Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Q: Paragraph: The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics said Thursday that the number of U.S. babies born last year fell 2 percent from 2016 to 3.85 million, also a 30-year low. Births have fallen for three straight years. The fertility rate dropped 3 percent last year to 60.2 births per 1,000 women ages 15 through 44. An aging society has already weighed on economic growth in the United States in the past decade, with the vast baby boom generation retiring and fewer young people replacing them. Thursday’s data suggests that the trend is likely to continue. Economic growth is generally driven by population growth and worker efficiency, both of which have slowed in the past decade in the United States. Kathy Bostjancic, an economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm, said that roughly 10 years ago, the number of Americans working or looking for work was growing about 1 percent annually. With birthrates declining, that figure has since fallen to about a 0.3 percent growth rate. That essentially acts as a 0.7 percentage point drag on the United States’ long-run growth. “Demographics have a really powerful impact on the economy,” Bostjancic said. The U.S. economy has grown at a 3 percent average annual rate since World War II. Yet it hasn’t reached that pace for a full calendar year since 2005. The baby boomers first reached retirement age in 2008. The Federal Reserve in March upgraded its short-term economic growth forecast to about 2.7 percent for this year and 2.4 percent in 2019, partly because of the Trump administration’s tax cuts. But the Fed kept its longer-run annual growth forecast at just 1.8 percent, reflecting the demographic headwinds. Aside from fewer workers, an aging society can hold back growth because fewer people are buying homes, cars and other costly purchases. Savings generally rise as people age and prepare for retirement. And as elderly people live longer, they also slow their spending while in retirement, Bostjancic noted. Most economists attribute the low interest rates and low inflation of the past decade, in the United States, Europe and Japan, at least in part to aging. In Japan, where adult diapers outsell those for children, the impact of fewer births has kept growth nearly nonexistent for more than two decades. The economy has picked up recently and enjoyed two straight years of growth, the longest such streak since the late 1980s, before contracting again in the first three months of this year. The U.S. accepts many more immigrants than does Japan, and that influx has boosted population growth. The Labor Department released separate data Thursday showing that last year, there were 27.4 million foreign-born workers in the United States, the most since records began in 2005. Immigrants now make up 17.1 percent of the U.S. workforce. Economic research earlier this year found that U.S. fertility fell sharply roughly nine months before the past three recessions. That suggests that such declines could signal economic downturns. But Kasey Buckles, an economics professor at Notre Dame who conducted the research with two colleagues, said that recent such declines aren’t sharp enough to point to a recession. Instead, she noted that fertility declines over the past three years have occurred mostly among women under 30. Birth rates among older women have risen or held steady. That suggests that the fertility declines largely reflect a drop in unwanted pregnancies since the 2008-2009 recession. Fertility among women of all ages fell sharply in 2008 and 2009, Buckles said, but rebounded quickly for women 30 and over. Separate data from the Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization that tracks reproductive health, shows that unwanted pregnancies have fallen since the Great Recession, Buckles said. “It’s possible that the Great Recession may have been something of a triggering event that caused people to be more intentional about their fertility,” she said. ___ Contact Chris Rugaber on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/ChrisRugaber . Claim: Lowest US birth rate in 3 decades could pose risk to economy.

A: Women in the United States gave birth last year at the lowest rate in 30 years, a trend that could weigh on economic growth in the coming decades.
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Q: Paragraph: "South Florida has a reputation as a place ripe for fraud and crime -- including bilking the government. State Rep. Ron Saunders, the Democratic minority leader from Key West, has slapped a more specific label on a costly problem in South Florida: Medicaid fraud. ""The two worst counties for fraud in the country -- not state -- are Dade and Broward county,"" he told a roomful of reporters on Jan. 19, 2011, during an Associated Press preview of Florida's upcoming legislative session. It's easy to find news articles describing South Florida as a mecca for such fraud -- with labels such as ""ground zero"" or mind-boggling tales of abuse. But the word ""worst"" caught our eye -- are the South Florida counties of Miami-Dade and Broward truly the ""worst"" in the country for Medicaid fraud? Medicaid, a health care program for low-income individuals, is administered by the states and receives some federal funding. The Truth-O-Meter has weighed in multiple times on fact-checks related to the high cost and growth of Medicaid, including a claim by Pam Bondi, now Florida's attorney general, and Bill McCollum, Florida's previous attorney general. For more background, check out this website of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. We spoke to Saunders directly on Jan. 20, who told us that his statement was in response to a question about how to resolve the state's budget crisis. Saunders said it's a ""no-brainer"" to cut back on fraud such as in Medicare and Medicaid rather than make more cuts in areas such as education. But after a lot of calls and research, we can say one thing for certain: Nobody tracks county-by-county Medicaid fraud nationally. Even within Florida, a county breakdown is not available. So we're going to rely on expert opinions and documented trends in this ruling. Mark Hollis, spokesperson for the House Democratic caucus, sent us links to newspaper articles and government reports about Medicaid fraud in South Florida. Among the sources Hollis cited was a March 2009 article in Health News Florida, quoting state Sen. Don Gaetz saying: ""Since we have the worst problem in the nation, we need the most effective solution."" Hollis also sent us a December 2005 article in HomeCare, an industry publication, quoting FBI agent Michael Clemens, who was in charge of the Miami field office at the time, saying: ""South Florida is ground zero for health care fraud."" But neither article provides any documentation to support that ""worst"" label. Hollis also sent us links to a House bill and recent government reports about Medicaid fraud. House Bill 1487 in 2009, which labeled Miami-Dade an area of ""special concern,"" was intended to rein in Medicaid fraud. The Senate version, Senate Bill 2658, was signed into law in June 2009. The staff analysis outlined the rampant growth in home health care agencies in Florida: Of the 431 licensure applications in 2007, 58.5 percent were in Miami-Dade. In that county, the number of licensed agencies grew 414 percent between August 1999 and March 6, 2009. The analysis also stated that ""While Miami-Dade has about 20 percent of Florida’s Medicaid population and about 33 percent of Florida’s residents over the age of 60, 91 percent of the state reimbursement for certain home health services were going to Miami-Dade."" While the bill analysis doesn't provide data ranking all of Florida's counties, it certainly suggests that Miami-Dade has an overwhelmingly disproportionate share of Medicaid dollars -- and fraud. Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration, which administers the Medicaid program, has a report from 2009-10 that also provides some insight. Although the 94-page report does not describe Broward and Miami-Dade as the worst in the nation, it noted:  • ""Home health agencies have been an acknowledged area of health care fraud in recent years. For the four fiscal years ending June 30, 2009, approximately 90 percent of Medicaid expenditures for home health aide visits were made to providers in Miami‐Dade County, while only about 20 percent of Medicaid recipients reside in that area. At the end of the fiscal year, there were 339 home health agencies in Miami‐Dade County actively enrolled in the Medicaid program and only 293 in the other 66 counties combined."" (Page 53)  • Statutes were changed in 2008 and 2009 to address home-health fraud. Forty-seven licensure denials for home health agencies were upheld in FY 2009-10 for fraud-related reasons. Thirty-one of the denials (66 percent) were in Miami-Dade County. (Page 65)  We reached out to several agencies that have a role in Medicaid. Both the Florida Attorney General, which has a Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and AHCA said they had no nationwide county-by-county information to support or refute Saunders' claim. Don White, spokesman for the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, also told us that the federal government has ""no statistics on Medicaid fraud."" As for Saunders' claim that Dade and Broward are the ""worst"" in the country, White said: ""Do we have the numbers? No. Is he probably correct? Yes."" We ran Saunders' claim by Alan Levine, a former secretary at AHCA under Gov. Jeb Bush and an expert on Medicaid. ""I have absolutely no doubt South Florida is among the highest,"" Levine wrote in an e-mail. ""Others that likely run in the same circle are New York and New Jersey. But South Florida, from all the experience I