Nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has gotten some things about the labor market very wrong, notably suggesting that the unemployment rate may be 42 percent. (Its not; that got aPants on Fire.) But at a Nov. 4 rally in Atkinson, N.H., Trump offered a statistic that was much closer to the mark. At the core of my contract is my plan to bring back our jobs, about time, he said, later adding that nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working. They want to work. They're not working. When we checked with several economists, they said the most commonly used age span for defining the prime working years is 25 to 54. So we looked at the employment-to-population ratio for ages 25 to 54 -- that is, the percentage of people in that age range who are working, divided by the total number of people in that age range. (We also spot-checked the data for 18 to 64 and for 25 to 64 and did not find significant differences from 25 to 54.) According to the most recent data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics -- covering October 2016 -- 78.2 percent of the population between 25 and 54 was working. Flip that percentage and 21.8 percent of the population between 25 and 54 wasnotworking. So Trump is on solid ground saying nearly one in four. That said, well try to put this number in some historical context. Heres a chart for this statistic that goes back to 1948. The chart shows the percentage of people working. First, simply citing this figure ignores that the percentage of people in this age range who are working has risen steadily during President Barack Obamas presidency. The chart below shows that this ratio has risen by 3.4 percentage points since its most recent low point during the Obama presidency -- 74.8 percent in November 2010. So just citing the number ignores that the figure has been going in the right direction for the past six years. Second, its worth noting that the current ratio is not all that far from its all-time high -- 81.9 percent in April 2000. Prime working age happens to be the prime childbearing and child-rearing age, and it makes sense that some people will choose not to work during at least some of those years. So its not as if this number has always been pushing 100 percent and now is suddenly down dramatically. On the other hand, economists say that Trump has put his finger on a legitimate concern about the current labor market -- that the employment rate among prime-working-age Americans has not recovered to its level prior to the Great Recession. Despite more than six years of steady job growth, the employment-to-population ratio for those 25 to 54 has not yet returned to its immediate pre-Great Recession peak of 80.3 in January 2007. Today, its still 2.1 percentage points below that peak. And every single month but two of President George W. Bushs two terms in office had a higher percentage than todays, even though Bush took office during an economic downturn, albeit a milder one. The trend line for men has been particularly problematic. As the following chart shows, the employment ratio for men in this age range was almost always above 90 percent prior to 1980, and in the immediate pre-Great Recession period, it was in the 87 percent range. Under Obama, it has rebounded from a low of 80.6 percent, but it was still only at 85 percent in October 2016 -- lower than its pre-recession level. In other words, we may be looking at a new, lower normal for prime-working-age employment, particularly for men -- and unlike some other employment statistics, this is one that is not shaped by an ongoing surge of baby boomer retirements. Our ruling Trump said that nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working. The actual percentage is 21.8 percent, so Trumps phrasing is reasonable. Putting it this way does ignore that this number has declined steadily under Obama for the past six years, and it also ignores that its not that far from the all-time low. Still, economists agree that Trump is raising a legitimate concern, since even after six years of improvement, the percentage today remains worse than it was prior to the Great Recession, suggesting that it might represent a new, more worrisome normal. We rate his claim Mostly True.
On 8 January 2016, the entertainment web site The Reporterz published an article reporting that Delaware had created a new "child support card" that controlled "what mothers can and cannot buy" with their child support funds: This measure was taken to prevent parents from misusing funds that are meant to help with costs associated with raising children, such as school related expenses, food, etc. This card will not be allow the parent to purchase alcohol, cigarettes or pay car payments the card will be used exactly like a food stamp card. We spoke to Tasha Brown who was upset after she couldn't purchase a bottle of Hennessy at her local liquor store. she says "Its' [sic] unfair its [sic] my money I should be able to do what i want with it how will I pay for my new weave?"   The article was ambiguous about whether the card would apply to all funds received for the care of children (such as support monies paid by former spouses) or funds made available through government assistance programs. It didn't matter either way, though, as the story was a complete fabrication that originated with a fake news web site that does not publish factual stories. A disclaimer on The Reporterz states that "every article is based on a true story, only the facts have been changed." In this case, Delaware really does have a card that makes it easier for single parents and guardians to receive funds. The First State Family Card is a pre-paid debit card that does not require bank account: The First State Family Card is a pre-paid VISA card that is credited whenever a payment is posted to any/all of a client's child support case(s). Benefits to the debit VISA card include: While Delaware does have a card that makes it easier for parents to collect child support, the handbook for the First State Family Card (not the "Child Support Card") does not mention any restrictions on how the funds may be utilized. mention On 7 February 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, introduced a five-page nonbinding resolution to the U.S. House