Payment-Processing Scam: Scammers hire job-seekers to work as payment processors. The victims are instructed to open business accounts in their own name, deposit (counterfeit) checks sent to them into those accounts, then disburse the deposited funds as directed by the scammers. When the business account overdraws because the deposited checks are fake and bounce, the victim is on the hook for making restitution to the bank. o Windfall Scam: Scammers send out counterfeit checks that they declare are the proceeds from an inheritance, lottery win, or some other type of prize giveaway. Recipients are instructed to deposit the checks and return a share of the money to cover processing fees, shipping and handling charges, legal fees, taxes, or other charges. o Online Sales Overpayment Scam: Scammers agree to purchase items that have been advertised for sale or auction online, then send out counterfeit checks for greater than the sale price and ask the victims to refund the overpayments. o Rental Scams: Scammers respond to ads seeking roommates or tenants, send a check to cover the rent plus a little extra, then ask that the overpayment be forwarded to another party to cover moving expenses. As the U.S. Federal Trade Commission succinctly describes such scams: describes Fake checks drive many types of scams  like those involving phony prize wins, fake jobs, mystery shoppers, online classified ad sales, and others. In a fake check scam, a person you dont know asks you to deposit a check  sometimes for several thousand dollars and usually for more than what you are owed  and wire some of the money back to that person. The scammers always have a good story to explain the overpayment  theyre stuck out of the country, they need you to cover taxes or fees, you need to buy supplies, or something else. But by the time your bank discovers youve deposited a bad check, the scammer already has the money you sent, and youre stuck paying the rest of the check back to the bank.  The best way to avoid falling victim to such scams is not to cash or deposit checks for people you do not know, not to wire money to people you do not know, and not to spend funds from large checks you have deposited until you have verified with your bank that those checks have fully cleared. Brunelli, Laureen Miles.  "How to Recognize a Fake Check Scam."
  The Balance.  11 November 2019. Pritchard, Justin.  "Did That Check Really Clear?"
  The Balance.  24 February 2019. Tressler, Colleen.  "Anatomy of a Fake Check Scam."
  Federal Trade Commission.  5 September 2018. Loftsgordon, Amy.  "Fake Check Scams Target Job Seekers."
  Lawyers.com.  Accessed 2 April 2020. FACT CHECK: Does avideo show a drone airplane clipping the wing of an airliner?  Claim:  Avideo shows a drone airplane clipping the wing of an airliner.   Origins:  On 23 June 2015, a video purportedly showing a drone airpline clipping the wing of a passenger plane and shearing off the wingtip was uploaded to the web siteLiveleak:  Some idiot's drone crossed our take-off path.I'm still alive! The plane wing shown in the above-displayed video has the same colors as Southwest Airlines, but a closer look reveals that the company's namehas been replaced with the URL for visual effects artist Bruce Branit's website, Branit.com: Branit.com Shortly after the above-displayed video went viral, Branit publisheda blog post explaining that it was fake: blog post Lately, I've beenlooking for little videos to make with no budget, an iPhone and some CGI. After shooting this footage of NYC as we were climbing out of Laguardia (thanks FAA for finally letting us keep our phones in airplane mode during take-off), I thought it might be a challenge to make something go by or even strike the wing. This is the same air corridor that Captain "Skully" ditched his Airbus A320in the Hudson after a double bird strike, saving all on-board. But I chose to make a drone zip past instead of a birdand tear off a section of the winglet. Branit also published another video showing how he created the "drone hits plane" viral video:  Last updated: 24 June 2015 In mid-December 2018, a graphic design company conducted a survey asking respondents in the U.S. and U.K. how they might change the conceptualization of Santa Claus to "modernize" his image.  Among the various responses were such suggestions as dressing Santa in skinny jeans and giving him an Amazon Prime membership. survey Among the survey questions, the GraphicSprings design company included one about whether Saint Nick should be a man, a woman, or "gender neutral." Many headlines reporting on the survey focused on respondents' expressing their preference for a gender-neutral or female Santa Claus, a scrutiny perhaps not surprising in the age of social media flame wars. What wasn't discussed, however, was an aspect of the story that was key, albeit boring: the survey's methodology.  GraphicSprings described their survey methodology as follows: Respondents ranged from 18 to 65+ and were based in both the UK and US. We used Google surveys and gathered responses during October and November 2018. Suggestions on how to change Santa were gathered from an open survey of 400 respondents from both the UK and US. A selection of these suggestions were then voted on by over 4000 people across the UK and US, with the most popular visualised in our graphic. GraphicSprings didn't explain who made the "selection" of suggestions that were included in the larger survey, or why they were chosen. Furthermore, many of the news stories about the survey didn't review the survey or note that the questions presented to participants were leading ones. survey For example, survey-takers were asked "If you could 'rebrand' Santa for modern society, what gender would he be?" Participants were provided three answers from which they could choose -- male, female or gender-neutral:   Writing for the Australian popular culture and news site Junkee, journalist Joseph Earp described the survey as a savvy but cruel tour de force in marketing that succeeded in raising GraphicSprings' media profile: Junkee The study was designed to generate a controversial result. Participants didnt come up with the idea to make Santa gender neutral: it was offered to them. The question wasnt: What would you do to modernise Santa?, or even What gender should Santa be? The question fed participants gender neutral as an answer. Thats a kind of bias that real studies, conducted by companies that arent just trying to mine some outrage, would have worked on eliminating. And its a kind of bias that GraphicSpring had a vested interest in not eliminating. They wanted an attention-grabbing result that would piss off boomers already convinced of the evils of PC culture, and they got it. In other words, the results of a viral survey designed by a company that specializes in making business cards and flyers probably was not intended to accurately measure public opinion. August 2016 saw the circulation of rumors holding that the Ford Motor Company had donated a large sum of money (typically between one and 100 million dollars) directly to the Black Lives Matter movement: rumors TIME FOR BOYCOTT! Ford Just Gave $100 MILLION To THIS Radical Hate Group Ford used to be one of the most highly-respected and longest-running companies in the United States. Now, the automaker is not only shipping a huge portion of its jobs overseas, it is giving away an enormous sum of money to a separatist and racist hate group. Ford just donated $100 million dollars to Black Lives Matter. A (since removed) blog post published by Allen B. West's blog on 11 August 2016 called for a boycott of the automaker over the issue: boycott Ford is investing in the Black-Led Movement Fund in partnership with Borealis Philanthropy Movement Strategy Center, and Benedict Consulting. Well, if you were ever looking for a reason not to buy a Ford vehicle or to trade one in you already have, this seems to be just as good as any. Looks like another American icon just caved to the liberal agenda. We see how well that worked out for Target Hopefully enough people will express displeasure over this to prompt Ford to stop playing politics and get back to making cars. <!--However, the claim was resurrected by the unreliable American News on 24 September 2016 (during then-current high-profile Black Lives Matter protests), prompting a new wave of consumers threatening to boycott Ford over Black Lives Matter on Ford Motor Company's Facebook page: claim then-current Black Lives Matter page The claims appeared to stem from an 11 August 2016 article in Fortune, which was admittedly ambiguous in its reporting with respect to the Ford Foundation versus the Ford Motor Company: article More than 50 organizations have already registered their support [for the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)], but one, in particular, stands out. The Ford Foundation added their voice to the growing chorus of supporters, in the strongest possible terms. But the [Ford Foundation] is also planning on studying and underwriting what it calls a new and dynamic form of social justice leadership and infrastructure, by investing in the Black-Led Movement Fund, (BLMF) a pooled donor fund designed to support the work of the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), and led by Borealis Philanthropy. In the first paragraph above, Fortune erroneously linked the