Biden Didn’t Say U.S. Economy is Worse Off Than E.U.
The Claim
Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden said that the Uniited States' economy performs worse than that of some other countries, especially in the European Union.
News posted on
Emerging story
On September 5, 2020, Biden said in a speech on the economy that Trump’s handling on the COVID-19 pandemic made unemployment rates worse, that unemployment doubled in the U.S. while it only went up by half in the E.U. On September 7, Breitbart released an article entitled “Fact Check: Joe Biden Falsely Claims U.S. Economy Is Worse Off than Europe and Japan.”
The claim soon went viral on social media.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found that, ironically, just because an article claims to be a fact check doesn’t mean it’s true. The Breitbart article is “fact checking” something that was never there. Biden didn’t say that the U.S.’s entire economy is worse off than the E.U. because of Trump’s actions.
The video of his speech is below.
Instead, Biden said that the unemployment rate has increased at a disproportional rate than the E.U. He never mentioned other market indicators, such as GDP. On this, what Biden said was correct. In fact, he actually understated the impact of COVID-19. In March, the U.S.’s unemployment rate was at 4.4 percent. In July, it was at 8.4 percent. In the EU, March’s unemployment rate went from 6.6 to 7.9 percent in July. In other words, U.S. unemployment doubled with E.U. unemployment – roughly a quarter.