of Representatives for federal government to recognize its duty to establish a "Green New Deal." resolution The controversial proposal incorporated seven goals previously articulated by Ocasio-Cortez for the U.S. to realize within ten years: Dramatically expand existing renewable power sources and deploy new production capacity with the goal of meeting 100% of national power demand through renewable sources; building a national, energy-efficient, smart grid; upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety; eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries, including by investing in local-scale agriculture in communities across the country; eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure, and upgrading water infrastructure to ensure universal access to clean water; funding massive investment in the drawdown of greenhouse gases; making green technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely greenhouse gas neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal. The broader proposal also called for sweeping social measures such as "a job guarantee program to assure a living wage job to every person who wants one," "basic income programs" and "universal health care programs." proposal On 26 March 2019, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell forced a preemptive vote in the U.S. Senate on a procedural motion to take up a binding form of the resolution, deriding the Green New Deal as a plan for basically outlawing the only sources of energy that working-class and middle-class families can actually afford" that would kill off entire domestic industries and eliminate millions of jobs. Democrats criticized McConnell's move as a "sham" intended to "quash debate by blocking public hearings and expert testimony about the consequences of inaction on climate change" and to hasten a vote in order to force Senate Democrats to commit to either supporting or rejecting the proposal at a very early stage: criticized Republicans ... set up this vote to highlight potential splits in the Democratic caucus and force lawmakers to splinter from a high-profile, progressive idea. As the thinking goes, if only part of the Democratic caucus wound up backing the idea, Republicans could argue that it didnt actually have enough support from the party ... Additionally, the move was aimed at putting Democrats from more moderate states in a tough position, forcing them to choose between backing a popular liberal idea and potentially turning off some of their constituents. The Senate vote is a perfect example of that kind of superficial approach to government, Ocasio-Cortez said. What McConnells doing is that hes trying to rush this bill to the floor without a hearing, without any markups, without working through committee  because he doesnt want to save our planet. Because he thinks we can drink oil in 30 years when all our water is poisoned. In the event, most Democrats didn't bite. All 53 Republicans in the Senate voted against the plan, but they were joined by just three Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine (who caucuses with Democrats). The remaining 43 Democratic senators all declined to commit and merely voted present in protest of the GOPs action. The procedural motion was thus voted down by a 57-0 margin. voted down A meme circulated online afterwards offensively portrayed Rep. Ocasio-Cortez as a "100% retard" for failing to "even vote for [her] own bill":  The implications of that meme were wrong on two counts: 1) The Senate was not voting on whether to accept or reject Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal" resolution. What the Senate voted on was a different form of the resolution, and what they voted against was not the resolution itself but a motion for cloture, the step of agreeing to end debate on a bill so that Senate consideration of it can move forward: not voting cloture This was not the non-binding Green New Deal resolution introduced by Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Feb. 7. Instead, this was a version that McConnell himself introduced, and it was a binding resolution. Instead of voting on whether "it is the sense of the Senate" that the government has a duty to create a Green New Deal, senators would have been skipping ahead to vote on whether the Green New Deal should become "the policy of the United States," without so much as a hearing. a version Under Senate rules, making it binding was the only way McConnell could hold a show vote without the usual process of assigning the legislation to the appropriate committees for discussion and debate. That would put a public spotlight on experts testifying and debate over climate solutions, something McConnell is seeking to avoid. Technically, the Senate voted on whether to end debate on McConnell's motion to proceed to consideration of his version of a Green New Deal resolution. This "cloture" vote wasn't on the substance of the Green New Deal. McConnell's aim was not to actually consider the Green New Deal, which he describes as a "socialist" plan that would "uproot life as we know it." He was hoping the vote would kill talk of a Green New Deal in its infancy, while putting Democrats on the spot. 2) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, not a member of the U.S. Senate, and thus she had no opportunity to vote on the cloture motion at all. In short, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez didn't "neglect" or "forget" to participate in the referenced Green New Deal vote: she wasn't eligible to take part in it because she isn't a member of the Senate. Nor was the vote that took place in the Senate one that directly addressed the merits or deficiencies of her Green New Deal resolution. Daly, Matthew.  "Senate Shuns Green New Deal Amid Claims of Bad Faith."
  Associated Press.  26 March 2019. Nilsen, Ella and Li Zhou.  "Senate Democrats Broadly Shut Down Republican Trolling on the Green New Deal."
  Vox.  26 March 2019. Grandoni, Dino and Felicia Sonmez.  "Senate Defeats Green New Deal, As Democrats Call Vote a Sham."
  The Washington Post.  26 March 2019. Amadeo, Kimberly.  "The Green New Deal and Why It's Happening Now."
  The Balance.  2 April 2019. Lavelle, Marianne.  "Senate's Green New Deal Vote: 4 Things You Need to Know."
