On the stump, President Obama likes to claim, “Over the last three and a half years, we’ve created 4.5 million new jobs.” This is actually false. According to the latest Department of Labor data, even measuring from the depths of the recession, only 4 million jobs have been created under Obama.

What Obama probably means is that the economy has created 4.5 million private sector jobs since the recession bottomed out. Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter made that more careful claim here.