Just days after being arraigned for his third indictment, former President Donald Trump gave a speech to supporters in South Carolina.

Trump, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, took aim at President Joe Biden’s record for job creation, arguing that Biden’s achievements paled compared with his own.

"During Biden’s first 30 months in office, just 2.1 million new jobs were created, and by contrast, during my first 30 months in office we created 4.9 million new jobs," Trump said Aug. 5.


We have previously fact-checked Biden for exaggerating the scale of job gains on his watch, but none of Biden’s statements were as far off base as Trump’s.

How the numbers would normally be calculated
When Trump took office in January 2017, the U.S. had 145.6 million nonfarm jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ standard measurement for job counting. After Trump’s first 30 months — the same number of months that Biden has been in office — the number of jobs had risen to 150.8 million.

That’s an increase of about 5.2 million jobs, or a bit higher than the 4.9 million Trump described in South Carolina.

Using this methodology, Trump was much further off base with Biden’s numbers.

When Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S had almost 143 million nonfarm jobs. By Biden’s 30th month in office — June 2023 — the number of nonfarm jobs had risen to 156.2 million.

That’s an increase of 13.2 million jobs, or more than six times as big as the 2.1 million jobs Trump referenced in his speech.

A month-by-month comparison of job gains under the two administrations shows that Trump beat Biden for nonfarm job gains in only two of their first 30 months.