The claim: Trump is the worst jobs president in history
Millions of jobs were lost during Donald Trump's presidency, according to a Nov. 1 Facebook post.
A chart posted to the account for the action fund of the Center for American Progress showed negative job growth numbers for Trump compared with 12 of his predecessors. Trump is "the worst jobs president in history" with job losses totaling 4 million, according to the post caption.
Per the chart, Trump is the only president in the last 80 years to net job losses during his presidency. President George W. Bush is the runner-up with 1 million jobs added during his administration. Bush's successor, Barack Obama, is credited with 12 million jobs.
USA TODAY reached out to the CAP for comment.
The nation is in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, according to USA TODAY. But several factors are responsible for historically low job growth.
Actual job numbers
The chart appears to be a product of CAP using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, according to sources referenced.
The St. Louis Fed's nonfarm payroll for all employees in the United States was used to chart presidential job growth over time. An exact copy of the chart cannot be found on the website, but this chart showing the number of people employed per decade from 1940 onward is a likely source. The CAP's chart starts with job growth under President Harry S. Truman, whose term began in 1945.
In correlation with the worldwide escalation of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of workers in the economy dropped steeply from a historic high in February, according to the St. Louis Fed chart. But the statistics are not an exact match to the chart produced by the CAP.
The pandemic effect
The St. Louis Fed relies on data from the Labor Department, which released a sobering report on employment numbers last month. Slightly fewer than 4 million people permanently lost their jobs in September, according to the report. This statistic was referenced in the CAP table.
What wasn't referenced was the economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite a five-month decline, 6.8 million more people were unemployed in September compared to February. People who reported not looking for work within the last four weeks because of the pandemic accounted for 4.5% of this number, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics household survey.
But the Labor Department report stated the September number reflected a bounce-back in the economy; the unemployment rate reached 13.3% in May but fell to 7.9% in September.
The presidents' job numbers
The CAP's chart doesn't match the average number of jobs per president recorded by the Labor Department.
A CNN report credited Obama with an average of 224,000 jobs per month in the last three years of his administration, according to reporting by USA TODAY. This adds up to just over 8 million jobs. From 1993-2001 — during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations,18.6 million jobs were added to the economy.
And prior to pandemic-related job losses, 6.7 million jobs were added to the economy during Trump's term.
Our rating: Missing context
We rate this claim MISSING CONTEXT, based on our research. The job growth numbers in the claim are based on incomplete data. The 4 million in job losses under Trump comprise one month of records collected by the Labor Department. What's more, the claim does not account for pandemic-related job losses.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Pandemic unaccounted for in presidential job growth chart