The Washington Post Fact Checker dinged former Vice President Joe Biden Thursday for what it called a “flat-out wrong” claim he made Monday about the number of Americans living in poverty.
“We have … almost half the people in the United States living in poverty,” Biden said at the Poor People’s Campaign presidential forum in Washington, D.C.
The number of Americans living in poverty is closer to 14% using the supplemental poverty measure, and 12.3% using the official poverty measure, so WaPo awarded the Democratic frontrunner “three Pinocchios,” which indicate a “significant factual error,” for the claim. The fact checker wrote:
Biden is flat-out wrong to claim half the country is living in poverty. The three independent experts we surveyed, all of them leaders in the field of poverty research, did not hesitate to criticize his math and rejected the notion that all people below 200 percent of the poverty line should be counted as poor.
WaPo Fact Checker Gives Biden 3 Pinocchios For ‘Flat-Out Wrong’ Poverty Claim
“We have … almost half the people in the United States living in poverty,” Biden said at the Poor People’s Campaign presidential forum in Washington, D.C.
The number of Americans living in poverty is closer to 14% using the supplemental poverty measure, and 12.3% using the official poverty measure, so WaPo awarded the Democratic frontrunner “three Pinocchios,” which indicate a “significant factual error,” for the claim. The fact checker wrote:
Biden is flat-out wrong to claim half the country is living in poverty. The three independent experts we surveyed, all of them leaders in the field of poverty research, did not hesitate to criticize his math and rejected the notion that all people below 200 percent of the poverty line should be counted as poor.
WaPo Fact Checker Gives Biden 3 Pinocchios For ‘Flat-Out Wrong’ Poverty Claim
