Biden earns Two Pinocchios for $15 minimum-wage claim President Biden is pushing for a gradual increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, adopting a longtime liberal priority as a central plank in his economic agenda. In an interview with CBS News, he said it was a pain-free prescription for the economy. Since the late 1960s, the value of the minimum wage has eroded, and increases have been few and far between. At $15, the wage floor would go above the high point in 1968, which was about $12.25 when adjusted for inflation and rendered as 2020 dollars. As part of his pitch, the president said "all the economics show, if you do that, the whole economy rises." But the debate is not nearly as well settled as he suggests. As any student of Economics 101 can tell you, higher wages are expected to lead to less demand for labor, resulting in higher unemployment. But increasingly, economists on the left have argued that there is little or no evidence of a negative association between minimum wages and employment. But as left-leaning economists have tried to move the economic profession in one direction, there has been an equally fierce response from other economists. The Fact Checker is not in a position to settle this debate. An increase to $15 would be a good test for the theories espoused by both groups of economists. But in the meantime, Biden earned Two Pinocchios, because "all the economics" are still rather unsettled when going by the available research. 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. Fact-checking 101: You can do it, too In 2019, The Fact Checker noticed the spread of misleading video posed a challenge not only to fact-checkers but also to anyone relying on social media or Web searches to get information or find the latest news. To help, we published the Fact Checker's guide to manipulated video. This year, we felt it was necessary to take it one step further and give readers their own tools to debunk false and misleading visuals. The Fact Checker wants to teach you to be your own video investigator by walking you through the process our journalists use to verify open-source video. For the next four weeks, you can find us posting on The Washington Post's Instagram page under the hashtag #DIYFactCheck. The weekly slide shows published to Instagram will teach you the skills of a visual investigator. This includes how to find the original source of a video, with tools such as reverse-image search. You'll learn how to research who posted the video and spot any red flags about the uploader. Lastly, the guide will walk you through how to find where and when the video was filmed, using satellite imagery and Google Street View. Check it out — and remember to stay vigilant. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. By Nadine Ajaka, Elyse Samuels and Sarah Cahlan ● Read more » | | | | 
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