Author: James D. Agresti

Reflecting back on 2017 and looking forward to the future when more people will know facts that allow them to make important, informed decisions, Just Facts has summarized five facts and five falsehoods that: relate to events that captured the public’s attention in 2017. have substantial impacts on masses of people, in contrast to the […]

Giving voice to the opinion of many liberals and Democrats, Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at the City University of New York, wrote that Donald Trump’s election as president was a “victory of the uneducated and uninformed.” Conversely, Trump expressed the view of many conservatives and Republicans by writing that “the fake news media” is […]

According to two recent op-eds published by the New York Times: “more guns means more murder.” “more guns means less safety.” “a gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a criminal assault, an accidental death or injury, a suicide attempt or a homicide than it is for self-defense.” “gun-owning households were 41 […]

  On September 8, 2017—the same day that Congress and President Trump passed a law suspending the federal debt limit until December—the official debt of the U.S. government surpassed the milestone of $20 trillion, reaching exactly $20,162,176,797,904. To personalize that figure, it amounts to an average of $61,889 for every person in the United States, […]

In the midst of a severe hurricane season and the destruction wrought by hurricanes Harvey and Irma, many people are claiming that man-made global warming has intensified rainfall and hurricanes. However, comprehensive facts show that rainfall and hurricane activity are well within the bounds of natural variation, and there is no cogent evidence that they […]

In the wake of President Trump’s comments about the killing and mass violence in Charlottesville, media outlets and politicians have alleged that Trump said some of the white supremacists are “very fine people” and that both sides are equally to blame. Based on those claims, they are accusing Trump of supporting neo-Nazis and drawing moral […]

Just Facts recently published a study on election fraud that found 594,000 to 5.7 million non-citizens voted illegally in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Like other studies on this issue, this one involves uncertainties that warrant consideration. The study is relevant to Donald Trump’s claim that he would have won the popular vote “if you […]

In an op-ed for the New York Times, U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) alleges that she is voting against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education because: DeVos opposes policies that allow “our young people, all of them, to participate in our democracy and compete on a fair footing in the work force.” DeVos supports “voucher […]

Newly published data from the U.S. Treasury shows that the federal government has amassed $84.3 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations. This amounts to $670,000 for every household in the U.S., a fiscal burden that equals 93% of the nation’s private wealth, including the combined value of every American’s assets […]

  In the closing weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama instructed the members of his cabinet to “prepare a detailed report on the progress we’ve made” since he became president. He then summarized these reports in a cover letter that paints a bleak picture of the U.S. before he entered the Oval Office and suggests […]

The issue of voter fraud was one of the most heated sources of controversy during the 2016 presidential election, and it continues to be so. After Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced that it was supporting recounts in several states won by Donald Trump, Trump responded with a series of Twitter posts accusing Clinton of hypocrisy for […]

As the vote counts of the 2016 presidential contest began pouring in on election night, supporters of Hillary Clinton offered a simple explanation for the results: sexism. This has become one of the rallying cries of anti-Trump protestors who have set fires in streets, thrown bottles at police officers, and blocked roadways. Politico reported that […]

The Washington Post recently published an article by reporter Jeff Guo entitled, “Why Black Workers Who Do Everything Right Still Get Left Behind.” In Guo’s terminology, “black workers who do everything right” are those who get a college education, and “left behind” refers to an alleged 18% wage gap between college-educated black workers and white […]

In the first presidential debate of the 2016 general election, Donald Trump blamed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the rise of ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. According to Trump, Obama and Clinton created a “disaster” by “the way they got out of Iraq.” This refers to the tragedy that occurred after […]

Blunt accusations of racism have become a common feature of public discourse over the past few years. With this, the views of both whites and blacks about the state of race relations in America have sunk to the lowest levels they have ever been since Gallup began polling on this issue in 2001. Beyond claims […]

During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump stated that “household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000.” Many “fact checkers” of Trump’s speech declared this statement to be true, including those of the New York Times, PolitiFact, Vox, and NPR. In reality, the data cited by Trump and […]

In his annual letter to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett—the world’s third richest person—remarked on the state of the U.S. economy and current political fracas by writing: It’s an election year, and candidates can’t stop speaking about our country’s problems (which, of course, only they can solve). As a result of this negative […]

At the request of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published a study about the impact of life expectancy on Social Security benefits. As expected, GAO found that the shorter lifespans of low-income workers reduce the total amount of benefits they receive during retirement. Specifically, people with incomes of […]

My aspiration for the country—and I believe we can achieve it—is 4% growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more […]

In the wake of the racially motivated murders of three black men and six black women by a young white man, some individuals are using this crime as a platform to claim that America is teeming with racism and that violence against black people is rising. For example, Karen Attiah of the Washington Post wrote […]

New York Times economics analyst Eduardo Porter recently penned two columns about income inequality in which he claimed that the “job market is not working to distribute wealth” and “has lost much of its power to deliver income gains to working families” over the past four decades. As proof of this, he quoted data on […]