have, clearly leads the way."" Levine sent us a 2009 report, ""Stop Paying the Crooks,"" by the Center for Health Transformation, an organization founded by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. It stated that the U.S. Department of Justice labeled ""South Florida -- and more specifically, Miami-Dade County --Ground Zero for health care fraud in America."" But no numbers ranking counties nationwide. We sent Saunders' claim to Craig Smith, the attorney who wrote the South Florida chapter, who works at Hogan Lovells law firm in Miami. ""Whatever the exact figure is, there can be no question that the bulk of the fraud, waste and abuse is occurring in Miami-Dade and Broward counties,"" Smith wrote to us in an e-mail Feb. 1. ""Based on the size of Florida's Medicaid program, you can fairly eliminate about 45 states from the comparative discussion."" So let's review: Saunders said that ""The two worst counties for (Medicaid) fraud in the country -- not state -- are Dade and Broward county."" We could not find any government office that could point to numbers ranking counties across the nation in terms of Medicaid fraud. But we found four experts -- one from the federal Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, one a former secretary of the state's AHCA, a spokesperson from a national organization that provides information on health care fraud and an attorney who specializes in health care law -- who all agree that Saunders is likely right. At PolitiFact Florida, we dig for data to support claims by politicians -- and Saunders and our experts haven't provided hard numbers to prove him right. But the fact that four experts -- including one appointed by a Republican governor -- generally back up the Democratic minority leader or say that the two counties are at least among the worst in the nation carries weight with us." Claim: The two worst counties for (Medicaid) fraud in the country -- not state -- are Dade and Broward county.

A: Ron Saunders says Miami-Dade, Broward rule the country in Medicaid fraud
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Q: Paragraph: As social media users expressed alarm over United States President Donald Trump’s administration’s apparent efforts to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), one Twitter user’s suggestion caught traction on August 14 2020.That account wrote:Heard this from a postal worker- IF you return your ballot BUT place 2 First Class stamps on it (instead of the business reply free postage provided) the USPS MUST deliver your letter AS First Class BECAUSE you PAID for First Class! It CANNOT be put into Bulk Mail! DO IT!A spokesperson for the Portland, Oregon chapter of the American Postal Workers Union — which represents more than 200,000 current and retired USPS workers — confirmed to us that using one first-class stamp would be enough to ensure that a mail-in ballot would be sorted individually.“One 55-cent stamp will get it where it’s supposed to go,” she said.For some voters, the issue could be moot; a USPS staffer told us that because state and local election boards have the ability to design their own ballots and election materials, some boards may already be paying for them to have them classified as first-class mail.The USPS has urged voters to use first-class mail “or an expedited level of service” to send their ballots in, and to be clear on the submission requirements for their local jurisdictions. An agency spokesperson told the Salt Lake City Tribune in a statement:The Postal Service recommends that domestic, nonmilitary voters mail their ballots at least one week prior to their state’s due date to allow for timely receipt by election officials.The Los Angeles Times reported that there is a difference in processing times between regular mail-in ballots and first class mail:Election officials typically use marketing mail (or nonprofit bulk) to send out ballots, which is cheaper than using first class mail. The delivery timelines, however, are different: Marketing mail takes three to 10 days, while first class mail is delivered in two to five days. The postal service has traditionally treated election mail with priority, even if it’s not sent first class.But USPS General Counsel Thomas Marshall implied in letters to election officials that marketing mail delivery standards would be enforced for election mail.“Using Marketing Mail will result in slower delivery times and will increase the risk that voters will not receive their ballots in time to return them by mail,” Marshall wrote in language later repeated in [a USPS] statement.Democratic Party Sen. Chuck Schumer, though, has accused the USPS of price-gouging voters.“The postal service has informed some states they may need to pay a first class rate to deliver ballots rather than the normal rate, nearly tripling the cost at a time when people will have to vote by mail in record numbers because they can’t or won’t go vote in person,” he wrote on August 11, 2020. “This would be an outrageous policy that should alarm every American. Democrats will fight this with every tool at our disposal.”According to the Washington Post, the agency also sent letters to 46 states and the District of Columbia informing them that it could not guarantee that ballots sent by mail would arrive in time to be counted for the November 3 2020 general election:Some states anticipate 10 times the normal volume of election mail. Six states and D.C. received warnings that ballots could be delayed for a narrow set of voters. But