Here are the facts — and falsehoods — behind Republican nominee Donald Trump's economic address in Detroit this afternoon.
CLAIM: “Hillary would tax some small businesses by as much as nearly fifty percent.”
THE FACTS: Clinton has not released her full tax plan, but what she has said of her tax plans so far does not back this up. Analyses by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and the more conservative Tax Foundation found that nearly all of her so-far proposed tax hikes would affect the top 10 percent of all taxpayers, particularly those who earn more than $5 million. The TPC report noted that Clinton had said she would provide tax relief to small businesses, but had not yet released a plan. Trump has in the past claimed that Clinton plans to hike tax rates to 50 percent or more, and that’s also been found untrue by fact checkers.
CLAIM: “The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan … forces investment in renewable energy at the expense of goal and natural gas, raising electricity rates.”
THE FACTS: The plan is expected to raise electricity rates, but by investing in and incentivizing energy efficiency programs, the EPA says will lower overall consumer bills by 8 percent — around $8 a month — when the plan is fully implemented in 2030.
CLAIM: “Obamacare will cost the economy 2 million full-time jobs over the next decade.”
THE FACTS: A Congressional Budget Office report estimated that the Affordable Care Act would reduce work hours by the equivalent of about 2 million workers. Notably, that doesn’t mean these jobs are all being eliminated: it includes a number of workers who will choose to work fewer hours or not at all because they can now afford health insurance. The same claim made by Laura Ingraham was rated "Mostly False" by PolitiFact.
CLAIM: "Recently, at a campaign event, Hillary Clinton short-circuited again — to use a now famous term — when she accidentally told the truth and said she wanted to raise taxes on the middle class."
THE FACTS: Clinton did not say this. Despite a recording of the event that clearly shows Clinton saying “ we aren't going to raise taxes on the middle class,” the Trump campaign has distributed a video falsely captioning the video with, “We are going to raise taxes on the middle class.” PolitiFact had already given Trump a "Pants on Fire" rating for this claim prior to his speech.
CLAIM: "Homicides last year increased by 17 percent in America’s fifty largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years."
THE FACTS: PolitiFact found this claim "Mostly True." The statistic comes from the Washington Post, but it’s a cherry-picked figure that looks at one year’s preliminary crime statistics instead of multi-year trends. Criminologists warn against taking crime statistics out of context.
CLAIM: “Finally, no family will have to pay the death tax. American workers have paid taxes their whole lives, and they should not be taxed again at death — it’s just plain wrong. We will repeal it.”
THE FACTS:Estates up to $5 million are already exempt under the estate tax. In 2011, fewer than 1 in 500 of the 2,500,000 Americans who died that year paid estate taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center.
CLAIM: "This is a city [Detroit] controlled by Democratic politicians at every leve,l and unless we change policies we will not change results."
THE FACTS: While the city has long elected Democrats, Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder gave a city manager, Kevyn Orr, in March 2013 almost complete control of the city until September 2014.
CLAIM: “There are now 94.3 million Americans outside the labor force.”
THE FACTS: PolitiFact previously rated this Trump claim "False," based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the labor market. “Once you strip out full-time students, senior citizens, the disabled, and those who have chosen not to work to take care of their children, a more reasonable estimate of ‘out of work’ Americans is somewhere in the neighborhood of 21 million, or less than a quarter of Trump’s figure,” they wrote.
CLAIM: "The United States also has the highest business tax rate among the major industrialized nations of the world, at 35 percent. It’s almost 40 percent when you add in taxes at the state level.”
THE FACTS: America does have the highest official corporate tax rate of industrialized nations, but it’s important to note that businesses do not pay it: A 2011 study by the Congressional Research Service put the effective corporate tax rate at 27.1 percent, slightly lower than the OECD average of 27.7 percent. Taking that number down even more, the Government Accountability Office estimates that most profitable, large businesses pay just 12.6 percent in taxes.
CLAIM: "Fifty-eight percent of African-American youth are either outside the labor force or not employed."
THE FACTS: This claim is technically true — 57.3 percent black Americans ages 16-24 are indeed out of the labor force or unemployed based on work force participation — but so are 43.5 percent of white Americans in the same age range, as many under 24 percent are full-time students lacking either the desire or ability to work independently of their caregivers. Trump is tweaking an earlier, inaccurate claim, when he said the black youth unemployment rate alone was 59 percent. PolitiFact found that to be "Mostly False."
