Fact checking the State of the Union 2018

Subtitled: If Trump is talking, he is lying.

1. “Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone.” Since election day? Since when do president-elects create jobs. The real number is 1.8 million since the inauguration. The slowest job growth since 2010.
2. “After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.” Actually, wage increases in 2017 were the lowest in the last five years.
3. “African American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.”  This is actually true, but during the 2016 campaign, Trump continually said the unemployment statistics from the Bureau of Labor were false. Now he embraces them. The unemployment rate has been declining since 2010.
4.   “Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low.” Actually, it was a six week low. Although unemployment numbers are good overall.
5. “The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans’ 401(k), retirement, pension and college savings accounts.” Again, that is a number since the election, not the inauguration. Still, good news. In fact, the US stock market is lagging behind the global markets and the 2017 percent increase (25.5%) is lower than the 2009 increase (33.3%), Obama's first year in office. Remember, if you take credit for the market increases, you also have to own the decreases. The market was down the day of the SOTU.
6. “Just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.”  It's actually the 8th largest tax cut. Reagan holds the record and two Obama tax cuts were larger.
7. “Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.” The tax cut does help the middle class until the cuts expire. Most of the cuts benefit the rich and large businesses.
8. “We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.” Independent economists claim the numbers don't add up. A $4K increase per family would be more than all the corporate taxes collected. Estimates are more like $1,600 per average household. That's pretty good, why lie and inflate the number?
9. “We have ended the war on American energy — and we have ended the war on beautiful clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.” First, there is no such thing as "clean coal" and certainly not "beautiful clean coal". What he did do is repeal the Clean Power Plan. We have always exported energy, but we are not a "net" exporter of energy. 
10. “Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States — something we have not seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan.” Fiat Chrysler planned that new plant before the 2016 election.
11. “The third pillar ends the visa lottery — a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit or the safety of our people.” This "lottery" is administered by our State Department, not the foreign countries. Applicants must have at least a high school diploma or equivalent or two years work experience. They are vetted and given medical tests.
12. “The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.”  Only citizens can bring in more than spouses and unmarried children. Even at that, these are not automatic immigration visas. There are currently about four million on the waiting list.
13. “In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford.”  Technically correct. Two immigrant terrorists out of the thousands who have come into the country via these programs are statistically insignificant. 
14. “We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world.” True in total dollars but as a percentage of GDP, the US ranks 22nd out of 29 wealthy countries. 

There were also a few things that Trump failed to mention. Approximately ⅓ of Puerto Rico is still without power and FEMA is ending emergency supply shipments. He also didn't mention that all those Carrier jobs he "saved" are now going to Mexico after all. Russia is still trying to influence our elections.  

To Trump's credit, he stayed on script and boringly read the teleprompter. He also clapped at his own statements. He promised bipartisan cooperation. Let's see how that works out.

wjh