the Postal Service gave 40 others — including the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida — more-serious warnings that their long-standing deadlines for requesting, returning or counting ballots were “incongruous” with mail service and that voters who send ballots in close to those deadlines may become disenfranchised.The only states to not receive the warnings from USPS were Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Rhode Island.The Twitter post was shared more than 8,000 times on the platform amid escalating concerns over the United States Postal Service’s autonomy and ability to handle voting by mail amid the COVID-19 pandemic following the appointment of Louis DeJoy — a fundraiser for Trump — as Postmaster General in June 2020. Hours after the tweet began spreading online, CNN reported that the agency’s inspector general launched an investigation into DeJoy’s actions since taking the position, in response to calls by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.The Massachusetts lawmaker had asked the inspector general to investigate not just DeJoy’s new policies for the USPS but whether he had “met all ethics requirements.” DeJoy reportedly still owns a $30 million stake in a separate company that is a USPS contractor and bought stock in Amazon, which operates a delivery service that competes with the agency.Criticism of DeJoy intensified following reports of several mailboxes being removed from use in Portland, Oregon (which the USPS attributed to an overall decline in outgoing mail) and the decommissioning and dismantling of 671 mail-sorting machines around the U.S., which the Post reported had the capacity to sort a combined 21.4 million pieces of paper mail per hour.The American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 current and retired USPS employees, filed a grievance over the scuttling of the sorting machines. But union president Mark Dimondstein expressed confidence to the newspaper that his colleagues could still handle the expected surge in mail-in voting in November.“Piece of cake for postal workers,” he said.DeJoy released a statement on August 18 2020 saying that he would suspend what he called “longstanding operational initiatives” that had raised concern from the public until after the election.“I want to assure all Americans of the following: Retail hours at Post Offices will not change,” the statement read. “Mail processing equipment and blue collection boxes will remain where they are. No mail processing facilities will be closed. And we reassert that overtime has, and will continue to be, approved as needed.”But the skepticism toward DeJoy did not subside; a day after the USPS posted his statement, WOOD-TV in Michigan reported that mail sorting machines inside the agency’s office in downtown Grand Rapids were being dismantled per an order from him.Internal sources say mail sorting machines are being dismantled at downtown GR post office. Process started yesterday. Order came from Postmaster General DeJoy. @WOODTV pic.twitter.com/tNm9pXjcnU— Heather Walker (@_HeatherWalker) August 19, 2020Three hours after their initial report, WOOD said that the dismantling had stopped.That same day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement criticizing DeJoy for not reversing course on the actions he had already taken since taking over the USPS.“The Postmaster General frankly admitted that he had no intention of replacing the sorting machines, blue mailboxes and other key mail infrastructure that have been removed and that plans for adequate overtime, which is critical for the timely delivery of mail, are not in the works,” Pelosi said. “All of these changes directly jeopardize the election and disproportionately threaten to disenfranchise voters in communities of color. At the same time, we are highly concerned that the slowdown of the delivery of medicines to veterans is not being sufficiently addressed.”Trump himself admitted in a Fox News interview that his administration was holding up an agreement with Democratic Party lawmakers over a new stimulus package over the inclusion of $3.5 billion in USPS funding.“They need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he said. “Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting, they just can’t have it.”Did Trump Say That Without a Deal ‘They Can’t Have Universal Mail-in Voting, They Just Can’t Have It’?The suggestion to use first-class mail also gained visibility following the spread of similar posts (presented as “an inside tip from a postal worker”) urged voters to personally take their ballots to their local election boards or polling sites:‘Don’t Mail Ballots In, Drop at Board of Elections, This is an Inside Tip from a Postal Worker, Can’t Say More than That’Trump has repeatedly claimed — entirely falsely — that mail-in voting would lead to a “rigged” election. But both he and First Lady Melania Trump used absentee ballots to vote by mail in Florida. At least fifteen other officials in his administration have done the same.Update August 19, 2020 1:27 p.m. PST: Updated with notes on additional mail sorting machine scuttling and statements from Louis DeJoy and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Comments Claim: Mail-in voters in the United States can send their ballots with first-class postage to ensure that it is delivered on time before the November 3 2020 election.

A:
Can You Have Your Mail-In Ballot Delivered as First Class Mail?
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