Corrections
Corrections
We correct errors openly. A correction fixes a fact that was wrong. A clarification fixes wording that could mislead. An update records that the world changed after we published. Each is noted on the post with its date. We never quietly rewrite a claim. While we check a reported error, the post carries a dated note at the top saying it is under review; that note stays, and the correction or update that settles it follows it.
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The report form is not open yet. Every correction and clarification we make is noted, with its date, on the post it changes. The newest are listed below, and all of them are listed by month.
Corrections log
The 20 most recent of 69, newest first. Every one is listed by month below.
Clarified
Capitalism, Reintroduced: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It’s Breaking Down: The line on wealth concentration said only that top shares of wealth had risen materially over recent decades, with no figure and no citation. It now gives the Federal Reserve's Distributional Financial Accounts figures and cites them: the wealthiest 1% of households held 32.5 percent of household net worth in the second quarter of 2026, up from 22.8 percent in the third quarter of 1989, and the bottom half held 2.3 percent, down from 3.5 percent. A screenshot of the Fed's chart of wealth by group, in dollars through the third quarter of 2025, was replaced with a pointer to the Fed's table, because the post did not carry that chart's data. The post also showed a chart of productivity and typical workers' pay from the Economic Policy Institute, an advocacy group, with no other source for that comparison. It now gives the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for the nonfarm business sector, 1979 to 2025: output per hour up 138.3 percent, hourly compensation adjusted for consumer prices up 56.5 percent, and up 107.6 percent when adjusted for the sector's own prices, with a 2017 BLS study on how the measure and labor's falling share each affect the gap. The Institute's view stays, labeled as an advocacy group's, with its own figures and a description of how it measures pay.
Corrected
Capitalism, Reintroduced: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It’s Breaking Down: An earlier version of this post said that wealth concentration compounds across generations. The sources we found do not show that as a measured fact. The post now says what a 2018 Federal Reserve analysis of its Survey of Consumer Finances found: wealth passes between generations mostly to households that already have it, with more than half of inheritance and gift dollars going to the wealthiest 10% of households for their age and 8% to the bottom half.
Clarified
Why Prescription Drugs Cost More in the U.S. (and What Actually Lowers Prices): An earlier version of this post showed a bar chart of insulin prices in 2018 that set the U.S. at 1.0 and other OECD countries at 0.25. Its ratio matched RAND's finding, but the bars were drawn to show that ratio, not plotted from data the post publishes. The chart is replaced by a sentence giving RAND's figures: U.S. manufacturer prices were often five to ten times those in 32 other OECD countries, and RAND's analysis suggests U.S. prices would still have been about four times higher even when accounting for potential rebates. Two later references to the chart now point to those figures.
Corrected
Why Childcare Is Expensive for Parents and Still Pays Poverty Wages: Three citation markers in the affordability section pointed to source 1, a Federal Register notice of a proposed child care rule, which does not report the figures they mark. Those figures are that infant child care costs more than tuition at public colleges in 38 states and D.C., up from 33 states and D.C. in an earlier analysis of 2020 data, and that average prices for a four-year-old range from $521 a month in Mississippi to $1,893 in D.C. The markers now point to source 22, the Stateline article that reports these Economic Policy Institute figures. The figures and the wording are unchanged.
Corrected
Student Debt Explained: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions: An earlier version of this post said a proposed settlement to end the SAVE repayment plan was pending court approval, and a September 28, 2026, update kept that wording when it added a source. It was out of date. On March 10, 2026, at the Eighth Circuit's direction, the federal district court for the Eastern District of Missouri entered the final judgment the parties had asked for, vacating the SAVE plan's 2023 rule except one provision on deferment and forbearance periods. On July 30, 2026, the court denied four borrowers' motion to intervene as untimely. The post now says so and cites the court's orders, in place of Federal Student Aid's court-actions page, whose text loads only with JavaScript.
Corrected
Drug Testing Welfare Recipients Is Illogical: An earlier version said that, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, about 2% of welfare recipients used drugs, compared with 9.4% of the general population. The SAMHSA page we cited gave neither figure and made no such comparison, and we found no source for 2%. The 9.4% figure is past-month illicit drug use among Americans 12 and older in 2013, from SAMHSA's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which the post now cites in place of SAMHSA's "Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs" page. A 2002 SAMHSA analysis of its 1999 and 2000 surveys found the reverse of the earlier version's claim: past-month illicit drug use was higher among people aged 12 to 64 in families receiving government assistance (9.6%) than in families receiving none (6.8%) and among all people that age (7.2%). The post now gives these figures. It also says that state drug-test results measure something different from these surveys, and it no longer sets a figure for welfare recipients beside the survey's 9.4% as a pair of drug-use rates. For welfare applicants it gives, from the counts ThinkProgress and Snopes both give, positive tests under 1% of applicants in four states and about 9% in Oklahoma. Counted against applicants referred for or taking a drug test, Snopes's figures run from 3.5% to 16.9%. The summary, which said welfare recipients use drugs at a lower rate than the general population, now gives these test results instead.
