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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.

7,104 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYEconomy & business

Farm credit target has been raised to a record high of 11 lakh crore rupees for 2018-19.

Publisher’s rating: PARTLY TRUE

The claim concerned the farm-credit target for the 2018–19 financial year, not the amount of credit ultimately disbursed. FACTLY’s review says the Finance Minister announced in the 2018–19 budget that the target for institutional credit to agriculture had been raised to 11 lakh crore rupees. It compares that figure with targets of 10 lakh crore in 2017–18 and 8.5 lakh crore in 2014–15, supporting the claim that the 2018–19 target was a record high in the figures examined. The review places the increase in a longer sequence of annual budget targets. It reports that the target had risen to 7 lakh crore rupees in 2013–14, and that it increased from 3.3 lakh crore in 2009–10 to 7 lakh crore in 2013–14, then from 8 lakh crore in 2014–15 to 11 lakh crore in 2018–19. Thus, the headline figure is supported, but portraying the increase as an exceptional new development would omit the pattern of successive governments raising the target each year. FACTLY’s qualification also turns on the rate of increase: it reports an increase of more than 100% during UPA-2, compared with about 40% during the current government’s period as described in the review. On that basis, the review accepts the record-high target while qualifying the broader implication that the increase itself was unusually large.

RMIT ABC Fact CheckEconomy & business

"About two-thirds of those with negative geared properties have a taxable income of less than $80,000 ..."

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The claim concerns Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s assertion that about two-thirds of people with negatively geared properties have taxable income below $80,000. The review links it to remarks he made to journalists in Melbourne in early November and checks whether taxable income is a sound way to assess who benefits from negative gearing. It explains that a rental loss can be deducted from other income, reducing taxable income, so the measure can make investors appear to have lower incomes than they did before those losses were counted. For its comparison, Fact Check used figures from the 2015–16 sample file. It reports that about 62 per cent of negative gearers had taxable income below $80,000, a small overstatement of Frydenberg’s stated share. But the review also examines a different measure: total income before rental losses are deducted. On that basis, 52.3 per cent of negative gearers were below the threshold, compared with 76.4 per cent of all taxpayers. Above $80,000, negative gearers made up 47.7 per cent of the group, while taxpayers overall made up 23.6 per cent. The review’s central qualification is that the claim’s use of taxable income omits how negative gearing itself reduces that figure. It reports that experts recommended removing the effects of negative gearing when assessing income, and cites an expert’s explanation that taxable income already incorporates deductions. Thus, the approximate two-thirds figure is close to the review’s taxable-income estimate, but it does not establish that most beneficiaries are comparatively low-income: the review’s before-rental-loss comparison shows a substantially different distribution.

FACTLYEconomy & business

National highway network was 92,851 km in 2013-14. It is 1,20,543 km in 2017-18.

Publisher’s rating: TRUE

The claim concerns the length of India’s national-highway network, comparing 2013–14 with 2017–18. FACTLY’s review says it checked the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ annual reports for those years. The 2013–14 report gives 92,851 km for national highways and expressways; the 2017–18 report gives 1,20,543 km. On those figures, the network was longer in 2017–18 by 27,692 km.

NewtralEconomy & business

El TC ha declarado en sus sucesivas sentencias que las leyes fiscales no tienen efectos retroactivos

Publisher’s rating: Engañoso

Newtral examines a statement by Finance Minister María Jesús Montero during an exchange with Unidos Podemos deputy Ione Belarra about the government’s mortgage-tax reform. Belarra challenged the decision not to apply the reform retroactively; Montero replied that the Constitutional Court had declared in successive judgments that tax laws do not have retroactive effects. Newtral consulted two professors of tax and financial law and found that this broad formulation omitted an important qualification. The review explains that Spain’s General Tax Law allows tax rules to have retroactive effect if the law so provides. It quotes professor Adolfo Martín saying that Parliament can enact a retroactive rule benefiting taxpayers. The constitutional limit discussed in the article concerns retroactivity that harms taxpayers, not a blanket ban on retroactive tax legislation. The review also points to Constitutional Court decisions that reject such a blanket prohibition: it says judgment 102/2015 found no general principle against retroactive rules, and judgment 182/1997 said there was no constitutional prohibition of retroactive tax legislation. The article describes the Court’s approach as allowing retroactive tax laws while requiring consideration of legal certainty and the circumstances of each case. Thus, the reviewed statement presented a qualified doctrine as an absolute rule.

YouturnEconomy & business

கூகுள் நிறுவனம் தன்னிடம் வேலை பார்க்கும் பணியாளர்கள் இறந்து விட்டால் அவர்களின் வருமானத்தில் 50 % அதாவது பாதி தொகையை இறந்தவர்களின் மனைவிக்கோ அல்லது உறவினருக்கோ ஒவ்வொரு மாதமும் அடுத்த பத்து ஆண்டுகளுக்கு வழங்கும். அதுமட்டுமின்றி இறந்தவரின் குழந்தைக்கு 19 வயது வரை மாதம் 1000 டாலர்கள் வழங்கும்.

Publisher’s rating: True

NewtralEconomy & business

Del total de contratos, el 86% de contratos eran temporales frente al 50% de antes

Publisher’s rating: Verdadero

The claim concerned Carolina España, a Spanish People’s Party deputy, comparing temporary employment in the third quarter of 2018 with the second quarter. Newtral’s review treats the statement as a comparison of temporary work among newly created jobs, rather than a comparison of the proportion of all existing jobs that were temporary. For the third quarter, the review reports 151,000 temporary contracts among 176,300 jobs created—about 86%. For the second quarter, it says there were 465,000 new salaried workers, of whom 233,700, or 50%, had temporary contracts. Those figures support the comparison as presented in the claim, though the review’s figures use “jobs created” for the third-quarter denominator and “new salaried workers” for the second-quarter figure. The review identifies the Spanish Labour Force Survey (EPA) for the second and third quarters of 2018 as its sources. Its discussion distinguishes this comparison from a separate claim about the overall temporary-employment rate: that rate was 27.43% in the third quarter, not the 86% share among jobs created.

NewtralEconomy & business

el paro juvenil está subiendo

Publisher’s rating: Engañoso

The statement that youth unemployment was rising was made by PP deputy Carolina España while discussing employment figures in a parliamentary control session. Newtral checked her claims against Spain’s Labour Force Survey (EPA) results, including the third quarter of 2018, and found that the youth-unemployment claim needed to be considered by age group rather than treated as a single uniform trend. The review identifies the relevant claim as: “el paro juvenil está subiendo”. The age-group figures moved in different directions. Among people aged 16–19, unemployment fell by 1,900; among those aged 20–24, it rose by 8,000; and among those aged 25–34, it fell by 21,100. The review therefore documents an increase for one of the listed groups, but declines in the other two. That breakdown is the evidence behind the review’s conclusion: the unqualified statement that youth unemployment was rising did not describe the mixed movement across the age ranges examined. The excerpt does not provide an aggregate youth-unemployment figure, so it supports this age-group comparison rather than a claim about a single overall rate.

NewtralEconomy & business

El trimestre anterior con el PP se crearon 469.000 empleos mientras que este trimestre con el PSOE han sido 183.000, menos de la mitad del empleo que se creaba antes

Publisher’s rating: Verdadero

The claim compared the increase in employed people in the second quarter of 2018 with the increase in the third quarter. Newtral’s review reports that the Labour Force Survey (EPA) recorded 469,900 additional employed people in the second quarter, compared with 183,900 in the third. Those figures support the numerical comparison that the latter increase was less than half the former. The review also reports that employment reached 19,528,000 in the third quarter and had stood at 19,344,100 in the second. The attribution of the whole second quarter to the PP needs qualification. The review notes that Pedro Sánchez took office on June 2, so the second-quarter figure covers a period that was not entirely under the PP government. Thus the employment figures match the comparison, but the political framing does not precisely describe the timing of the quarter. The review’s account identifies EPA figures for the second and third quarters of 2018 as its basis. It does not describe an independent calculation beyond reporting those figures. The claim is about the change in the number of employed people between quarters, not the total number employed; the review distinguishes the increases (469,900 and 183,900) from the employment totals.

RMIT ABC Fact CheckEconomy & business

"Over the last 10 years, we've actually seen wages increase by around 30 per cent and inflation increase by around 20 per cent. Certainly, wages haven't grown as fast as people might like, but wages have grown steadily over that period of time."

Publisher’s rating: Not the full story

Kelly O'Dwyer, then Jobs and Industrial Relations Minister, made the statement on Channel Ten's The Project on October 23. The review tested both the numerical comparison—wages up around 30 per cent and inflation around 20 per cent over ten years—and her characterization of wage growth as steady. It distinguishes nominal wage increases from changes in real wages, which account for inflation. For the headline figures, the review relied on the Australian Bureau of Statistics' wage price index, which tracks changes in hourly pay costs for a given job, and the consumer price index as its measure of inflation. Over the decade to June 2018, the wage price index rose 32 per cent and the consumer price index 23.4 per cent. Those figures support O'Dwyer's approximate comparison, but they do not establish that workers' purchasing power rose at a steady pace. The review converted wage figures into real terms and found a pronounced slowdown: real wages rose 5.5 per cent from June 2008 to June 2013, but only 1.5 per cent from June 2013 to June 2018. On financial-year averages, annual real-wage growth averaged 1 per cent in the first half of the decade and 0.3 per cent in the second. The review also notes that real wages did not rise every year. Thus, the claim's approximate nominal totals were supported, while its description of the pattern as steady omitted how heavily the gains were concentrated in the earlier years.

FACTLYEconomy & business

A bank account has been created for every family in just four years.

