Fox Nation Distorts Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's Comments On Private Sector Jobs Growth

Fox Nation distorted Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's comments on Fox News Sunday to suggest she said she was “happy” with 8.2 percent unemployment. In fact, Wasserman-Schutlz said she was “happy about 28 straight months of job growth in the private sector,” which has resulted in net positive jobs gains in the private sector since Obama took office.

During the Fox News Sunday interview, Fox's John Roberts asked Wasserman-Schultz about the 80,000 jobs added in June, to which she responded the economy has “had 28 straight months of job growth in the private sector, 4.4 million jobs created.” She later said:

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: I'm pretty happy about 28 straight months of job growth in the private sector.

Fox Nation distorted those words from Wasserman-Schultz to claim she said she was “happy” with the unemployment rate:

But Wasserman-Schultz was making the point that much progress has been made in the growth of private sector jobs since President Obama took office. Her response to Roberts' question about the unemployment rate was to say “we have a long way to go,” not to say she was happy about it.

The facts support Wasserman-Schultz's point as well. The Wall Street Journal reported in May that “the number of private-sector jobs in the U.S. is now higher than the month [Obama] took office.” Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that there are currently 160,000 more private sector jobs in existence than there were in January 2009 when Obama took office. The data also show that since the decline in employment bottomed out in February 2010, nearly 4.4 million jobs have been added in the private sector: