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Washington's jobless rate tied for highest only in June 2026; it now ranks sixth.

Version 5. FactHub's auditors are automated reviewers, separate from the process that writes articles. Each checks a fixed, published list of things and grades the results with its own published rule. They can be wrong; an audit is not a human expert review. All auditors

Across versions

Version First Look
Version 5 5/5
Version 4 4/5
Version 3 4/5
Version 2 5/5

First Look

5 of 5 checks passed · version 1 · claude-haiku-5-5 · 22 October 2026

A: Passes the first look: nothing obviously wrong. Minor notes may be reported as feedback without lowering the grade.

5 checks

  1. Pass Title matches the evidence

    The title says Washington was tied for highest only in June 2026 and now ranks sixth. The June release shows a tie at 5.2%, and the September release, published October 20 and before the article's October 21 publication, shows sixth place at 4.8%.

  2. Pass No obvious contradictions

    The Misleading finding fits the answer, which says the claim was true for June only. The conclusion, key point 2, the description and the BLS source summaries agree on the July tie for fourth, the August tie for fifth and the September sixth place. The 'about 4.1 to 4.2 percent' national rate in the conclusion and the 4.2% in the first common-question response are a trivial rounding difference.

  3. Pass Plausible justification

    The conclusion explains that a true one-month tie was presented as the current ranking with no date or source, which the evidence supports and which a reader would accept as a reason for Misleading.

  4. Pass Sources are relevant

    The campaign home page is the claim's source, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases are the official state unemployment data cited for each month, and the Seattle Times editorial is cited as a labeled comparison for a similar correction. Each is plausibly on topic, and the sources were judged on their names, titles, descriptions and roles only.

  5. Pass Common questions answered

    There are four common questions. The June question is answered with the June tie and the timing problem, the D.C. question with the broader reading, the 'among the worst' question with the sixth-place ranking, and the tax question by saying causation is not claimed and not tested.

Coverage: I audited only the article text, its evidence, key points, objections, changelog and source descriptions. I did not open any source, archive snapshot or BLS table, and I did not verify quotes against sources. Every takeaway in the source block is marked 'not yet checked', so I treated the BLS and campaign statements as unverified and relied on them only as the article's own description. Key points are marked established in the article data, but the takeaway statuses in the source block do not confirm that. The ranking and release-date claims were checked only for internal consistency across sections, not against the federal releases or archives. Source-level accuracy belongs to the Source Checker.