President Obama, in remarks in Canada on June 29, said: “The steel industry is producing as much steel in the United States as it ever was. It’s just (that) it needs one-tenth of the workers that it used to.”
Our ruling
Obama said that “the steel industry is producing as much steel in the United States as it ever was. It’s just it needs one-tenth of the workers that it used to.”
In reality, production is down by more than one-third from its historical peak in 1973, and the employment picture – while still severely shrunken – is down to about one-fifth of its 1950s level, rather than one-tenth.
We rate the claim False.
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