  Inside Climate News.  26 March 2019. In the crowded Republican primary to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera says he has evidence that he takes care of taxpayers wallets. I've cut the budget of the office by more than half, reduced the staff, he said in aninterviewon the April 30Money, Power, Politicsshow on Fox 13 in Tampa. I'm the only lieutenant governor to not take a security detail. He hasdeclined his security detail, breaking from his predecessors. Lopez-Cantera has also cut the budget and reduced staff positions. But he is leaving out some context. The only official role of the lieutenant governor is to replace the governor if he leaves offices or dies. What he or she does in the meantime varies with the governor and his or her vision. Lopez-Cantera is not as active or in the public eye as much as some of his predecessors, rarely posting official events on his public calendar and not tasked with any special assignments from Gov. Rick Scott. Scotts first lieutenant governor,Jennifer Carroll,resigned in March 2013 after she was questioned by law enforcement about her ties to a charity group that was the subject of probes. (She was not charged with wrongdoing.) She chaired a task force about Floridas Stand Your Ground law afterTrayvon Martins deathand chaired the Space Florida Board. Scott tapped Lopez-Cantera, a former state legislator and Miami-Dade property appraiser, to replace her almost a year later in February 2014. Lets see how the budget changed. Reducing budget and staff The lieutenant governors budget has ranged from about $245,000 to $540,000 in recent years. Lopez-Canteras office does not have its own budget like other state agencies. Scott proposes a budget that includes the lieutenant governor. It is then up to the Legislature to pass a budget, which Scott then signs into law. The amount of money below includes the $125,000 annual salary for the lieutenant governor. Year Allotment Expenditure 2009-10 $439,646 $433,006 2010-11 $540,440 $537,664 2011-12 $504,169 $587,389 2012-13 $509,806 $471,091 2013-14 $245,016 $156,435 2014-15 $485,160 $415,522 2015-16 $240,693 $242,875 2016-17 Not announced yet NA So for a few years the lieutenant governors budget was about $500,000. The it was chopped in half to $245,016 for the 2013-14 budget year that started July 1, 2013, a few months after Carroll resigned. Its no surprise that the allocation dropped since the office was vacant. Since Lopez-Cantera took office in February 2014, it is also not surprising the allotment nearly doubled to $485,160 for the 2014-15 budget year. The next year, the budget allotment dropped to slightly less than when Lopez-Cantera started to $240,693  a 50 percent decrease. Most of the budget is staff salaries. Employee Count (excluding LG) As of January 1, 2010* 3 As of January 1, 2011** 5 As of January 1, 2012** 5 As of January 1, 2013** 5 As of February, 2014*** 4 As of January 1, 2015*** 2 As of January 1, 2016*** 1 *     Kottkamp **   Carroll *** Lopez-Cantera Lopez-Cantera cut the staff, but its worth noting that the size of the staff was small for starters. It's also worth keeping in mind that Lopez-Cantera has access to the full weight of the governor's office for his needs, including the press office, legislative aides and budget analysts. Under Carroll, there were five employees in the lieutenant governors office each year, which included a chief of staff and assistants. When Lopez-Cantera started in February 2014, there were four staffers. Then the number dropped to two, and now he just has one employee whose title is a special assistant. The governors office said no one was laid off. We asked if that meant that Lopez-Cantera cut empty positions or shifted jobs to the governors office or elsewhere. The governors office didnt answer that question. Our ruling Lopez-Cantera said, I've cut the budget of the office by more than half. He omits some context about how his office budget works. Scott recommends a budget, which is then approved by the Legislature. Lopez-Cantera's own resources may be limited, but he downplays the access he has to Scott's vast governing operation for assistance. Months after Lopez-Cantera started, the budget rose by roughly double to bring it more in line to where it was when a lieutenant governor in the office. But after that increase, the budget allotment dropped the next year to slightly less than when Lopez-Cantera started to $240,693  a 50 percent decrease. The budget largely pays for Lopez-Canteras salary as well as a special assistant. We rate this claim Mostly True. Claim:  E-mail reports the truth about the environmental impact of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)    OF  AND  INFORMATION Example:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2008] First, do you know what ANWR is? ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Now, a comparison:  And some perspective ...  NOTE WHERE THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT AREA IS ... (its in the "ANWR Coastal Plain")  THIS IS WHAT THE TV People and others "GREENS" SHOW YOU WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT ANWR ... and they are right ... these ARE photographs of ANWR   Isn't ANWR beautiful? Why should we drill here (and destroy) this beautiful place? Well, thats not exactly the truth. Do you remember the map? The map showed that the proposed drilling area is in the ANWR Coastal Plain. Do those photographs look like a coastal plain to you? What's going on here? The answer is simple. That is NOT where they are wanting to drill! This is what the proposed exploration area ACTUALLY looks like in the winter:  And this is what it ACTUALLY looks like in the summer:    HERE ARE A COUPLE SCREEN SHOTS FROM GOOGLE EARTH   As you can see, the area where they are talking about drilling is a barren wasteland.  Oh, and they say that they are concerned about the effect on the local wildlife. Here is a photo (shot during the summer) of the 'depleted wildlife' situation created by drilling around Prudhoe Bay. Don't you think that the Caribou really hate that drilling?  Here's that same spot during the winter:  Hey, this bear seems to really hate the pipeline near Prudhoe Bay, which accounts for 17% of U.S. domestic oil production.  Now, why do you think that the Democrats are LYING about ANWR? Remember when Al Gore said that the government should work to ARTIFICIALLY raise gas prices to $5 a gallon? Well, Al Gore and his fellow Democrats have almost reached their goal! Now that you know that the Democrats have been lying, what are you going to do about it? You can start by forwarding this to everyone you know, so that they will know the truth. P.S.: Drilling does not "destroy." It creates jobs, resources and strengthens our economy  all while protecting our environment. Everyone benefits, even caribou. Origins:  As the price of oil continues to rise with no predictable end in sight, debates over whether the U.S. can and should be producing more oil from domestic sources have been renewed.  A primary focus of such  debates has been the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), an area which encompasses 19 million acres in the northeast corner of Alaska. The ANWR issue is now a political hot potato batted back and forth between proponents of exploration and development in ANWR's Coastal Plain who assert that the area could become a valuable source of domestic oil production with minimal impact on the environment, and opponents who maintain that the potential advantages to be gained from drilling for oil in ANWR are far too small to offset the despoiling (and potential devastation) of a protected wildlife area.The issue has been complicated by the uncertainty of many factors involved in the opening of ANWR to U.S. oil production, such as the total amount of oil underlying the area, the size of the oil fields that might be found in ANWR, the quality of the oil that might be found in ANWR, the potential production capacity of ANWR drilling operations, how long it would take before ANWR operations began providing significant amounts of oil for the U.S. market, what effects the oil extracted from ANWR would have on world oil supply and prices, and the environmental impacts of oil exploration and development in ANWR.    factors The e-mailed slide show reproduced above might serve a useful function in prompting the public to take a greater interest in all the issues surrounding the potential opening of ANWR to oil exploration, but the information it presents is scant and one-sided.  Since the ANWR issue is far too extensive and complex to cover in detail here, we'll just provide a brief summary of both sides' arguments regarding points mentioned by the e-mailed slide show, with links to sites (on both sides of the issue) that provide greater detail:  Although the ANWR is small in size compared to the entirety of Alaska, at 19 million acres it is larger than ten other states.  (As the third graphic shows, ANWR is about the size of the state of South Carolina.) Proponents point out that the proposed development area within the ANWR Coastal Plain is a relatively small patch of 2,000 acres, an area which constitutes roughly1/10,000 of the total acreage of the ANWR.  Opponents maintain that a similar drilling operation in Alaska at Prudhoe Bay was originally designated to encompass only 2,100 acres but has since expanded to a total drilling footprint of 12,000 acres spread over 640,000 acres of the North Slope. size expanded  Proponents maintain that wildlife continues to flourish amid drilling and other oil production activities in other Arctic regions and would fare just as well near ANWR exploration facilities.  Opponents assert that other North Slope oil development activities have caused an average of 504 spills per year since 1996, including "4,532 spills between 1996 and 2004 totaling more than 1.9 million gallons of toxic substances." flourish spills  Proponents maintain that the proposed ANWR Coastal Plain development area is primarily a featureless, barren expanse that is frozen and windswept for most of the year, and therefore exploration and drilling activities would have minimal impact on wildlife in the immediate area (or in the greater ANWR).  Opponents assert that environmental accidents can have devastating effects far outside the limited areas in which they originally occur.  Last updated:  2 July 2008 In December 2023, multiple display advertisements were shown to online users on YouTube and other websites that claimed, "America's Most Famous Burger Brand Is Now Chinese Owned." In this story, we've detailed how these ads were both false and misleading. We've also provided information about some of the most successful U.S. burger brands. One ad that we reviewed showed a photo of a large cheeseburger in what appeared to be the dining room of a restaurant. We performed a reverse-image search and traced the picture to a page on Pinterest. A link on that Pinterest page led to another page on friesandsalt.tumblr.com, which revealed that the photo was captured in a Five Guys restaurant. Five Guys is headquartered in Virginia and is not owned by a company in China. reverse-image search page friesandsalt.tumblr.com headquartered  Additional ads that displayed similar captions showed other pictures of burgers. One of those images may have been a stock photo or was possibly captured in Cyprus, according to a user's post on TripAdvisor.com. TripAdvisor.com  All of these ads led to a lengthy article that was hosted on either Investing.com or StreetInsider.com. The story's headline read, "American Companies That Are No Longer American." Investing.com StreetInsider.com The article was massive in its text. It listed nearly 200 businesses and had close to 400 paragraphs. Nowhere in the story did the author mention anything about any American burger brands being bought by a company in China. The ads with the photos of burgers were false and misleading clickbait that may have originally been created to lure readers to click or scroll through nearly 200 slides for nothing. We hope that our brief article saved readers some time. The reason why these kinds of ads and articles exist is usually something called advertising arbitrage. Advertising arbitrage is a strategy in which an advertiser hopes to make more money on ads displayed in a lengthy article than it would cost to display an initial clickbait ad meant to attract users to the article. In other words, instead of the ads being both attractive and potentially helpful to consumers, they instead mislead users from the start. Advertising arbitrage Naming America's "most famous" burger brand might be a subjective choice. However, if sales figures were considered, McDonald's was at the top of the food chain, according to QSR Magazine, Restaurant Business and Yahoo Finance. The company is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, not China. QSR Magazine Restaurant Business Yahoo Finance headquartered The same three sources that provided sales figures for burger chains also reported that McDonald's was followed by Wendy's and Burger King. Wendy's is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, while Burger King is owned by the Canadian company Restaurant Brands International. headquartered Restaurant Brands International Note: If readers would like to report any strange or misleading ads on Snopes, we invite you to contact us. Please include the full link of the website where the questionable ad led to so that we can attempt to investigate and potentially block any such ads. contact us Ahmed, Ali. 20 Best Burger Chains in the US. Yahoo Finance, 5 Aug. 2023, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-best-burger-chains-us-214700611.html. Campus Gardens at Wendys Headquarters in Dublin, OH. Wendys, https://www.wendys.com/csr-what-we-value/footprint/corporate-office-initiatives/gardens. Careers at the McDonalds Global Headquarters. McDonalds Careers, https://careers.mcdonalds.com/mhq-and-field-offices. El Clasico Sports Pub. TripAdvisor.com, Apr. 2019, https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g190383-d6651868-i275560000-El_Clasico_Sports_Pub-Nicosia_Nicosia_District.html. Evon, Dan. Snopes