The post by Cypress (quoting/replying in the thread) claims roughly accurate net nonfarm payroll job changes for Obama but uses approximate/selective figures for the Republican presidents listed, has an arithmetic error in the summary total, and frames the comparison in a way that ignores major context.
Specific claims and verification (BLS nonfarm payroll data, standard presidential-term comparisons)
- “11 million jobs were created in the 8 years of the Obama administration.”Accurate / close. Official tallies put net job growth under Obama (Jan 2009–Jan 2017) at about 11.5–11.6 million. FactCheck.org and contemporaneous reporting cited ~11.6 million; other summaries use 11.3–11.6 million depending on exact start/end months and revisions.
- Poppy Bush (George H.W. Bush, ~4 years): +2.6 million.Accurate. Standard figures are ~+2.6 million.
- George W. Bush (“Dumbya,” 8 years): +1.4 million.In the ballpark but on the high side of common citations. Many summaries (including Wikipedia compilations of BLS data) put the net at roughly +0.5 million for the full term; some older or differently timed calculations are higher (around +1–2 million range before full crisis revisions). The Great Recession (which began in late 2007) produced large late-term losses.
- Trump 1: –3 million lost.Close. Net change for the full 2017–2021 term was a loss of roughly –2.7 million, driven almost entirely by the COVID collapse in 2020. Pre-pandemic years showed solid gains (several million).
- Trump 2: +0.6 million.Plausible for a partial/ongoing term (as of mid-2026 data in some secondary references ~+0.9 million or so appears in discussion). This is short and incomplete.
- Summary: “In 14 years of the last three Republican presidents, 600 thousand (600k) total jobs added. In 8 years of the Obama presidency, 11 million jobs added.”The directional contrast is real, but the 600k total is incorrect arithmetic or uses inconsistent inputs. Using the post’s own stated components (+2.6 + 1.4 – 3 + 0.6) yields ~+1.6 million, not 600k. Broader consistent BLS-based tallies for GHW Bush + GWB + Trump 1 show a very small net (or near-zero/low positive depending on exact cutoffs), while Obama’s full-term net was far larger. Including a partial Trump 2 does not change the overall pattern much.
Important context the post omits
Net payroll changes are not solely (or even primarily) the result of a president’s policies. Timing of business cycles, recessions, external shocks, Federal Reserve policy, congressional action, demographics, and global events dominate:
- Obama inherited the depths of the Great Recession (large early losses, then a long recovery).
- George W. Bush’s term included the 2001 recession and the 2007–09 financial crisis/recession.
- Trump’s first term included the unique COVID shock.
- Job “creation” figures also depend on methodology (total nonfarm vs. private-sector only; exact start/end months such as January vs. February; data revisions).
Longer historical patterns do show stronger average job growth under Democrat presidents in recent decades, but economists routinely note the heavy role of luck/timing and the difficulty of cleanly attributing results to any single administration.
Bottom line: The Obama figure is solid. The Republican figures are directionally consistent with published BLS-derived summaries (small or negative nets when full terms including recessions are counted). The 600k summary total does not match the components given in the post, and the comparison is presented without the major cyclical and shock-related caveats that explain most of the gap.
