President Obama covered a lot of ground in his press conference today, but what’s sure to get the most attention is a claim he made about the health of the private economy. This is regarded as newsworthy because reporters recognize (correctly) that Republicans will use it out of context in attack ads.
Here’s the full quote: “The truth of the matter is that, as i said, we’ve created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government”
And, via Matt Yglesias, the data: