Corrections log, October 2026
11 entries, newest first. Each is also noted, with its date, on the post it changes. How we correct errors, the newest entries and every other month are on the corrections page.
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.