Corrected
Voting and the Democratic Process: An earlier version of this post said 84.3% of eligible voters were registered in 2012. That figure is 2012 turnout among registered voters. Census Bureau survey data show about 71% of voting-age citizens were registered. The post also said about 57 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential primary. It now gives turnout in the 2016 general election: about 60 percent of eligible voters, per the UF Election Lab.
Corrected
Balancing the Federal Budget: Taxes: An earlier version cited the Americans for Tax Fairness fact sheet for the U.S. top marginal corporate tax rate being the third highest, at 38.9%. That fact sheet gives the 35% federal rate, not 38.9%, and no world ranking. The 38.9% figure is the combined federal and state rate in 2016. The post now cites OECD data for it, which show it was higher than in every other country in the OECD's table except Colombia, at 40%. The post now attributes the third-highest ranking to the Tax Foundation's 2016 survey, which ranked the U.S. after the United Arab Emirates and Puerto Rico and did not list Colombia among its 20 highest rates, and says the figures are for 2016; the figure is unchanged.
Corrected
Corrections Reform: What Works, What Fails, and What It Costs: An earlier version of this post credited the Bureau of Justice Statistics for a count of roughly 2 million people behind bars at the end of 2023. The bureau counts about 1.85 million people in state or federal prisons or local jails at that date. Nearly 2 million is the Prison Policy Initiative's 2025 count, which adds immigration detention, juvenile facilities and other confinement. The post now gives both figures, each credited to its source.
Corrected
Drug Testing Welfare Recipients Is Illogical: An earlier version of this post gave Oklahoma's rate of positive drug tests as 8.8 percent. The Snopes article it cites gives 8.9 percent: 297 of the 3,342 applicants the state screened from 2012 to 2014 tested positive. The post now says 8.9 percent.
Corrected
Corrections Reform: What Works, What Fails, and What It Costs: An earlier version of this post showed an image that labeled the Prison Policy Initiative's estimate of at least $182 billion a year "Total corrections costs" and carried a drafting subtitle. The image and its note are now replaced by figures labeled as their sources define them and a chart of reincarceration rates.
Corrected
The Party Realignment: How Democrats and Republicans Changed Over Time: An earlier version of this post said the South moved from presidential voting to congressional politics, "then state legislatures and local offices," in the Stage 5 text and the key takeaways. We found no source for local offices, and both now end at state legislatures, which a study of Southern elections (McKee) shows following Congress. The 1968 caption and timeline entry said Wallace carried "five Deep South states"; the five were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, and both now say five Southern states and name them. The 1932 caption and timeline entry said the South voted Democratic "alongside northern urban centers," which no source cited here supports; both now give the National Archives' state results: Roosevelt carried every former Confederate state and every state but six. The 1964 caption and timeline entry said the Deep South broke toward Goldwater while the rest of the country voted heavily Democratic; Goldwater also carried Arizona, his home state, and both now say so. The update of the same date that cites a source for the 1964 result calls its wording unchanged; the Arizona change was made after that update.
Corrected
The State of the 2026 Economy: Why It Feels Worse Than the Data: An earlier version of this post said "paycheck-to-paycheck can reach well into six-figure households in high-cost regions." We found no source for "well into", and the Federal Reserve survey now cited does not break its figures out by region. The post now gives what the survey found: in 2024, 22% of adults with family income of $100,000 or more spent about as much as their income in the prior month, and 12% spent more. It also said many insured families "delay care, skip specialist visits, or take on medical debt." The survey measures care people went without, not care they delayed, so the post now says they skip care, including visits to a doctor or specialist, or take on medical debt, and gives the same survey's figures: 26% of insured adults went without some medical care in 2024 because they could not afford it, and 17% of all adults had medical debt. And it said that "a large share of imports are inputs into domestic production" and that sweeping tariffs "can raise costs for U.S. firms as much as they raise sticker prices for households." The Congressional Budget Office's outlook, which the post cites, estimates that foreign exporters absorb 5 percent of tariff costs and that the 95 percent borne in the United States reaches consumers: in the near term, businesses absorb 30 percent of their import price increases and pass 70 percent on, and competing domestic producers raise their prices enough that, on net, consumer prices rise by the full 95 percent. The post now says that many imports are used as inputs in domestic production, so sweeping tariffs raise costs for U.S. firms as well as sticker prices for households, and cites CBO.
Clarified
Should Religious Institutions Pay Taxes? A $100B Transparency and Opportunity Cost Case: Three statements are now more precise. The post said many churches are not required to file the same annual public financial disclosures as comparable nonprofits; under IRS rules no church has to file the annual information return (Form 990 or 990-EZ) that other tax-exempt organizations must generally file once their receipts normally exceed $50,000, and the post now says so. The working estimate of $100 billion was labeled as 2026 dollars in three places: the key takeaways, the working-estimate line and the stat row. By CPI-U it is the 2012 estimate in 2025 dollars, about $103 billion at August 2026 prices, and all three now say so. The SNAP line assumed $2,500 per recipient-year; benefits averaged $187.94 per participant per month in fiscal year 2025 (USDA Economic Research Service), about $2,255 a year, so the assumption is on the high side and its count of about 40 million recipient-years on the low side (about 44 million at the actual average). That assumption and its count are unchanged.
Corrected
Should Religious Institutions Pay Taxes? A $100B Transparency and Opportunity Cost Case: Three statements were wrong or had no source. The source line under the 2024 lobbying figures repeated the counts the post first gave, 18 clients and 58 lobbyists, which cannot be confirmed; it now gives the counts OpenSecrets shows, 21 and 62. The housing voucher line assumed an "all-in" annual public cost of $12,000 per household. HUD's 2024 budget request put voucher renewals at $27.8 billion for about 2.3 million households, plus $3.2 billion in administrative fees, so the all-in cost was about $13,500 per household; $12,000 is close to the renewal cost alone (about $12,100). The line no longer says "all-in" and gives HUD's figures. The health center section called $1,200 per patient-year "a conservative benchmark." No source supports that: KFF reports $49.6 billion in health center revenue for 32.4 million patients in 2024, about $1,530 per patient, so $1,200 is below what health centers spend and its count of about 83 million patient-years is high. The post now calls $1,200 an assumption and gives the KFF comparison, about 65 million patient-years at $1,530.
Clarified
Is Universal Basic Income Inevitable?: This post said federal low-income programs differ by "eligibility, application processes, recertification, and enforcement," and that a raise can leave a household worse off "when a household loses multiple benefits at once." Its sources support narrower wording. The post now says programs differ by eligibility, application processes and the conditions for staying eligible, as the Government Accountability Office reports, and that a raise leaves a household no better off, or worse off, when the benefits it loses equal or exceed the raise, which is how the Department of Health and Human Services defines a benefit cliff.
Corrected
The Party Realignment: How Democrats and Republicans Changed Over Time: Three of the four chart images did not match their sources, and the fourth depended on one of them. The two Black party identification charts began in 1948; the American National Election Studies (ANES) series, which they now use, begins in 1952. The second chart's caption credited a post-1964 rise in strong Democratic identification; that share jumped in 1964 and 1968, fell back, and rose again from 2008. The South's Republican presidential vote chart was off by up to 3.5 points; it now uses MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL) returns: 49.7% in 1992, including D.C. The gap chart now uses MEDSL's House returns. The text said the presidential-minus-House gap held near 10 points through the 1970s and 1980s and closed only after 1994; it was 8.6 to 19.7 points from 1976 to 1988, 2.9 in 1992, and between -4.3 and 2.4 from 1996 to 2016. A 1980 caption calling the South a reliable Republican bloc was also corrected.
Corrected
Why Local Journalism Is a National Security Issue: An earlier version of this post said Russian operatives in 2016 created fake local news sites promoting divisive content. The Senate Intelligence Committee found that the Internet Research Agency ran Twitter accounts designed to look like local news aggregators, such as @OnlineMemphis and @TodayPittsburgh, which posted links to legitimate news sources and tweeted about local issues. The post now says that, and the table of threats says accounts, not sites.
Corrected
Why Local Journalism Is a National Security Issue: An earlier version of this post said studies find "higher rates of misappropriated public funds," "increased cost overruns on public projects" and "higher rates of candidates with previously undisclosed scandals," and that incumbents are reelected more often "even when incumbents are ineffective." We found no study behind these four statements; the study cited on incumbents finds more reelections but does not assess how incumbents performed. The first two are replaced by what the Gao, Lee and Murphy paper found: higher government wages and deficits, and more costly borrowing choices. The other two are cut. The opening said that within months of the Vindicator's closing, city spending irregularities and school board controversies went unreported and local elections featured candidates nobody had scrutinized. No source supports this, and it is cut; the opening now cites a 2020 University of North Carolina report that Youngstown was the first city of any size in the country to lose its sole surviving daily newspaper. The post said that during Hurricane Maria local reporters tracked power, water and passable roads, national media left after a week, and local journalists stayed, documenting recovery failures that became a national scandal. It now says what news reports support: the only radio station on the air through the storm relayed messages between families, and a lawsuit by CNN and Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism led to the release of partial death records. The post also said national media "parachutes in for a day before leaving"; it now says local reporters are still there after national crews move on.
Clarified
The State of the 2026 Economy: Why It Feels Worse Than the Data: When this post was published on March 15, 2026, it gave the 13% average tariff rate for the end of 2025 without noting that on Feb. 20, 2026, the Supreme Court had ruled in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs, or that the IEEPA tariffs had then been removed. The post now says the 13% rate is for the end of 2025 and adds the ruling. The 13% figure is unchanged.
All corrections and clarifications by month
2026
- October 2026, 11 entries
- September 2026, 58 entries