TRUMP: "We've created more than almost 6 million jobs since the election. And if I would have said that to the fake news during the campaign they would have said, 'He exaggerates.' ... Including almost 600,000 manufacturing jobs." — remarks at tank factory.
THE FACTS: He's not exaggerating on job creation. But that record is not all his, and it's not remarkable.
The economy created about 6 million jobs in the roughly two years before the election, then again in the roughly two years after.
By counting since the election, he's taking credit for jobs created in the last months of the Obama administration. The country has added 466,000 manufacturing jobs, not "almost 600,000," since Trump took office.
President Donald Trump pumps his fists as he arrives to deliver remarks at the Lima Army Tank Plant, Wednesday, March 20, 2019, in Lima, Ohio. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
TRUMP: "Everyone said, 'You couldn't do it, couldn't bring back manufacturing jobs.' ... We're bringing them back beyond anybody's expectations." — remarks at tank factory.
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THE FACTS: It's hard to show that manufacturing has been "brought back." There are now 12.8 million jobs in U.S. factories, below the 13.7 million just before the recession started and far below the roughly 17.2 million in 2000, just before China joined the World Trade Organization and gained greater access to the U.S. market.
TRUMP: "And we just came out — another chart — we just came out with numbers — the Economic Report of the President: 3.1 percent GDP. The first time in 14 years that we cracked 3, right? That's pretty good — 3.1. The press tried to make it 2.9. I said, 'It's not 2.9.' What they did is they took odd months." — remarks at tank factory.
THE FACTS: It's a fiction that 2.9 percent growth comes from a calculation based on "odd months."
It comes from a traditional measure of gross domestic product, comparing growth in the size of one year's economy with the previous year's. That measure shows 2.9 percent growth.
But there's another way to measure, which Trump goes by because it looks better. He is citing a comparison in the size of the economy in the fourth quarter of 2018 and the fourth quarter of 2017. That shows 3.1 percent growth.
Some economists consider this measure to be a legitimate way to look at growth, if not the usual way. But when comparing quarters from one year to the next, Trump is wrong to say that growth hasn't cracked 3 percent in 14 years. In 2015, the second quarter was up 3.8 percent from the year before.