word "Ford" in "Ford Foundation" to the web site of the Ford Motor Company:   The origins of the rumor lay with a 19 July 2016 announcement from the Ford Foundation titled "Why black lives matter to philanthropy" explaining why that foundation had "made six-year investments in the organizations and networks that compose the Movement for Black Lives": announcement We are living in anxious, often frightening times. Earlier this month, the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling sparked a new round of public protest against the toxic blend of racism, hypermasculinity, and state violence that has taken the lives of too many black men and women and people of color in the US. At one protest in Dallas, a lone gunman killed five police officersLorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith, Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa. Weve seen reductive attempts to frame the murders in Dallas as a confrontation between protesters and law enforcement, but that obscures the larger democratic principles at play: The officers died while protecting the right to freedom of expression and peaceful protest, and are inexorably linked to Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. These events  added to so many others, including the fatal shootings of three police officers in Baton Rouge on Sunday morning  have the potential to either deepen empathy and understanding among Americans or divide us even more sharply along lines of race, ethnicity, and gender. Thats why now is the time to stand by and amplify movements rooted in love, compassion, and dignity for all people. Now is the time to call for an end to state violence directed at communities of color. And now is the time to advocate for investment in public services  including but not limited to police reform  together with education, health, and employment in communities and for people that have historically had less opportunity and access to all those things.These are the reasons we support the Movement for Black Lives. However, the flaw in claiming that the Ford Motor Company donated millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter movement is two-fold. First, although the philanthropic Ford Foundation is so named because it was created and originally funded by automobile icon Henry Ford (along with his son Edsel) and because the foundation was a large holder of Ford stock, those associations ended many years ago. No member of the Ford family or Ford Motor Company management sits on the Ford Foundation Board of Trustees, and the Ford Foundation began selling off its Ford Motor Company stock in the mid-1950's (a process that was completed in 1974). The completely separate Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services is the current philanthropic arm of the Ford Motor Company. Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services Second, although they may have common goals, the Black Lives Matter movement and the Movement for Black Lives are not the same thing. The latter is not a single group or movement, but rather "a coalition of over 50 black-led organizations": Movement for Black Lives latter Black humanity and dignity requires black political will and power. In response to the sustained and increasingly visible violence against Black communities in the U.S. and globally, a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of Black people from across the country have come together with renewed energy and purpose to articulate a common vision and agenda. We are a collective that centers and is rooted in Black communities, but we recognize we have a shared struggle with all oppressed people; collective liberation will be a product of all of our work. Some of the blog posts responsible for the spread of the rumor that the Ford Motor Company had given millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter were later edited to note that the Ford Foundation and Ford Motor Company had long since parted ways, but by then the claim had already been loosed into the wilds of social media, and the important distinction between the two entities was lost as the rumor traveled from blog to blog.    McGirt, Ellen.  "Who Is Funding Black Lives Matter."
  Fortune.  8 August 2016. Yasui, Luna and Brook Kelly-Green.  "Why Black Lives Matter to Philanthropy."
  Ford Foundation Equals Change Blog.  19 July 2016. Ford Foundation.  "A Legacy of Social Justice."
  (Undated.) Ford Foundation.  "History."
  (Undated.) Ford Motor Company.  "The Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services."
  (Undated.) Funding Universe.  "The Ford Foundation History."
  (Undated.) Borealis Philanthropy.  "Black-Led Movement Fund."
  (Undated.) In November 2019, a scam was spread via Facebook purporting to offer free 24-packs of Bud Light brand beer in celebration of the company's anniversary to users who clicked particular links and then followed the instructions found there:  The scam provided links which led to web pages (not operated or sponsored by Bud Light) displaying a Bud Light logo along with entreaties to spread the scam further by sharing the pages and writing "thank you" in the comments field:  The free Bud Light offer is a variation of the company anniversary survey scam, a ploy that depends on the unwary unwittingly promoting the phony offer to their social media friends: anniversary survey scam These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by the companies they reference) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook share buttons and post comments to the scammers site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two Reward Offers (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards). On 2 January 2017, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin posted a message referencing a quote from former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher about socialism, along with a link to a story about Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments, who took a drastic pay cut to raise the minimum salary at his company to $70,000 and then had to rent out his home in order to make ends meet: posted Margaret Thatcher  The linked story was not current news; it was originally published by Young Cons on 1 August 2015: published Back in April we told you about Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who said he would pay every single one of his employees $70,000 annually. Every single one, from the lowest skilled workers on up. Now, as expected, Price has fallen on hard times financially, even having to rent out his own home. The Young Cons article was based on a comment Price made in a video interview with the New York Times. Price, who slashed his own $1 million pay package to provide a minimum salary of $70,000 to all his employees, told the newspaper that he had received mixed reactions about the new pay structure and was still adjusting to life on his own much lower salary. comment Price's relevant comments come at the 2:30 mark of the following video:  My hope is that I'll be right at the end of the day. But I actually don't think that the idea is so good to guaurantee that I'll be right. I'm working as hard as I've ever worked to try to make it work. I'm renting out my house right now to make ends meet for myself. I haven't made this little amount of money since I was in my early 20s. It helps that I'm 31 and don't have kids. And no girlfriend to tell me I'm crazy. Price did indeed put his house up for rent on AirBnB (an online marketplace and homestay network). The first review for the listing was posted in June 2015, and the house was reviewed eight additional times (with the most recent review as of this writing coming from August 2016). AirBnB However, Price's actions didn't necessarily demonstrate any failings of socialism, indicate that Gravity Payments was suffering financially, or show that Price had "fallen on hard times." Price told Today in August 2016 (more than a year after he made his initial salary announcement) that some of the financial adjustments he made, such as renting out his house during the summer, were neither permanent nor based purely on financial necessity: Price himself made some cutbacks to adjust to the lower salary, although more out of sensibility than necessity. He now rents his house on Airbnb during the summer to make extra cash, and sleeps in the guest room at a friends house. You might call it a sacrifice, he said, speaking from the borrowed room. But to me, its fun. It feels good. Price is quick to state the obvious: that any life adjustments hes made as a result of earning less after earning so much more are hardly putting me in some horrible, awful position. Of course, even as he's emerged as a champion for income equality, he wont be making $70,000 forever, and that was never the plan. When I made the announcement, I said I would just put my salary back where it was once the companys profits had gone back to where they were, Price said. I expected us to take a big step backwards. Price's salary adjustments sparked massive interest in Gravity Payments (a credit card processing company), and according to an article published by Inc Magazine, the company's revenues and profits doubled in the six months following Price's announcement: doubled Six months after Price's announcement, Gravity has defied doubters. Revenue is growing at double the previous rate. Profits have also doubled. Gravity did lose a few customers: Some objected to what seemed like a political statement that put pressure on them to raise their own wages; others feared price hikes or service cutbacks. But media reports suggesting that panicked customers were fleeing have proved false. In fact, Gravity's customer retention rate rose from 91 to 95 percent in the second quarter. Only two employees quit  a nonevent. Jason Haley isn't one of them. He is still an employee, and a better paid one. We talked to a close associate of Dan Price's at Gravity Payments who confirmed all of the above for us.  Mr. Price chose to put his house up on Airbnb during the summers months not out of financial necessity, he said, but because Price lives alone and has far more room than he needs (in addition to plenty of friends and acquaintances in the area with whom he can stay), so why not let others enjoy his beautiful home part of the year and raise some extra revenue in the process?  He also noted that because the company's revenues and profits have shot up dramatically since the minimum wage announcement (rather than sharply declining, as initially expected), Price could have returned his salary to its previous much higher level but has so far opted not to. Murray, Rheana.  "Gravity Payments' $70K Minimum Salary: CEO Dan Price Shares Result Over a Year Later."
  Today.  11 August 2016.

