Has government added jobs, or lost them?

By Louis Jacobson
Published on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 11:27 a.m.

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"Since January 2008 the private sector has lost nearly 8 million jobs while local, state and federal governments added 590,000."

Tim Pawlenty, Monday, December 13th, 2010.

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Tim Pawlenty, a potential Republican presidential candidate, ran afoul of the Truth-O-Meter for a statement about the expansion of the government workforce.

Lately, Republicans have aggressively promoted the point that government workers haven't felt the same pain as private-sector workers during the recession. In a Dec. 13, 2010, op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, outgoing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- a potential contender in the 2012 Republican presidential primary -- wrote a column that blasted public-employee unions.

"The majority of union members today no longer work in construction, manufacturing or 'strong back' jobs," Pawlenty wrote. "They work for government, which, thanks to President Obama, has become the only booming 'industry' left in our economy. Since January 2008, the private sector has lost nearly 8 million jobs while local, state and federal governments added 590,000."

We checked his facts and found he was way off with his numbers. See our Truth-O-Meter item here.