President Joe Biden recited a flurry of figures in a Friday speech in which he urged Congress to pass the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package he calls the American Rescue Plan.
We fact-checked many of the statistical claims Biden made in the speech – and found Biden was highly factual, though there are some nuances worth noting. Here’s an assessment of seven of the claims we looked into:
Job losses in education
Biden noted that his plan includes funding for local governments to keep critical public employees on the job; his predecessor Donald Trump and other Republicans resisted this kind of direct aid to state and local governments. Biden said: “Over the last year, more than 600,000 educators have lost their jobs in the cities and towns.”
Facts First: This figure is roughly accurate, but it relies on a broad definition of “educators.”