 Keegan, Paul.  "Here's What Really Happened at That Company That Set a $70,000 Minimum Wage."
  Inc Magazine.  November 2015. Cohen, Patricia.  "A Company Copes with Backlash Against the Raise That Roared."
  The New York Times.  31 July 2015. Holidays like Christmas frequently inspire an uptick of crime avoidance tip of questionable merit, such as one popular rumor that indiscreet disposal of fancy gadget boxes can leave people open to an increased risk of robbery and theft. After 25 December 2016, Facebook was awash in warnings encouraging everyone to disguise their Christmas refuse from enterprising thieves "shopping" the flashiest trash: warnings   Police departments and municipal agencies (which are known to occasionally give shaky advice on social media) frequently included the tip in their holiday advice posts: municipal shaky advice included tip holiday advice  In some versions, discarded holiday boxes were compared to leaving doors open to thieves, so great was the purported risk:  Rumors were sufficiently pervasive to inspire mocking memes:    In the weeks leading up to the holidays, similar rumors about avoiding crime while shopping circulate and recirculate every year. As with most of these stories, the post-Christmas rumor that thieves use trash to target homes with desirable new items includes zero evidence to support the claim, just directives to drive your garbage to a second location to ward off crime and theft. The rumors imbue a sense of misplaced security at best (and at worst, a lingering fear among people who tossed their boxes before seeing the rumor).  shopping But is the risk high enough to justify concern and heightened caution? It is true that holiday-related crimes take place each year, and in December 2016 gift-grabbing robbers did make the news in several locations across the United States. Of particular note in those scenarios was that the victims did not appear to have been targets of trash-casing thieves, but rather selected at random, meaning that no amount of garbage rearranging would have spared them. One of the affected families was attending a religious service during the crime; by that rationale, you're arguably more likely to be robbed of your new things while driving your trash to a faraway recycling plant than because you discarded the boxes where thieves might view them.  gift-grabbing robbers news locations Another consideration worth remembering is that burglars, thieves, and other criminals need no particular inspiration to commit crimes, and are overwhelmingly opportunistic. Furthermore, many homes can reasonably be expected to have televisions, computers, gaming systems, and other valuable items inside them at any time of year. In 2014, Boston.com attempted to determine if the holidays in general carried a heightened risk of being robbed, and were unable to substantiate the claim. attempted Jokingly blaming the cultural influence of Home Alone (a film series that coincidentally prompted its own Christmas warning in 2016, thanks to a misfired joke) the newspaper also noted that the idea that the month of December is teeming with crime is often advanced by entities hawking preventive goods or services, such as cameras or security personnel: Christmas warning Every year, along with the snow and the Christmas lights, comes a flood of warnings to protect your home from burglars looking to take advantage of all the houses left empty during holiday vacations ... But google something along the lines of holiday home break-ins and youll see a lot of "tips" written by insurance agencies or companies selling home security systems. Not surprisingly, some of those tips include "Buy our security equipment," or "Get our insurance." So are holiday crime sprees just a myth cooked up by self-interested corporations and classic 90s films? Or do the numbers justify the fears? ... Boston.com dove into the stats from the last few years, punching our calculators and tabulating the averages to bring you the answer, which is... it kind of depends. The Boston Police Department breaks their crime data down by week, so we actually get to see how the trend changes within the month of December in 2012 and 2013 ... The first half of December is pretty normal (i.e. the blue and green bars are about the same height as the purple bar, which represents the average of all 52 weeks of the year), but in both years those last two weeks  where Christmas and New Years fall  saw significantly more burglaries than the normal week ... [but] Boston