Biden makes inaccurate claim about gas prices for second time in a week

WASHINGTON (TND) — President Joe Biden once again exaggerated the success his administration has had bringing down gas prices since they peaked earlier this year.

"We’ve made historic progress. We’ve made historic progress with the price of gas down $1.30 since the beginning of the summer. In some few states, it’s below three bucks," Biden said Monday.

However, according to AAA gas price averages by state, no state in the U.S. has an average gas price below $3.00 as of Sept 27. The state of Mississippi has the lowest average gas price at $3.07.

Biden made the same inaccurate claim three days earlier during a Democratic National Committee (DNC) event.

"Gas prices – I know I got criticized for going into the stockpile. But guess what? Gas prices are down, $1.30 a gallon. And in 41 states plus the District of Columbia, the average gasoline price is less than $2.99," Biden said.

The inaccurate statement earned him several fact checks, including from CNN.

Biden and his administration have also inflated the success of other economic initiatives established under his watch. During his Friday address at the DNC, Biden made an inaccurate claim about the unemployment rate, arguing it was sitting at its lowest point in 50 years.

"The 3.7% unemployment rate is low by historical standards, but it’s not the lowest in 50 years or in more than 50 years," CNN pointed out in its fact-check. "In fact, the monthly rate was lower than 3.7% – either 3.6% or 3.5% – nine times in 2019 and early 2020, during former President Donald Trump’s tenure, plus five times during Biden’s own presidency."

The White House frequently touts its progress on job growth, but fails to account for the pandemic bounce-back that played a massive role in those gains.

"Whether it’s the American Rescue Plan that got the economy started, which we see this historic economy; or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which is going to create millions of jobs and fix our infrastructure, fix our supply chain; or it’s the Inflation Reduction Act — all of these are pieces of the President’s economic plan that we’re going to continue to work through and is going to make sure we don’t leave anybody behind," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday. "But again, this is one of the strongest job markets that we have seen on record."

Jean-Pierre has frequently characterized the nation's economic growth under Biden as "historic," and on Friday even called it "life-changing."

"That’s what we’ve been doing for the past several months: making sure that we’re doing everything that we can to give the American public a little bit more breathing room without sacrificing all of the historic gains that we made this past year and life-changing economics gains this country has made over the last 19 months — this past year, year and a half," she told reporters last week.