Scores by kind of claim
Each kind of claim is scored on its own, out of 100: the share that held up, with the range it likely falls in. Fewer resolved claims give a wider range.
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Factual claims
Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
82 76 88 -
Predictions
Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?
61 47 75 -
Promises
Commitments to the person's or organisation's own future action, with something to deliver: was it delivered?
67 46 85
All types combined: 77 (likely 72 to 82, high confidence), from 84 claims: 63 factual claims, 16 predictions, 5 promises. It mixes kinds of claim in different proportions for different people, so compare people kind by kind.
Nate Silver's claims
“Children's toys are gonna become much more expensive because they're made in countries like Vietnam in Southeast Asia that are heavily taraffed.”
Nate Silver, podcast co-host 8 April 2025 Tariffs, Tariffs, Tariffs (Risky Business) (iHeart)
Children's toys will become much more expensive in the US because they are made in heavily tariffed countries such as Vietnam.
Mixed Partly true and partly false in roughly equal measure.
What would count as true or false
Judge at a one-year horizon (by April 2026) using US consumer price data for toys. Use the BLS CPI 'toys' index, or an equivalent retail toy price measure, compared with March/April 2025. True: toy prices rose substantially, at least about 10%, and analyses tie the rise to tariffs on imports from Asian producers such as China and Vietnam. Mostly true: a clear tariff-linked rise of about 6-10%. Mixed: a modest rise of about 3-6%, or a large rise only in some product segments. Mostly false: the rise is little above normal inflation (under about 3%). False: toy prices were flat or fell.
Evidence
- Table Data - Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Toys in U.S. City Average FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS source data) · 14 October 2026
“| 2025-03-01 | 27.478 | | 2025-04-01 | 27.513 |”
- Table Data - Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Toys in U.S. City Average FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS source data) · 14 October 2026
“| 2026-04-01 | 28.393 |”
- Toys are facing their biggest price spike in years. Mom-and-pop toy stores tell us how they're getting by. Yahoo Finance (Business Insider) · 26 October 2026
“Toy prices have gone up 8.3% since February due to tariffs, geopolitics, and supply chain issues.”
- The Slow Climb: How Tariffs Gradually Raised Retail Prices in 2025 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FEDS Notes) · 5 March 2026
“tariff pass-through to consumers between April 2025 and December 2025 has been at least 30% for goods imported from China.”
Reasoning
The BLS toys CPI (not seasonally adjusted) stood at 27.478 in March 2025 and 27.513 in April 2025 [E1], and at 28.393 in April 2026 [E2]. That is a rise of about 3.2–3.3% over the one-year horizon, which falls in the criteria's 'modest rise of about 3-6%' band. A Federal Reserve note finds substantial tariff pass-through for goods from China, though not for toys specifically [E4]. The 8.3% figure in E3 is measured 'since February' and published in October 2026, so it does not clearly cover the April 2025–April 2026 window.
Cite this claim
Nate Silver, “Children's toys will become much more expensive in the US because they are made in heavily tariffed countries such as Vietnam.” (said 8 April 2025). Verdict: mixed. Reliability API, claim c_5b8ca1332878, method 0.1.0+28da144b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_5b8ca1332878
Claims without a verdict
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