The pandemic-induced recession has shut down many people's businesses while others are prospering.
Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
What would count as true or false
As of December 2020. True: data show that a large number of businesses closed, temporarily or permanently, during the COVID-19 downturn while other firms or sectors prospered (record profits or revenue growth, e.g. e-commerce or technology). Mostly true: the split is real but one side was small in scale. Mostly false: closures were few, or almost no businesses prospered. False: the evidence shows no significant business closures, or uniform hardship with no firms prospering.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Yelp Economic Average Uncovers a Drop in Total Business Closures and a Rise in Permanent Closures During the Second Quarter Yelp Inc. (via Business Wire) · 22 July 2020
“In June, Yelp’s Local Economic Impact report found a decrease in business closures with 140,000 permanent and temporary closures on Yelp from March 1 to June 15.”
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E2 This map shows where in the U.S. small businesses have closed | World Economic Forum World Economic Forum (with Visual Capitalist) · 6 October 2020
“In the U.S. as a whole, data suggests that nearly a quarter of all small businesses remain closed.”
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E3 Some businesses thrived, many lagged during pandemic in 2020 KUTV (AP story) · 31 December 2020
“With work- and shop-from-home suddenly the norm, profits proved resilient for Big Tech even as the pandemic crushed movie theaters, malls and other industries.”
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E4 Business Exit During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Non-Traditional Measures in Historical Context Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FEDS working paper) · October 2020
“The evidence is mixed, however; many industries have likely seen lower-than-usual exit rates, and exiting businesses do not appear to represent a large share of U.S. employment.”
Reasoning
Yelp data recorded 140,000 permanent and temporary business closures on its platform from March 1 to June 15, 2020 [E1], and an October 2020 WEF/Visual Capitalist piece reports data suggesting that nearly a quarter of U.S. small businesses were still closed [E2]. An AP report on 2020 says Big Tech profits held up while the pandemic crushed movie theaters, malls and other industries [E3]. A Federal Reserve staff paper calls the evidence on permanent business exit mixed [E4], but the criteria count temporary closures too, so the evidence shows both widespread closures and firms that prospered.
Cite this claim
Warren Buffett, “The pandemic-induced recession has shut down many people's businesses while others are prospering.” (said 15 December 2020). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_3291659f12b4, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_3291659f12b4
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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