Spinning the Truth

Barack Obama and his political party does do one thing well--they can spin the facts faster than LeBron James does a basketball on his best day. But this time the liberal media got one right. CNN wire staff reported following Tuesday night's Democratic National Convention that a statement repeated throughout the night was at best misleading. The Democratic speakers quoted the number 4.5 million several times in reference to new job creation during Obama's time in office. "Despite incredible odds and united Republican opposition, our president took action, and now we've seen 4.5 million new jobs," said San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the party's keynote speaker on Tuesday night.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick both cited the same number. However, according to CNN: "While a total of 4.5 million jobs sounds great, it's not the whole picture. Nonfarm private payrolls hit a post-recession low of 106.8 million that month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figure currently stands at 111.3 million as of July. While that is indeed a gain of 4.5 million, it's only a net gain of 300,000 over the course of the Obama administration to date. The private jobs figure stood at 111 million in January 2009, the month Obama took office.

And total nonfarm payrolls, including government workers, are down from 133.6 million workers at the beginning of 2009 to 133.2 million in July 2012. There's been a net loss of nearly 1 million public-sector jobs since Obama took office, despite a surge in temporary hiring for the 2010 census.

Meanwhile, the jobs that have come back aren't the same ones that were lost.

According to a study released last week by the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project, low-wage fields such as retail sales and food service are adding jobs nearly three times as fast as higher-paid occupations."

Spin the truth as fast as you can, there are still fewer people working now than when Obama took office at the height of the recession.