Tips: A Guide To Performing Reverse Image Searches. Snopes, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/400681/how-to-perform-reverse-image-searches/. Five Guys Bacon Triple Cheeseburger. Pinterest, www.pinterest.com/pin/513973376204398170/. ---. friesandsalt.tumblr.com, https://friesandsalt.tumblr.com/post/136992557459/photoset_iframe/friesandsalt/tumblr_nragqdSeHE1qhffuc/0/false. Liles, Jordan. Snopes Tips: How To Avoid Ad Arbitrage Clickbait. Snopes, 2 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/387913/avoid-ad-arbitrage-clickbait/. Our Locations. Restaurant Brands International, https://careers.rbi.com/global/en/locations. Ranked: The Top Fast-Food Burger Chains in America. QSR Magazine, 1 Aug. 2023, https://www.qsrmagazine.com/operations/fast-food/ranked-the-top-fast-food-burger-chains-in-america/. Restaurant Business Staff. The Largest Burger Chains in the U.S. Restaurant Business, 13 May 2020, https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/largest-burger-chains-us. When Nirvana released its song Pennyroyal Tea'' in 1993, lead singer Kurt Cobain said it was about depression, though his notes mentioned how pennyroyal was considered to be an abortifacent.  said His notes gained prominence online in June 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court voted to strike down Roe v. Wade via its decision on Planned Parenthood v. Casey, reversing federal abortion protections that had been in place for nearly 50 years. U.S. Supreme Court The internet immediately began speculating on what this meant for people seeking abortions in the country, and whether this would result in many seeking more dangerous methods in order to carry them out. Some referenced the purported uses of the pennyroyal herb: dangerous   Pages and pages of Cobains original writings and scribbles were collected in the book Journals, which included diary entries, lyrics, and his musings on various songs he was working on. Under the underlined heading Pennyroyal tea he wrote, [A] herbal abortive  it doesnt work you hippie.  Journals  Journals Cobain is not entirely wrong. Pennyroyal was considered to be an abortifacent, in that it was used to induce abortions, but it was highly dangerous and far removed from our modern scientific methods for carrying out abortions.  Pennyroyal Even Benjamin Franklins publishing company included an abortion recipe that featured pennyroyal in its adaptation of a British manual for the colonies in 1748. In an entry about Suppression of the Courses, the manual advises women to drink a Quarter of a Pint of Pennyroyal Water, or Decoction. Benjamin Franklins According to the article, Persephones Seeds: Abortifacients and Contraceptives in Ancient Greek Medicine and Their Recent Scientific Appraisal, published in the Pharmacy in History journal by the University of Wisconsin Press: There is evidence that pennyroyal [] and other medicinal plants were used in Ancient Greece as anti-fertility agents [] These anti-fertility agents, which were administered orally or as vaginal suppositories, may have functioned as early term abortifacents and contraceptives in women.  article But modern medical professionals say that using pennyroyal to induce an abortion is dangerous and there is insufficient evidence to show that it actually works.  insufficient evidence According to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), Pennyroyal is a flowering plant that was used in folk medicine to induce abortion, alleviate menstrual symptoms, and to treat inflammatory conditions and minor ailments [...] There have been a number of case reports and also several deaths attributed to the use of this botanical.  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center According to the United States National Library of Medicine, There is some evidence that pennyroyal oil can cause abortions by causing the uterus to contract. But the dose needed in order to cause an abortion could kill the mother or cause life-long kidney and liver damage. United States National Library of Medicine   Given that mentions of the herb have grown since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many are concerned that recent events will result in more people turning to this as a form of abortion. We also know that banning abortions does not necessarily end their occurrence; it only results in more unsafe conditions for carrying out the procedure.  know Ultimately, whatever his intention in writing this down in his notes, Cobain seemed to have the correct idea about the abortifacent, and people are strongly warned to not try it at all. We rate this claim as a Correct Attribution.  Did Ben Franklin Publish a Recipe in a Math Textbook on How to Induce Abortion? Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/05/16/ben-franklin-abortion-math-textbook/. Accessed 27 June 2022. Do Laws Banning Abortion Actually Decrease the Rate of Abortions? Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/05/20/banning-abortion-decrease-rate/. Accessed 27 June 2022. Journals - Kurt Cobain, Nirvana (Band). Scribd, https://www.scribd.com/document/262983068/Journals-Kurt-Cobain. Accessed 27 June 2022. Live Fact-Checking Updates: US Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade. Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/24/dobbs-supreme-court-roe-wade/. Accessed 27 June 2022. Martoccio, Angie. Nirvanas In Utero: 20 Things You Didnt Know. Rolling Stone, 21 Sept. 2018, https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/nirvana-in-utero-trivia-kurt-cobain-722109/. Accessed 27 June 2022. Nelson, Sarah E. Persephones Seeds: Abortifacients and Contraceptives in Ancient Greek Medicine and Their Recent Scientific Appraisal. Pharmacy in History, vol. 51, no. 2, 2009, pp. 5769, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41112420. Accessed on 27 June 2022. "Pennyroyal." Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/pennyroyal. Accessed 27 June 2022. "Pennyroyal." MedlinePlus Supplements. https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/natural/480.html. Accessed 27 June 2022. Former GOP state Sen. Don Huffines recently launched gubernatorial bid is wagering that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott isnt Republican enough for Texas. According to his nascent campaign website, the border is too open, the voter rolls are too rife with illegal aliens, and the taxes are too high. To cure the state of its taxation problem, Huffines campaign proposes an unusual solution for a state that already doesnt collect income taxes  the elimination of property taxes altogether. Texans have some of the highest property taxes in the nation, and the tax only goes up, his campaign website says. We will put the broken property tax system on a path to zero, it continues. Theres little question that property taxes in Texas have generally been rising year over year. The Texas Comptrollers Biennial Property Tax Report shows that single family home values have been on the rise since 2010, resulting in a corresponding rise in the property taxes levied by local governments in each of those years. In 2010, local governments in Texas collected $40.2 billion in property taxes. By 2019, the latest year for which data is available, that number had risen to $67.2 billion. Nearly half of these totals is collected from property taxes levied on single family homes. But has this rise launched Texas taxes into the realm of high-tax states like New York, California and New Jersey? Does Texas now have some of the highest property taxes in the nation, as Huffines claims? State and local governments depend on tax revenue flowing from three different categories, explained Kevin Erdmann, a tax policy expert at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. There's three pretty basic areas of taxation: sales tax, income tax and property tax, he said. Those are the big three to choose from and each state has chosen to weight each one slightly differently. But at the end of the day they all have bills to pay. Texas is one of nine states that doesnt collect income tax revenue, therefore relying more heavily on the two other areas of taxation. I don't think there's much dispute about Texas focusing on property taxes. Typically in discussions about tax bases, Texas will be referenced as a state that's a good example of a state that depends on property taxes as a revenue source, Erdmann explained. But there isnt a perfect method for comparing Texas dependence on property tax revenue to other states. This is partly because states tax real property in a variety of ways. For instance, while some states impose a tax rate on a homes market value, others impose it on a percentage of the market value, according to the Tax Foundation, a non-partisan and pro-business think tank. In some states, counties also can differ in how levies are calculated. According to Janelle Cammenga, a policy analyst with the Tax Foundations Center for State Tax Policy, theres a variety of ways property tax burdens on residential properties can be measured. There are a couple different ways you can compare, none of them are perfect, but they can all kind of give you an idea of where Texas is going to lie, Cammenga said. For instance, state rankings could be organized by property tax collections per capita, which would provide a rough estimate by dividing a states total residential property tax payments by its number of residents. Under this methodology, Texas would have the 13th highest property tax burden with Texans paying $1,973 per year, according to a Tax Foundation analysis. Washington D.C., New Jersey and New Hampshire would top that list, each with over $3,000 in annual per capita property tax payments. Another way to rank states would be to compare states effective tax rates on owner-occupied housing, or the average amount of residential property tax payments. This method takes home values into account by expressing this average amount as a percentage of home value. Here, Texas would rank No. 6, with homeowners paying about 1.6% of their home value in property taxes per year, according to the Tax Foundations analysis. New Jersey again tops that list, followed by Illinois and New Hampshire. This methodology also was used in an analysis cited by Huffines campaign spokesperson. According to this Wallet Hub study, released earlier this year, Texas effective tax rate is the 7th highest in the nation. A third way to compare is by looking at how property tax burdens compare across counties. For instance, which states have the most counties with median property tax payments of over $5,000? New Jersey has 19 counties in which the median property tax burden is higher than $5,000 per year  the highest in the nation. Texas would rank 7th, after New York, Illinois, California, New Hampshire and Connecticut, according to the Tax Foundation. In Texas, the high watermark is set by Collin County, where the median property tax burden is $5,600. Fort Bend County and Travis County follow with median taxes at $5,563 and $5,439, respectively. Its safe to say that Texas tends to have pretty high property taxes, Cammenga said. Whether or not its the highest  that really hard to say. They're probably not, but it is up there. It's unclear exactly how feasible it would be for a state to eliminate property taxes altogether, especially one that already doesnt collect income taxes, experts said. In 2018, property taxes made up 44% of state and local tax collections in Texas. Both experts we spoke with agreed that, if Huffines were elected and able to fulfill this campaign promise, Texas would be the first state in the nation to eliminate property taxes. Eliminating that is a really tall order. That's almost half of (Texas) tax collections, Cammenga said. I don't know of a state that has eliminated property taxes, because it's such an essential part of local finances. I don't think there's another state that has literally zero property tax, Erdmann said. Huffines has pledged to eliminate property taxes if elected governor. He justifies this pledge by claiming that Texas has some of the highest property taxes in the nation. There are several different ways to compare and rank states property tax burden. From the ranking methodologies reviewed here, Texas has between the 6th highest and 13th highest property taxes. Huffines statement is somewhat subjective  theres no absolute way to define some of the highest. Nonetheless, experts generally agree that, even though theres no standard way to compare and rank states property tax burden, Texas is heavily dependent on property tax revenue. We rate this claim Mostly True. A law professor running against U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of South Florida says she is in the pocket of big banks and isnt looking out for consumers who get crushed by debt from payday loans. My opponent, after taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks, has voted to prevent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFTP) from regulating payday loans and addressing racial discrimination in car loans, said Tim Canova on hiswebsite. Canova, a first-time candidate and professor at Nova Southeastern University, is challenging Wasserman Schultz in the August Democratic primary in a Broward/Miami-Dade district. The race has drawn national attention because Wasserman Schultz is the Democratic National Committee chair. Did Canova accurately describe her donations from banks and her votes related to payday loans and car loans? There is some truth to his attack, but each one requires explanation. Donations from Wall Street banks Canovas campaign pointed to donations from banks, securities/investment firms and finance/credit companies to Wasserman Schultzs campaign committee and her political action committee, or PAC. At PolitiFact Floridas request, the Center for Responsive Politics compiled the large individual donations (more than $200) and donations to her PAC starting with her 2006 election. The center found she received $309,020 from commercial banks, which represented about 2 percent of the total; $408,450 from securities/investment firms, and $325,850 from finance/credit companies. Her leadership PAC, Democrats Win Seats, received donations from the Goldman Sachs PAC:$5,000 in 2016and$10,000in 2014. Wasserman Schultz spokesman Sean Bartlett pointed to donations only to her campaign and plucked out what he said were the big bank donations. That totaled $15,400, including $4,000 from Goldman Sachs. But the Center for Responsive Politics shows a longer list of bank donations even if we only examine her campaign committee. It shows$171,303 for commercial bankindustry donations. Payday loan bill Payday loans are small, short-term loans that borrowers promise to repay out of their next paycheck at ahigh rateof interest. It is a controversial industry that targets the poor and is disproportionately located in minority communities. For years, payday loans were unregulated by the federal government, although some states had their own laws. President Barack Obama took a step toward regulating the industry when he signed a bill in 2010 that included the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans have targeted the bureau for years. Enter some Democrats into the fray -- including Wasserman Schultz, who has gotten about $68,000 from payday lenders, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Wasserman Schultz is among Florida lawmakers who have defended Floridas payday law despite the fact that some consumer advocates have bashed it and say it traps the poor in a debt cycle. Wasserman Schultzs position is to give precedence to the state law, her spokesman said. On the federal level, the bureau released anoutline of payday loan rulesin March 2015 and is expected to announce a more complete proposal within the next several months. Congress doesnt have to approve it but can introduce legislation to kill it. All but one member of Floridas congressional delegation (Tom Rooney) signed aletterin April 2015 pushing back against the proposed rules. Instead, they want the bureau to look at Floridas law as a model. That led U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, a Florida Republican, to file the Consumer Protection and Choice Act,H.R. 4018in November. Half of the 24 cosponsors are from Florida, including Wasserman Schultz, and nine of the cosponsors are Democrats. Canovas website said Wasserman Schultz voted on the bill, but it was only referred to a committee without a vote. (After we pointed that out to Canova senior adviser Richard Bell, the campaign changed the website to say co-sponsored instead of voted.) The bill states that if the bureau determines that a states law meets the federal requirements, then only state law will apply. It would also delay federal regulations for two years, which would allow states to come up with their own laws. More than 200 consumer or civil rights groups -- including the NAACP, National Council of La Raza, Southern Poverty Law Center and the Consumer Federation of America -- wrote aletterto Congress urging them to defeat the bill. They argued that the bill favors an industry-backed Florida law and would hurt consumers. Floridas 2001 payday loan law was a compromise and included protections that were intended to help the poor avoid an endless cycle of debt. But the loans leave consumers stuck on a debt treadmill in Florida, where they have racked up $2.5 billion in fees since 2005, according to the Center for Responsible Lendings Marchreport. In the past year, the average Florida payday loan had an annual rate of 278 percent. Richard Cordray, head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, disputed Ross description of Floridas law as the gold standard during a congressional hearing on March 16. In Florida, these loans are still being made above the 300 percent, and they are being rolled over on average nine times, Cordraysaid. Bartlett argued that Wasserman Schultz has fought against abusive payday lending practices and pointed to her vote on a separate bill in 2015. She voted against HR 766, the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act, which opponents argued would have prevented the Justice Department from going after the financial industry. Racial discrimination in car loans Canova also said Wasserman Schultz prevented action to stop racial discrimination for car loans. This part of Canovas attack relates to a2013 bulletinfrom the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which recommended steps for auto lenders to avoid discrimination. The bulletin was intended to provide clarity about existing law. But theHouse of Representativespushed back against the bureau by passing a bill to nullify the bulletin. The bill passed the House 332-96 in November 2015 and hasnt had a vote in the Senate. Wasserman Schultz was one of 88 Democrats who voted in favor of it, while 96 Democrats opposed it. Proponentsof the bill -- including auto dealers -- said the bureaus efforts would increase costs for consumers. Groups that representedminoritieswanted the new guidelines. This legislation in no way prevented the CFPB from addressing racial discrimination in car loans, and the congresswoman does not support that as a policy position, her spokesman said. The bill hasnt been acted on, and discrimination investigations can continue. A few months after the House vote,Toyotaagreed to a $21.9 million settlement to black and Asian buyers. Our ruling Canova says Wasserman Schultz after taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks, has voted to prevent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from regulating payday loans and addressing racial discrimination in car loans. Her campaign committee and PAC have taken $309,020 from commercial banks since her re-election campaign in 2006 -- about 2 percent of the total. That includes $15,000 in donations from Goldman Sachs to her leadership PAC. The payday loan bill hasnt had a vote in the House yet, although Wasserman Schultz is a co-sponsor. The bill would not prevent the bureau from regulating payday loans entirely, but it would cede power to the states, including Florida, which has its own payday law that some advocates have criticized as weak. She voted for a bill that squashed bureau guidelines that were intended to provide clarity about the law on racial discrimination related to car loans. We rate this claim Mostly True. In August 2020, a widely shared image claiming to depict a 392-year-old shark resurfaced on social media, garnering thousands of shares on both Facebook and Twitter. Facebook Twitter   This was a variation of a familiar meme, which we identified as "false" in December 2018. We are rating the newer variation as "mixture" because the image that circulated in 2020 was, indeed, a photograph of a Greenland shark. However, we were unable to determine the exact age of the shark in question, though the age of a given Greenland shark can be estimated by its length (more on that later).  