President Trump recently took credit for adding over 600,000 new jobs to the US economy.
“We’ve created over 600,000 jobs already over a very short period of time and it’s going to really start catching on now,” Trump said April 11 at the White House.
On Tuesday, the White House walked that statement back a bit, claiming the US had gained “over 500,000” during the Trump’s first 100 days.
But even that claim is a stretch.
The US economy added 533,000 jobs in the first three months of the year, according to Labor Department data, but it’s questionable whether Trump should get credit for any jobs added in January. Trump was only in office for 11.5 days that month.
Economists across the political spectrum say the January jobs belong to Obama’s presidency. The survey the Labor Department conducted to calculate how many jobs were added in January happened while President Obama was still in the White House and his policies were in place.
CNNMoney’s Trump Jobs Tracker gives Trump credit for 317,000 jobs so far. The calculation includes only the February and March job gains.
A White House spokesman told CNNMoney that Trump is including the January data as well, which is why the White House jobs tally is about 60% higher than CNNMoney’s.
There is a never ending debate about how much credit any president deserves for job gains (or losses). Lots of factors — the Federal Reserve, the value of the US dollar, the price of commodities like oil and the global economy — influence employer’s decisions to hire (or fire) workers. Presidential policy is only one sliver of the pie.
The next jobs report — for April — will be released on May 5.
CNNMoney’s Heather Long contributed to this article.