Name: Fact check: Shortages due to rising demand, supply chain disruptions
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Fact check: Shortages due to rising demand, supply chain disruptions

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USA TODAYSpurred in part by rising consumer demand amid easing coronavirus restrictions,&nbsp;&nbsp;have been reported across the country. Online, some social media users blame the Biden administration.An image in shows what appear to be empty shelves at a grocery store. Text in the photo reads "#BareShelvesBiden.""This does not happen in America," reads the post, on Twitter.Other posts with #BareShelvesBiden have accumulated tens of thousands of interactions on Facebook and Instagram, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. to President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda,&nbsp;contained in that would allocate trillions of dollars for everything from education to the environment.Fact check:But those claims mislead about what's driving shortages of some products across the USA."I’d consider this claim to be false," , professor of manufacturing management at Cornell University, said in an email. "The shortages we are experiencing are due to supply chain backlog and linkages."USA TODAY reached out to social media users who&nbsp;shared the claim for comment.The Instagram post uses&nbsp;an outdated photo to make a point about current supply chain problems.The photo at a grocery store in Houston. It was taken Feb. 20, after a slow-moving winter storm &nbsp;and wreaked havoc across&nbsp;Texas."Shoppers are seen wandering next to near-empty shelves in a supermarket in Houston, Texas&nbsp;following winter storm Uri that left millions without power and caused water pipes to burst," reads the , taken by Francois Picard for the Agence France-Presse.Fact check:Now, there&nbsp;&nbsp;–&nbsp;including carbonated drinks, coffee and chicken&nbsp;– across the country. But many photos that claim to show those shortages&nbsp; , according to .Experts say Biden's policies are unrelated to product shortages across the country."Much of the current supply chain woes are attributable to the disruptions of COVID-19, but its genesis can be traced back even earlier, to the trade war period, prior to 2019,"&nbsp;, professor of operations management and strategy at the University of Buffalo,&nbsp;said in an email.&nbsp;"The current supply problems are due to disruptions in all segments of global supply chains."The connection some social media users make to Biden's Build Back Better agenda&nbsp;is particularly tenuous, seeing as it hasn't passed yet.&nbsp;Since its introduction&nbsp;in late September, lawmakers&nbsp;&nbsp;. Democratic leadership , as well as a separate&nbsp;bipartisan infrastructure package, to Biden's desk this month.Meanwhile, some supermarkets of basic supplies. The reason is more complex than a single piece of legislation."The supply chain shortages are a global problem that are due to many factors,"&nbsp;, professor of data sciences and operations at the University of Southern California, said in an email. "Some of the most important factors are port capacity constraints, container shortages, production capacity constraints in some countries, truck driver shortages, etc."During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, consumer spending . As more Americans received the COVID-19 vaccines and ventured outside their homes, spending . Now, retail sales .The result: an overwhelmed supply chain."To run optimally, logistics has to be well-planned and coordinated," , co-director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's FreightLab, said in an email.&nbsp;"The pandemic and the homebody economy wreaked havoc on those networks, leaving supply chains unbalanced and out of whack."Fact check:In the U.S., a backlog of cargo at West Coast ports, as well as staffing shortages in the logistics industry,&nbsp; to supply chain snags.&nbsp;Suresh said container shortages and rising shipping costs are also a factor.Further upstream in the supply chain, there are serious production cutbacks."The coal shortage crisis in China has caused (a) power shortage, which has been curtailing production volumes in China," he said.&nbsp;"China is also experiencing disruptions in their export hubs and ports due to COVID and the delta variant."The Instagram post mentions Biden's plan to for more than 100 million workers in the U.S. But experts told USA TODAY it's unlikely those requirements have had an effect on the supply chain.Fact check:"I think this argument ... is too quick to overlook the supply chain problems that we’ve already experienced," Correll said.&nbsp;"While it's possible that some important firms might lose employees because some employees don’t want to be vaccinated, we don’t yet know how many this will be."Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that bare grocery store shelves are the result of Biden's&nbsp;policies. The image used in the Instagram post shows the aftermath of a winter storm in Texas. Experts told USA TODAY current product shortages are the result of global supply chain problems&nbsp;spurred by the coronavirus pandemic. The Build Back Better Act, which has not yet passed Congress, is not thought to be a contributing factor.&nbsp;Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can&nbsp;.Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.Featured Weekly Ad

USA TODAYSpurred in part by rising consumer demand amid easing coronavirus restrictions,&nbsp;&nbsp;have been reported across the country. Online, some social media users blame the Biden administration.An image in shows what appear to be empty shelves at a grocery store. Text in the photo reads "#BareShelvesBiden.""This does not happen in America," reads the post, on Twitter.Other posts with #BareShelvesBiden have accumulated tens of thousands of interactions on Facebook and Instagram, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. to President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better"...

Fact check: Shortages due to rising demand, supply chain disruptions

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