[fintstone]

Originally posted by LynnsABCs
From factcheck.org - - -

Job Loss

Kerry misled when he claimed the economy has lost 1.6 million jobs under Bush. It is true that figures released earlier in the day show the economy is still down by 1.6 million private sector jobs since Bush took office, but the drop in total payroll employment -- including teachers, firemen, policemen and other federal, state and local government employees -- is down by much less than that -- 821,000. Furthermore, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced, with the release of the latest figures, that its yearly "benchmark" revision would add an estimated 236,000 payroll jobs to the total when made final next February. That means the best current estimate is that 585,000 jobs have been lost under Bush, about one-third of the number Kerry stated.

Kerry may turn out to be correct when he said Bush would be "the first president in 72 years to lose jobs." Payroll employment has been growing at roughly 100,000 jobs per month for the past four months, and there are only four months to go -- October, November, December and January -- until the end of Bush's term in January, 2005. (The number that will actually go into the economic history books won't be known until February 2006, when the BLS publishes its final benchmark revisions of 2004 data.)

So...how does that explain this:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics issues a document entitled the "Employment Situation Summary" every month. The most recent survey was released at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, October 8, 2004. This survey indicated that there were 139.5 millions working during September. That, my friends, is a record. Never before have 139.5 million Americans had a job during any survey period.