PolitiFact
Fact-checking Illinois politicians, written by the Better Government Association.
Irvin chose to compare the two years that reflect the largest downturn in homicides. Six were committed in Aurora in 2017 and four in 2018. Overall, however, homicides have fluctuated under his tenure. Using his math, the homicide rate during his second year in office jumped by 200%, from four in 2018 to 12 in 2019.
State Rep. Blaine Wilhour said there is absolutely no observed or clinical data that indicates any benefit to masking K-12 students in schools. Clinical studies cannot be conducted because of the risk they would pose to unprotected children, but observational data shows masks are beneficial in reducing transmissions in schools.
While California’s poverty rate ranks among the nation’s highest, federal data show the state is far from being home to a third of the nation’s poor.
We turned to Illinois data, which shows CPS ranks well outside the top 20 for average teacher compensation in its own state.
He was referencing a 2017 survey that asked police at departments that employ 100 or more officers whether they support requiring background checks for private gun sales and sales at gun shows.
His latest statement relates to an updated edition of a study he has cited before. Once again, he cited it accurately. But there are caveats worth keeping in mind.
Trump has indeed proposed changes that match what Duckworth described. Each has been widely criticized for the risk they pose to housing access for some of the nation’s most vulnerable residents. But none of his proposed policy changes have yet been enacted.
Using books, historical organizations, research articles and other sources, PolitiFact found there is strong evidence to back Chicago documentary filmmaker Arlen Parsa’s claim.
Lightfoot is correct that cities and towns outside Chicago are pressured with mounting pension debt. By raising the specter of insolvency, however, the mayor suggests the situation faced by the vast majority of Downstate public safety pension funds is far more dire than it really is.
Casten’s claim traces back to a 2018 report that said nations must take “unprecedented” actions to reduce emissions to put them on different trajectory by 2030 to avoid more severe impacts from warming. However, it did not identify the hard deadline Casten and others have suggested.
Most murders are committed with firearms, a majority of them handguns, federal data show. Even so, Kinzinger significantly stretched the facts by claiming handguns are used to commit nearly all murders.
Former state Rep. Jeanne Ives says ex-Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti did not denounce a controversial bill signed by former Gov. Bruce Rauner that expanded public funding of abortions.
Despite some limitations, federal data does suggest the number of credible fear claims made by migrants seeking asylum at the southwest border has hit a record high.
Pallasch acknowledged Mendoza’s office mistakenly used the 37.32 cents per gallon statistic for Illinois even though it represented an outdated number from last year. That led to a faulty analysis in which Mendoza compared the new Illinois excise gasoline tax to an old figure for the overall amount of taxes and fees on gasoline in Indiana.
Pritzker’s specific claim about where the rest of the funding will go under this plan is not yet possible to pin down based on our analysis.
Trump’s Justice Department has indeed stepped back from pushing for reforms at individual police agencies. But the same agency had lauded progress fostered by consent decrees and concluded they did not appear to endanger public safety.
PolitiFact rates claims based on the words people speak. Corrections by his staff aside, Brady not only referred to the state’s most recent tax increase and not the 2011 hike but also twice mentioned middle-income families in his remarks.
Despite widespread public concern, however, we could find no evidence that Joliet school buses had been prohibited from traversing the I-80 bridges with students aboard.
The BGA is not in the habit of delving into a claim prefaced as rumor, but the mayor’s suggestion cried out for a closer look.
What Murphy neglected to mention during the press conference was that Cuomo wasn’t criticizing his state’s graduated income tax rate structure.
The data Pritzker’s team sent us came from two federal sources: the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figures for those states check out, but they don’t come close to telling the full story.
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, show Illinois added — rather than lost — roughly 48,000 jobs overall in 2007.
With nearly half of income-taxing states not charging higher rates to the wealthy, it’s clear the ad’s claim is off base.
Chicago is far from the nation’s leader in reducing teen smoking. At least nine other major school districts or counties came out ahead.
Experts we spoke with summed up the claim as a “myth,” “clearly not true,” and “total nonsense.”
While there’s no official definition for a “jobs tax,” it is clear Pritzker’s plan doesn’t contain one.
It’s not true in Illinois and we could find no credible evidence that suggested it was true elsewhere.
Preckwinkle criticized a city program aimed in part at increasing the supply of affordable housing in better-off neighborhoods that have high rents.
Lightfoot’s claim is accurate, but it does little to reinforce the portrait she is drawing of a reformer who improved police accountability.
Now, Pritzker is the state’s chief executive — and the one painting tax policies in overly broad strokes.