police dont keep separate numbers for home burglaries vs. burglaries of businesses, so not all of the break-ins were looking at happened at peoples houses. Its possible commercial burglary is more common during the holidays, while residential burglary is not (or vise versa). ... Theres really no [discernible] pattern here. In 2012, November saw fewer than average home break-ins and December was roughly on par with the rest of the year. In 2013, November saw a few more break-ins than usual, but the numbers plummeted in December ... The Cambridge Police Department at least has an explanation for the tiny number of break-ins during December of 2013. The annual crime report from last year reads, The majority of this decline can be attributed to the eradication of three housebreak patterns that had been a problem from late September to mid-November." Boston.com concluded that while normal levels of concern were advisable, taking extensive precautions was not necessary. A 2013 CNN Money item took a separate stab at substantiating the belief that burglars are spurred on by holiday bounties, only to discover that December wasn't even the worst offender among calendar months (pointing to summer vacations as a larger problem). substantiating The piece was peppered with somewhat contradictory details, noting that burglaries peak in the summer nationally and citing travel as a known factor, before doling out the "cut up your boxes" advice: In several states, according to the FBI, December is the peak month for burglaries as folks leave homes unattended during the holidays ... Nationally, burglaries peak during the summer vacations, though December is close behind. Many families take off, leaving homes empty -- except for all the gifts. And winter storms can make it obvious that nobody's home. "Criminals drive through neighborhoods looking for places to burglarize," said Hayden. "If there's newly fallen snow that hasn't been shoveled, they figure the home is empty." He added that many townspeople put their beautifully decorated Christmas trees -- and all the gift packages stacked beneath them -- right at the front of the living room. "Burglars can walk around and window-shop," said Hayden. The criminals are already aware that homes are filled with loot this time of year -- jewelry, televisions, smart phones and computers. Sometimes homeowners advertise what they got for Christmas by putting out for trash collection the empty boxes their gifts came in, according to Gary Holliday, deputy chief of the Knoxville, Tenn., police department ... To minimize risk, police advise homeowners to cut up boxes and stuff them into black garbage bags before putting them out for collection. "Social media is a great thing for people but it's a great thing for criminals too," said Holliday. "Criminals stake out the Internet." Social media, holiday home vacancy, and knowledge of attractive loot were all cited by police as possible factors, but no evidence indicated any or all of those circumstances caused anyone to fall victim or inspired crimes. Overall, police said thieves are aware of holiday gift-giving, suggesting that discarded boxes are not a primary contributor to Christmas crime. Not only was the notion of a Christmas crime spike mostly anecdotal, information suggesting thieves "shopped" from boxes at the curb appeared to come solely from speculation about criminal behavior, not the real-life practices of thieves. By most accounts, criminals target homes bearing signs of non-occupancy, not those "advertising" their loot. Bryan, Emory.  "Tulsa Family's Home Burglarized While They're at Christmas Services."
  WARN.  26 December 2016. Christie, Les.  "Burglaries Jump During the Holidays."
  CNN Money.  27 December 2013. James, Cory.  "Burglars Are Caught on Camera Stealing Christmas Gifts from Fresno Home."
  KFSN-TV.  24 December 2016. Matson, Emily.  "How to Keep Your Home Secure from Christmas Burglars."
  WICU.  22 December 2016. Kwong, Jessica.  "Corona Del Mar Home Burglarized Monday After Christmas."
  The Orange County Register.  26 December 2016. O'Brien, Kelly.  "Its Not Clear Home Break-Ins Happen More Often During the Holidays."
  Boston.com.  10 December 2014. Szalavitz, Maia.  "10 Ways We Get the Odds Wrong."
  Psychology Today.  1 January 2008. Yawn, Andrew J.  "Protect Your Home by Doing This After Christmas."
  Montgomery Advertiser.  24 December 2016. Associated Press.  "Gretna Police, JP Deputies Replace Christmas Presents After Home Is Burglarized."