December 2018 Both viral memes originated from a study published in the journal Science in August 2016. In the study, researcher Julius Nielsen, who was then a Ph.D. student at the University of Copenhagen, set out to define the life history of the Greenland shark, scientifically known as Somniosus microcephalus. These deep ocean fish have been described as an "iconic species of the Arctic seas" and remain one of the most enigmatic creatures on Earth (see National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration picture below), mainly due to their unique ability to survive at depths of at least 7,200 feet. Science Julius Nielsen at least 7,200 feet   When the research was first announced in 2016, many mainstream media publications picked up the study and declared that the Greenland shark was the longest-lived vertebrate known on the planet. In the years following the publication of the study, various iterations of the photograph's subject and its age have recirculated in different forms. A reverse-image search found 56 results, dating back to as far as 2018. Following another round of social media virality, Nielsen took to Instagram in December 2017 to address misleading claims related to the age of the shark in question: media publications declared everse-image search Instagram Social media are going beserk over old Greenland sharks these days?? All of this is just the same story coming to life from August 2016 and please note that we have not found any sharks to be 600 or 500 yr old.... we have ESTIMATED (meaning that it has not been verified) that one shark was AT LEAST 272 yr old or in more detail that this shark was between 272-512 yr old with 95.5% certainty (the later also being an unverified estimate). Over the course of a three-year project to study the biology of the Greenland shark, the team used radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of 28 specimens that had been accidentally caught as by-catch over several years. The findings concluded that the slow-maturing species grows by about .4 inches each year, and can reach lengths stretching to over 16 feet. The largest shark analyzed in the study was measured at nearly 16.5-feet long, and was believed to have been around 392 years old in 2016  which would make her about 396 in August 2020. However, radiocarbon dating studies typically determine age ranges rather than point to a specific age. Based on the analysis of 28 female Greenland sharks  each of which measured between 2.5 and 16.5 feet long  the study authors estimated an average species lifespan of at least 272 years. If the estimates followed the annual growth of .4 inches to a tee, then one might calculate the largest shark to be 502 years old. Range estimates, on the other hand, showed that the largest shark was likely 392 years old, give or take 120 years.  A University of Copenhagen news release published at the time of the study described Greenland sharks as "among the largest carnivorous sharks on the planet," whose role as an apex predator in the Arctic ecosystem is "completely overlooked." Greenland sharks can reach lengths of up to 24 feet and weigh more than 2,000 pounds. news release What remains unclear is whether the shark featured in the meme was that same large shark mentioned above, or another one photographed as part of the research. So, while the photograph does, in fact, depict an individual, long-lived Greenland shark, the exact age of the specimen is not made readily clear in the research. Have you seen other variations of this claim? Let us know. Let us know Nielsen, Juilius, et al.  "Eye Lens Radiocarbon Reveals Centuries of Longevity in the Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus)."
  Science.  12 Aug 2016.  Morelle, Rebecca.  "400-Year-Old Greenland Shark Longest-Living Vertebrate."
  BBC.  12 Aug 2016.  Bates, Mary.  "272-Year-Old Shark Is Longest-Lived Vertebrate on Earth."
  National Geographic.  11 Aug 2016.   "Greenland Sharks Live For Hundreds of Years."
  University of Copenhagen.  11 Aug 2016.  Putterman, Samantha.  "Viral Photo Does Show Longest-Living Shark Species, But Exact Age Is Unclear."
  PolitiFact.  28 Jan 2016. Claim:  Marco Polo said: "The militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim."  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2015] A quote attributed to Marco Polo.  Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant whose travels are recorded in the Book of the Marvels of the World, was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his travel experience through Central Asia and China. "The militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim." Is this accurate and attributed to Polo? Origins:  The Book of the Marvels of the World, more commonly known in English as The Travels of Marco Polo, is a travelogue compiled in the 13th century by Rustichello da Pisa.  The work was based on accounts told to da Pisa by Venetian merchant traveler Marco Polo when the two men were imprisoned together in Genoa and comprises tales of Polo's world travels and his experiences at the court of Kublai Khan.  The  Book of the Marvels of the World includes descriptions of a number of different cultures and comments about the religion of Islam, but neither Marco Polo nor the compiler of his travel tales wrote a "militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim." The referenced quote has been circulating on the Internet for several years and seems to have originated in an article titled "The Alien Concept of Free Speech" published on a web site called Islamic Scriptures Unveiled.  That article offered up several quotes from "great thinkers" about Islam, including the phrase that has since been attributed to Marco Polo. But credit for that quotation was given to a professor of philosophy named Dr. M. Sabieski, not the famous Venetian traveler.  originated It's uncertain when Marco Polo's name became incorrectly attached to the "militant Muslim" quote, but it probably started after the Islam Watch web site reproduced the quotes used in the "Alien Concepts of Free Speech" article in August 2008. Islam Watch changed the order of many of the quotes and placed Marco Polo's name below the words originally attributed to Sabieski: reproduced  These quotes have subsequently been copied and pasted to various blogs over the years, and somewhere along the line Dr. M. Sabieski's name was elided.  An e-mail circulated in January 2015 under the title "Marco Polo Got It Right" included the quote superimposed over an image of Marco Polo: Marco Polo got it right. Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant whose travels are recorded in the Book of the Marvels of the World, was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his travel experience through Central Asia and China.  There is no mention of "moderate" or "militant" Muslims in Book of the Marvels of the World. Marco Polo's name apparently became attached to the quotation now credited to him only because his name appeared in close proximity to the statement when it was reproduced online in 2008.  So that's the end of that, right? Well, the origins of the quote are still something a mystery, as no reliable information about Dr. M. Sabieski, the professor of philosophy who was originally credited for these words, is currently available. Last updated:  23 January 2015