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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Economy & business fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about economy & business. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

7,096 published reviews in this topic

RMIT ABC Fact CheckEconomy & business

"$325 for someone working less than 20hrs is ... less than the average rent for a 1br place in Melb[ourne]."

Publisher’s rating: Close to the mark

Adam Bandt’s claim compared the $325 COVID-19 Disaster Payment available to eligible workers working fewer than 20 hours a week with the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Melbourne. The review found the comparison close: it reports that the relevant Melbourne rental rate was $5 a week below the payment, making the rent about $320 a week. On those figures, the payment was slightly higher than the rent, rather than lower. The review’s assessment concerned a particular period during the pandemic, when rental rates in Melbourne had fallen. It notes that vacancy rates in metropolitan Melbourne rose from 1.9 per cent in March 2020 to 4.7 per cent in December 2020, then eased to 4.0 per cent by April 2021. The article links the decline in rents largely to the absence of international students and backpackers, who had accounted for a significant portion of the rental market in inner Melbourne and areas near tertiary institutions. There is a measurement qualification: the review says the real estate market generally reports median rents rather than averages. It therefore explains that the comparison uses rental-rate data described in the article, while noting the distinction between the median and average. The evidence supports a close comparison, but the $5 weekly difference and that statistical distinction matter when interpreting Bandt’s wording.

Pagella PoliticaEconomy & business

«[Nel primo trimestre 2021] Il dato export segna un +4% rispetto al 2020 ma soprattutto, in valori assoluti, siamo a 118 miliardi di euro: un valore superiore rispetto al record del 2019»

Publisher’s rating: Vero

The statement concerned Italy’s export figures for January–March 2021. On June 8, Foreign Affairs Minister Luigi Di Maio said in an interview that exports reached €118 billion, were up 4% on the same period in 2020, and exceeded the first-quarter 2019 record. The review checked those comparisons against statistical data, reporting that Istat recorded €117.9 billion in exports in the first quarter of 2021. For the comparison with 2019, the review reports first-quarter exports of €116.2 billion that year. The 2021 figure was therefore €1.7 billion higher. It also says the 2019 figure was the second-highest first-quarter result since 2014, while 2019 as a whole was the highest annual export total since 1988, based on Eurostat data. These distinctions support the comparison with the first quarter of 2019 without implying that the 2021 first-quarter figure surpassed the full-year 2019 total. The year-on-year comparison was also broadly supported, though the review gives a more precise increase than Di Maio’s rounded figure: exports rose from €112.7 billion in the first quarter of 2020 to €117.9 billion in the first quarter of 2021, a 4.6% increase. The review cautions that this comparison was affected by the pandemic: Italy entered national lockdown in early March 2020, amid a sharp slowdown in world trade. It also compared Italy with France, Germany and Spain, finding different national outcomes; those comparisons do not change the underlying Italian figures.

FACTLYEconomy & business

‘Rolex’ is conducting an online contest to gift luxury watches on the occasion of its 100th-anniversary celebrations

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a purported Rolex website offering luxury watches through an online contest, said to mark the company’s 100th-anniversary celebrations. FACTLY says it received a request to check the website’s authenticity and describes the offer as a contest using Rolex’s name. The review’s conclusion was that the website was fraudulent, rather than an official Rolex promotion. [S1]