Fox Business contributor Charles Payne furthered Fox's history of unemployment rate trutherism by declaring that the unemployment rate was actually “11½ percent.” But despite Fox's repeated economic falsehoods, the unemployment rate has fallen to 7.8 percent by the measurement that government and economists have used for decades. 

During a discussion about the automatic budget cuts that will take place in early 2013 if Congress fails to avert them, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade declared that the so-called “fiscal cliff” could “send our unemployment rate over 10 percent to around 12 percent.” Payne responded, “To be honest with you, it's already around 11½ percent.”

In fact, by the standards the government has used for decades, the unemployment rate is currently 7.8 percent. But in an attempt to deflect from dropping rates, Fox News figures have attempted to claim that other, higher measurements are the “real” unemployment rate, including using a higher number known as the U-6 rate that does not actually measure unemployment.

Fox has also attacked lower unemployment numbers as being somehow manipulated by the Obama administration to look good. Most recently, Fox played a lead role in promoting the conspiracy theory that the 7.8 percent rate was “altered for political gain” in order to help Obama get re-election, despite the fact that economists agree such an idea is “implausible” and a “fantasy.”