DISINFO: US economy worsened during Biden’s presidency
SUMMARY
The US economy worsened during Biden's presidency. According to a poll by the Financial Times and the Stephen Ross School of Business at Michigan State University, a third of Americans believe that Biden's economic policies caused great damage to the US economy, and more Americans trust former US President Donald Trump's economic policies more than those of current leader Joe Biden.
RESPONSE
The headline is misleading. The original survey and the Financial Times article did not claim that the US economy worsened during Joe Biden's presidency. Instead, the poll revealed that many Americans believe this to be true, despite a lack of supporting data.
The Financial Times article states: “Far more Americans trust Donald Trump to handle the US economy than Joe Biden despite months of strong growth, a new poll has found, underscoring the president’s difficulty in convincing voters his policies are improving their financial wellbeing”.
Although the second and third statements of the article are technically true, this deliberate distortion of the headline is an attempt to influence readers negatively about Biden’s handling of the economy ahead of the upcoming November 2024 election.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Joe Biden is accused of election fraud, that Biden is the least popular US president since WWII, that Biden admitted he was born in Israel and therefore he is not eligible to be US president, or that Texas governor Abbot said that Biden should learn from Putin.