Biden's Numbers in an Election Year

As regular readers know, every three months we provide reports on the state of the union -- a feature we started a month before the 2012 presidential election between then-President Barack Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Today, we published the April 2024 update to "Biden's Numbers," and we expect to publish two more quarterly reports before Election Day.

In these articles, we provide a myriad of statistics on jobs, wages, crime, health insurance, food stamps, trade and other issues in an attempt to gauge how the country is faring during President Joe Biden's time in office.

As always, the statistics can be interesting or flat out surprising. Did you know that the average daily amount of crude oil production under Biden is up 14.2%, or that murders in 69 major cities have gone down 8.6%? 

There are also numbers that may not be surprising, but still very sobering: There were an estimated 3.98 million guns sold in the U.S. in the first three months of 2024 -- but that's about 29.2% fewer than the nearly 5.63 million during the last quarter in 2020.

For more, read our full story, "Biden's Numbers, April 2024 Update."

Reader: I just wanted to know, when did you guys become established? How are you funded? By donations?

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. We were established in 2003. We celebrated our 20th anniversary last year. You can watch a video on our YouTube channel marking the occasion. 

As for our funding, we started with a founding grant from the Annenberg Foundation, a family foundation created by the late Walter H. Annenberg. We currently receive funding from the APPC Endowment, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and individual donors. We also receive funding from Meta as part of a fact-checking project to debunk social media misinformation on its platforms, including Facebook.

In the interest of transparency, we disclose the identity of any donor who contributes $1,000 or more. We provide that information in quarterly and annual reports that we post on our website and send to subscribers. In 2015, Inside Philanthropy praised our disclosure policy for “exemplifying nonprofit transparency.”

“FactCheck.org is totally transparent about its funding sources — going so far as to list a detailed breakdown of financial support by every quarter, the same standard expected of political campaigns and party committees,” it wrote. “So, quite apart from its stated mission, FactCheck.org is making a contribution by exemplifying nonprofit transparency.”

You can get more information about current and past donors on “Our Funding” page.

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Trump’s Partisan Spin on TikTok": Former President Donald Trump said he wants young voters to know that “Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok.” But a TikTok ban enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress. Trump himself tried to ban TikTok as president through an executive order, but it was blocked by the courts.
• "Q&A on Reducing COVID-19 Risk for Elderly, Immunocompromised": While the risks associated with COVID-19 generally have decreased over time due to prior exposure to the vaccines and the virus, some people remain at elevated risk, such as the elderly and immunocompromised. The updated COVID-19 vaccines and, in some cases, a new monoclonal antibody can provide increased protection for this group.
• "FactChecking Biden’s Swing-State Stops in Pennsylvania": While former President Donald Trump spent much of his week in court, President Joe Biden visited the swing state of Pennsylvania for three days and gave speeches in Scranton, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. We flagged some false and misleading claims, including several common talking points.

• "Verificando la visita de Biden a un estado pendular: Pensilvania": Mientras el expresidente Donald Trump pasaba la mayor parte de su semana en la corte, el presidente Joe Biden visitó Pensilvania, un estado pendular, durante tres días y dio discursos en Scranton, Pittsburgh y Filadelfia. Identificamos algunas afirmaciones falsas y engañosas.
• "O.J. Simpson murió de cáncer, no por las vacunas contra el COVID-19": No hay pruebas de que la vacunación provoque cáncer ni de que fuera culpable de la muerte de O. J. Simpson. Pero esa es la narrativa falsa que difundieron quienes se oponen a las vacunas contra el COVID-19.
• "Afirmación viral exagera el número de nuevos votantes en tres estados": Una afirmación en redes sociales tergiversa el número de personas que se registraron para votar en tres estados en 2024 y sugiere que los nuevos votantes son inmigrantes que se encuentran ilegalmente en el país. Se han registrado 194.000 nuevos votantes en esos estados, no 2 millones, y no hay evidencia de que hayan inmigrado ilegalmente a Estados Unidos.