Ad-Watch: on Jobs

John Kerry: 2.7M manufacturing jobs lost under Bush

AD NARRATOR: Millions of good jobs lost to plant closures and outsourcing. Yet President Bush protects tax breaks favoring corporations that move their headquarters overseas. America can do better. John Kerry's plan: End job-killing tax loopholes, and provide incentives to companies who create good jobs here. Because John Kerry believes we should export American products, not American jobs.

ANALYSIS: The Democratic National Committee says 2.7 million manufacturing jobs had been lost under Bush. That's true, but ignores the fact that manufacturing jobs started their decline three years before Bush took office. It actually declined by 0.5 million jobs between the peak reached in March, 1998 and when Clinton left office.

Dick Gephardt: AdWatch: claims Bush did worst on jobs-but Reagan did worse

ANALYSIS: Te economy shed just over 2.7 million payroll jobs in the current slump. But that's 124,000 fewer jobs than were lost than between July, 1981 and December, 1982, when Ronald Reagan was President. And at that time the economy was much smaller. It now seems likely that Bush will end his term with the economy employing fewer payroll workers than when he took office. If that happens, Bush's critics will be able to say correctly that he's the first since Hoover to have ended an entire term with a net job loss. But it's premature to say that now. Even Reagan's bigger job loss was erased less than two years after growth resumed. And [it's possible] that job gains in the next 12 months that would leave Bush with a net gain in jobs.