The Big Lie?Reader comment on: Obama State of the Union Submitted by staylor (United States), Jan 25, 2012 00:55 There was one big lie in the speech that I have yet to see addressed by any the conservative punditry, namely, the claim that 3 million jobs have been created in the last 22 months. Even a cursory look at the BLS data shows this be false. The number of people employed in March of 2010, 22 months ago, was 138,836,000 the number of people employed as of last month was only 140,790,000 which leads to a total job groth over the last 22 months of 1,954,000, or less than two thirds of what the president claims. But what is a million fake jobs among friends?That means an average of only 88,800 new jobs a month which is spectacularly unimpressive when one considers that roughly 150,000 new jobs are required every months just to break even with population growth (roughly 4 million people were added to the population during this time period). The only reason unemployment has gone down at all is because the total "work force" has shrunk by 77,000 during the time period (once again the actual population has increased by 4 million). In short the 3 million jobs created figure is a total fabrication. I am not surprised that Obama is doing this, but I am surprised that nobody seems to be taking him to task for it. Or am I missing something? Note: Comments are moderated by the editor and are subject to editing. The Future of Capitalism replies: He said that American business or the private sector had created that many jobs. He didn't mention the government jobs lost; that may account for the discrepancy in the totals that you mention. The totals you mention are for private and govt. payrolls combined. He's just talking private sector jobs. Submit a comment on this article Other reader comments on this item
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