Using Big Numbers

Apparently, Rick Perry is advertising that under his leadership as President, he will create 2.5 million jobs.  Divided by 48 months, that's 52,000 jobs a month.  Well, it just so happens that since March of 2010, there have been 2,088,000 jobs created.  Over 19 months, that's almost 110,000 per month.  That increase hasn't even registered after the terrible job losses from February 2008 until February 2010.



2,500,000 might sound like a big number to people, but it isn't.  The peak number of job losses occured in January 2009, the month that Obama took office.  Why this is Obama's economy, I'm not sure.  If you are looking for underwhelming jobs plans, Rick Perry has one for you. But if you are looking for a president with math skills, Rick Perry probably isn't the guy:

Perry also points to the Texas Enterprise Fund, an aggressive state economic development incentive he claims has netted 58,000 new jobs since 2003. However, Texas officials put the figure closer to 30,750 new positions.

That's an 88% differential.  I would consider that a significant difference.