  25 December 2016. When it comes to family budgets, one of the biggest bites can be child-care costs. Just how big is that bite? Child care costs account for 24% of a WI familys budget.This is well above the 10% affordability threshold established by the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human services. Paid Family Leave would allow parents the flexibility necessary 2 ensure they are able 2 put their family first, state Rep. David Crowley, D-Milwaukee, saidOct. 22, 2019in a Twitter post. Crowleys tweet came on the same day Assembly Democrats reintroduced the Wisconsin Family Medical Leave Insurance Act. Under the bill, Wisconsin workers without employer-funded family medical leave would be able to buy into a state-run insurance program. The proposal would expand the states current family medical leave law to allow individuals to take leave for more family members, including care of grandparents and siblings. According to a Legislative Reference Bureau analysis, a covered individual who is on family or medical leave would be eligible, beginning on Jan. 1, 2024, to receive up to 12 weeks of family or medical leave insurance benefits. This is thethird timethe measure has been introduced; it has not gained support from Republican lawmakers. Is Crowley, who has announced hiscandidacyfor Milwaukee County executive, on target about the cost of child care for Wisconsin families? Lets take a look. The evidence When asked for backup, Crowleys staff pointed us to a 2018United Wayreport. The report focused on a population group that has been given the acronym ALICE -- Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The ALICE Report was part of a collaboration between the United Way in Wisconsin and 16 other states. Indeed, the report itself includes a line that is nearly identical to Crowleys tweet: In the Household Survival Budget, child care accounts for24 percentof the Wisconsin family budget, well above the 10 percent affordability threshold established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But where did the numbers come from? Officials with the state Department of Children and Families told us they do not collect that data. They pointed us to a series of advocacy groups, as opposed to any government agency or repository. According to the United Way, the reports child care budget is based on the average annual cost of care for one infant and one preschooler in registered family child care homes -- the least expensive childcare option. The most recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports,dating from 2016onward, recommend that child care be considered affordable if out-of-pocket costs are equivalent to 7% of total household income. In earlier years, dating back to at least 2015, the federal benchmark for child care affordability was reported as 10%, the figure referenced in the second part of Crowleys tweet. Additional groups Other advocacy groups have done their own tallies -- though each measures a slightly different thing: Economic Policy Institute: A July 2019 report from the institute puts the average cost of infant child care in Wisconsin at $12,597 a year. The report states that care for one infant would take up 18.5% of a median familys income in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is ranked 20th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for most expensive infant care. The groupssource listincludes the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Child Care Aware of America and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Child Care Aware: According to a2017 report, the average cost of center-based infant care across all states tops 27% of the median income for single parents, an increase of 3 percentage points from findings in the groups 2016 report, Parents and the High Cost of Care. The group says it obtains data through surveys of state child-care referral agencies. For states that did not respond to the survey, child care capacity and price data was pulled from publicly accessible databases and market rate surveys. Center for American Progress: On average, a family making the state median income in the United States would have to spend 18% of its income to cover the cost of child care for an infant, according to a November 2018report. The 18% number is based on the state median income for a family of four, which comes from 2018U.S. Department of Health and Human Servicesdata. Its also important to flag that the 18% number is the cost of child care for an infant in a center-based program. If you are focused on home-based child care as implied by one part of the statement we would note that the number for home-based family care is 11%, Steven Jessen-Howard, a Center for American Progress spokesman, said in an email. The high cost of child care is out of reach for most working families, said Simon Workman, co-author of the American Progress report in a statement. In short, each of the studies support Crowleys central point that child care costs consume a far greater share of an average Wisconsin familys budget than is recommended -- though the estimates vary, from 11% to 27%. Our ruling Crowley said child care costs account for 24% of a WI familys budget. Child care costs can vary, of course, based on age of the child, number of children receiving care and where the care is provided. But each of the available reports supports Crowleys main point -- that the costs far exceed the recommended amount -- even if the numbers come up somewhat different in each analysis. At PolitiFact Wisconsin, a statement is Mostly True when it is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. That fits here. This fact-check has been updated to change an emailed quote mistakenly attributed to Julia Cusick of the Center for American Progress to Steven Jessen-Howard from the same organization.