American Crossroads Ad Claim “False”

In a provocative campaign ad, American Crossroads, a Republican-aligned group, criticized President Barack Obama for being a "celebrity" who yukked it up with Jimmy Fallon, danced a softshoe with Ellen DeGeneres and dissed Kanye West as a "jackass" -- while the economy crumbled.

PolitiFacts zeroed in on one claim in the ad -- that "after four years of a celebrity president … 85% (of recent college grads are) moving back in with their parents."

PolitiFacts Rules:
When we take up a claim in which the speaker seeks to assign credit or blame to a politician for something that happens on their watch, we also consider whether credit or blame is warranted. And as we have ruled in the past, no president can unilaterally move the economy, much less determine whether grads have to move home with Mom and Dad.

"There was a worldwide credit bubble that led to a worldwide financial collapse that led to a global Great Recession," said J.D. Foster, an economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation told us last month. "If you accept that observation, it becomes hard to blame anyone in the U.S. overly for the results."

So it's a stretch to blame Obama if more grads are returning home.

The ad cites a questionable survey and suggests the data is new when the author says the survey was "many years ago."

Also, the 85 percent figure is at least twice the highest rate found by Pew, a well-respected research group. And the ad blames Obama for a phenomenon that economists say is beyond the impact of a president. We rate the claim False.