We are not producing jobs. We created 80,000 jobs last month. We don't talk about the jobs that we lost. The net of it all is that we lost jobs.
Joe Kyrillos rejects the term "Bush tax cuts." Rather, the Republican U.S. Senate hopeful casts the looming expiration of lower federal tax rates -- enacted under former President George W. Bush -- as tax increases the country can’t afford. That’s his argument considering the jobs market, which Kyrillos erroneously claimed in a recent interview is not growing. "If we don’t take action there will be tax increases and I guess we would call them [President Barack] Obama tax increases or [U.S. Sen.] Bob Menendez tax increases," Kyrillos, a state senator who is challenging Menendez this November, said in a July 11 interview on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show. "Here's the thing: our economy is not performing. We are not producing jobs. We created 80,000 jobs last month. We don't talk about the jobs that we lost. The net of it all is that we lost jobs. And so listen, raising taxes now in these times is not going to help with job creation." Actually, the nation is adding jobs and has been for more than 20 months. So what is Kyrillos -- who has been traversing New Jersey on a "statewide jobs tour" -- talking about? "Our country has 4.894 million fewer jobs than we did at the start of the recession. That is the net job loss the Senator was referring to," Chapin Fay, Kyrillos’ campaign manager, said in a written statement. Federal labor statistics confirm the country shed nearly 4.9 million jobs since December 2007, the official start of the recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. But since June 2009 -- the official end of the recession -- the nation added nearly 2.6 million jobs. So to support his claim that the "net of it all is that we lost jobs," Kyrillos includes all of the job losses incurred during the recession. Fay said the point Kyrillos was "making is that we still have lost a lot of jobs since the recession and are not replenishing them fast enough. That is the context of his sentence and that is factually correct." But Kyrillos didn’t make any reference to that time frame in the interview, as he explained why the economy can’t now afford a tax increase. And the fact is the trend has reversed since the end of the recession. Though it may not be the growth Kyrillos or the rest of the country would like, the nation added 80,000 jobs in June, according to preliminary estimates. Fay said in his statement that "the 12.7 million Americans currently unemployed are certainly not reassured by the measly 80,000 jobs netted last month." But there still has been job growth. The nation has added more jobs than it lost every month since October 2010. In the private-sector, job growth has been sustained even longer, with gains every month since March 2010. Year over year, the country added more than 1.7 million jobs overall from June 2011 to June 2012. Over the same time frame, more than 1.9 million private-sector jobs were added. Our ruling Kyrillos said "we are not producing jobs. We created 80,000 jobs last month. We don't talk about the jobs that we lost. The net of it all is that we lost jobs." The country is producing jobs. To suggest otherwise is wrong. Kyrillos’ campaign manager said the Republican candidate was referring to total job losses dating back to December 2007, the start of the recession, when he said "the net of it all is that we lost jobs." But Kyrillos doesn’t make that distinction during the interview. The nation has sustained monthly job growth since October 2010. And year over year, more than 1.7 million jobs were added. We rate this claim False. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com.
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