The Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia on Tuesday for the second night of its convention, and CNN’s Reality Check Team put the speakers’ statements and assertions to the test.
The team of reporters, researchers and editors across CNN listened throughout the speeches and selected key statements, rating them true; mostly true; true, but misleading; false; or it’s complicated.
New York Sen. Charles Schumer
Reality Check: Clinton fighting to prevent NY factory closure
By Lisa Rose, CNN
Schumer suggested Clinton single-handedly convinced the executives at a nuclear engineering company to keep open their plant in Schenectady, New York, preventing local layoffs.
“Hillary listened to the factory worker at the Bechtel plant in Schenectady, worried sick that his company was leaving town,” Schumer said. “Hillary got tough. She read the corporate honchos the riot act until they agreed to keep their plant open, saving his job and many others.”
Clinton was very active in lobbying Bechtel but Schumer overstated Clinton’s role. The campaign to help the workers was actually a group effort. Schumer himself lobbied Bechtel Plant Machinery management. So did Rep. Michael McNulty, Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton. Eventually, they convinced executives to keep the facility open but the compromise involved staff reductions. Bechtel agreed to keep 130 workers employed in Schenectady but another 130 jobs were cut through retirements and transfers to the company’s campus in Pennsylvania.
Schumer’s claim that Clinton saved the plant is true, but misleading. She played a role in convincing the company to stay in Schenectady but she had help from other politicians, including Schumer himself.
There’s another asterisk: a year after the compromise was reached in 2007, a Bechtel spokesman said that the company was still transferring jobs from Schenectady to Pennsylvania but the moves would occur “over time,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez
Reality Check: Velazquez on women-owned businesses
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney
On the historic day when Clinton became the first female presidential nominee of a major party, Velazquez hailed America’s female entrepreneurs.
“Women-owned and women-operated small businesses are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in America today,” Velazquez said.
Women are creating new firms at a rapid clip. Between 2002 and 2012, the number of women-owned businesses grew at a rate 2.5 times the national average, while employment in women-owned companies increased at a rate 4.5 times that of all firms, according to the most recent statistics available from the National Women’s Business Council, a federal advisory council.
The rate of growth for women-owned businesses is almost four times the rate of men-owned companies.
The number of businesses owned by women of color has been soaring. In 2002, there were fewer than one million minority women-owned firms, or 14% of women-owned firms. A decade later, there were nearly 3.8 million firms or 38% of women-owned businesses.
Over that decade, non-minority women-owned firms grew by 9% in number, while minority women-owned business increased by 315%.
An annual report conducted by American Express backs up these statistics. Between 2007 and 2016, the number of women-owned firms has grown at a rate five times faster than the national average, according to the 2016 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report.
So we rate Velazquez’ statement as true.
Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark
Reality Check: Clark on gun violence
By Chip Grabow, CNN
In remarks supporting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Clark spoke to Clinton’s ability to take on special interests, including what she called “the big money gun lobby.”
Clark cited a statistic that “91 Americans are killed by gun violence every day.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2010 and 2014 (the latest year for which the CDC has data), an average of 32,964 people were killed by firearms each of those years. That equates to about 90 people killed by a firearm each day.
However, that average includes suicides, unintentional deaths and incidents with undetermined intent as well as violence-related firearm deaths (homicide and legal intervention). In 2014, 11,409 people were killed in gun violence-related deaths by homicide or legal intervention. The CDC reports 586 unintentional deaths by firearms that year, and they also report 270 deaths where the intent was undetermined.
Suicides in 2014 accounted for almost two-thirds of the deaths by firearms.
So, more than 90 people did die each day on average in 2014 from a firearm injury, not all of those deaths were what the CDC classified as “violence-related.”
Verdict: True, but misleading.
Former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin
Reality Check: Harkin on disability employment
By Ali Foreman, CNN
When the Americans with Disabilities Act passed the Senate, Harkin spoke loudly — without saying a word. The Iowan senator famously delivered his 1990 floor speech on inclusivity and discrimination in American Sign Language. During the second night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, an audience of delegates and spectators signed along with him. Harkin taught the crowd how to sign “America” while drawing attention to a continued lack of employment for disabled Americans.
Harkin praised the 1990 act’s successes, but noted its failings, saying, “When, 26 years later, 70% of adults with disabilities in America aren’t in the workforce, it’s time to take action.”
The Department of Labor confirms that Harkin’s claim about employment disparity for the disabled is true. However, his 70% statistic is low. In the month of June, nearly 80% of all disabled Americans did not participate in the workforce. This percentage is noticeably high, particularly when compared to the 31% of non-disabled Americans who last month weren’t part of the workforce.
Since 1991, disabled Americans have seen a sharp decline in labor force participation and employment. Analysts attribute this slip, in part, to an aging population. However, discrimination still plays a role in employment for the disabled. Data from the 2010 Census show an increasing wage gap for disabled workers, who on average get paid $9,000 less annually than their non-disabled coworkers.
We rate Harkin’s claim as true but note that the 70% of disabled Americans out of the workforce that he cited should be upped to 80%.
