Yahoo via ABC News: State of the Union: Fact Checking the President

[Jumbo]

The lamestream media offers a pretty decent and even-handed rundown---something their "opposition" wouldn't recognize if it ran over them

http://news.yahoo.com/state-union-fact-checking-president-022136336--abc-news.html

Fact or Fiction Number 1 - The Booming Economy: Obama's Jobs Story

Did the economy crater before President Obama's inauguration, then rebound once his policies took effect?

It seems unlikely that the president would utter inaccurate jobs numbers during his State of the Union address, but while we wait for official White House citation, the president made at least one claim that for now looks iffy. The transcript:

" In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect. Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005."

4 million jobs lost in 6 months before Obama took office: Looks like this total falls short of 4 million. Subtracting the total employment listed in the January 2009 Bureau of Labor Statistics employment report from the same total in August 2008, one arrives at 3.378 million jobs lost. **

Another 4 million jobs lost before Obama's policies took full effect. Using this Bureau of Labor Statistics table, starting at February 2009, the sum of monthly job losses surpass 4 million in October 2009. President Obama's stimulus was passed in February 2009-though it took notoriously long for that money to make its way out the door.

3 million jobs created over 22 months, more jobs created in 2011 than in any year since 2005. Using total employment, Obama's numbers don't hold up. According to the same BLS table, the economy added 2.056 million jobs over 21 months (counting backward, the next month saw job losses). And 2011 saw more job growth than any year since 2006, not 2005. But Politifact notes that Obama's statement was accurate-he was talking about private-sector jobs.

**UPDATE: President Obama was referencing private-sector jobs exclusively when talking about jobs lost before his time in office, according to the White House official. Based on this private-sector jobs chart, the economy lost 3.506 jobs in the six months before his inauguration, not four million.

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[gbear]

When talking about the jobs lost, is he talking before addinb back any jobs gained? For example, if I fre 2 employees but hire 1, how would this be counted? Is it 2 for the number who lost their job or 1 for the net jobs lost?

[Burgold]

Yeah, I figured that they were looking at different numbers or a different way of calculating lost jobs. It might be as simple as gross versus net. No need to lie here. If the President had said three and a half million jobs lost... that sounds plenty bad.