The administration's fishy claim it will save '$9 billion' in credit-card late fees President Donald Trump's indictment on criminal charges was the late-breaking news yesterday — and we have a fact check linked below — but we're going to feature today our detailed look at the Biden administration's plan to reduce credit-card late fees to $8. That's a big drop from the current average of $31. With late fees totaling an estimated $12 billion in 2020, the administration says that reducing fees to $8 would result in $9 billion of annual savings to Americans. There has been surprisingly little attention to how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau calculated this number, which the administration characterizes as padding the profits of credit card issuers, rather than the cost of late payments. Our detailed look at this issue raises serious questions about how the figure was calculated — and whether any savings that results would end up in the pockets of credit-card users. Even the CFPB acknowledges that card issuers could make up any lost revenue by increasing other fees or interest rates for credit. Please click the link to read our complete report. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Trump's indictment video features a litany of favorite falsehoods The former president was indicted and released a four-minute video that featured a golden-oldie list of false claims. Please click to learn what we wrote on nine claims. Haley falsely links rise in girls' suicidal thoughts to trans athletes During a CNN town hall, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley took a politically potent stance against transgender students participating in sports if it isn't under the sex assigned at birth — a stance that aligns with polls showing that Americans increasingly support restrictions affecting transgender children. But then she suggested that this is a reason suicide thoughts have spiked among teenage girls. "How are we supposed to get our girls used to the fact that biological boys are in their locker rooms?" she asked. "And then we wonder why a third of our teenage girls seriously contemplated suicide last year." There's no data to support this claim. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that she cited made no such connection — and in fact shows a higher percentage of LGBTQ teen girls have contemplated suicide compared with cisgender girls. Haley earned Four Pinocchios. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. The newsletter will be taking a break next week so we'll return June 23. Scroll down to read our fact checks on federal regulatory issues | 
Email
No comments:
Post a Comment