Publisher’s rating: UNVERIFIED

The claim concerns whether the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) opened a bank account for every Indian family within four years. FACTLY notes that PMJDY aimed to provide at least one basic banking account for every household, but distinguishes that goal from evidence that every household actually had an account. The review also notes earlier basic-account initiatives, including an RBI direction in 2005 and guidelines for basic savings accounts in 2012; it says public information about the number of accounts under those earlier schemes was unavailable. [S1: “The Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) envisages universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic banking account for every household”; “In the year 2005, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has directed banks to make a basic, ‘no-frills’ account available to all the citizens. In the year 2012, the RBI issued detailed guidelines to banks about the Basic savings bank deposit account, which was also a financial inclusion scheme. Information about the number of such accounts is not available in the public domain.”] To assess the scale of PMJDY, the review cites government figures of 31.34 crore accounts in March 2018 and 32.17 crore in August 2018, then reports that the scheme’s website showed 32.99 crore beneficiaries on 29 October 2018. It compares that last figure with 24.7 crore Indian households recorded in the 2011 census. That comparison indicates the total number of PMJDY accounts exceeded the household count, but does not establish that each family had an account: the review explicitly says it could not verify account coverage for every family, even using a household as a proxy for a family. [S1: “As far as PMJDY is concerned, as per an answer provided by the government in March 2018 in the Lok Sabha, 31.34 crore accounts were opened. As per another answer provided in August 2018, the government mentioned that 32.17 crore accounts have been opened under PMJDY.”; “As on 29th October 2018, the PMJDY website shows that there are 32.99 crore beneficiaries of the scheme.”; “According to the Census of India’s population enumeration data collected in 2011, there are 24.7 crore households in India. Hence, the number of bank accounts opened under PMJDY is more than the total number of households (32.99 crore). However, it cannot be verified if every family has a bank account (despite assuming a household as a proxy for a family).”]

FACTLYEconomy & business

31.52 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened, equivalent to the population of USA.

Publisher’s rating: TRUE

FACTLY examined a claim in a government infographic about financial inclusion: that 31.52 crore Jan Dhan accounts had been opened, a number equivalent to the U.S. population. The review’s comparison relied on account totals reported by the Indian government and the PMJDY website, and a U.S. Census Bureau population figure. It records that the government reported 32.17 crore accounts in August 2018, while the PMJDY website showed 32.99 crore beneficiaries as of 29 October 2018. The review also gives the U.S. population as 32.88 crore on 28 October 2018. [S1: “As per another answer provided in August 2018, the government mentioned that 32.17 crore accounts have been opened under PMJDY. The government also stated that out of the total accounts, 59% are in rural/semi-urban centers and 53% have been opened by women beneficiaries. As on 29th October 2018, the PMJDY website shows that there are 32.99 crore beneficiaries of the scheme.”; “The Census Bureau of the United States shows that there were 32.88 crore people in the country as on 28th October 2018.”] The review’s verdict rests on the later, higher account total: 32.99 crore is close to, and slightly above, the cited U.S. population of 32.88 crore. The stated 31.52-crore figure is not the total the review uses for that comparison; its conclusion reflects the updated account count it reports. The review therefore marks this specific numerical comparison TRUE. [S1: “Claim: 31.52 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened, equivalent to the population of USA. Fact: A total of 32.99 crore accounts have been opened under PMJDY till date. The latest population of the USA is 32.88 crores. Hence, the claim is TRUE.”]

FACTLYEconomy & business

FDI equity flow has gone up by 47%.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim appeared in a government infographic on the 48-Month portal. FACTLY found that it did not specify which years were being compared, so the percentage could not be assessed without making assumptions. For one comparison, the review assumed the claim meant FDI equity inflows from 2013–14 to 2016–17, matching the years used in a neighboring claim in the infographic. On that basis, the cited figures were USD 24.299 billion in 2013–14 and USD 43.478 billion in 2016–17. FACTLY calculated an increase of 79%, not 47%. It also considered other combinations of base and comparison years: those produced increases ranging from 40% to 77%, but none yielded 47%. The review says the figures could be corroborated with data from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and answers in the Lok Sabha dated 19 March and 23 July 2018. Because the infographic left the comparison period undefined and the examined figures did not support 47%, FACTLY concluded that available data did not corroborate the claim. The review treated a separate infographic figure—an increase in overall gross FDI from USD 36.05 billion to USD 60.08 billion—as a different claim; that figure concerns gross FDI, not the specific 47% claim about FDI equity flow.

FACTLYEconomy & business

There has been a rise from 36.05 billion USD in 2013-14 to 60.08 billion USD in 2016-17

Publisher’s rating: TRUE

FACTLY examined figures presented in a government infographic about foreign investment. For the claim that the amount rose from USD 36.05 billion in 2013–14 to USD 60.08 billion in 2016–17, the review noted that the infographic did not specify what the numbers measured. It compared them with Reserve Bank of India data on foreign investment flows and found that the figures corresponded to India’s gross foreign direct investment (Gross FDI).