How Accurate Is Obama's Attack On Romney's Jobs Record?

Mitt Romney talks about his plan for creating jobs at a 2011 campaign speech in Las Vegas.

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: To the economy in U.S. politics now. This week, president Obama's campaign introduced a new ad challenging his Republican rival's record on job creation. They ad claims the Massachusetts economy fared poorly during Mitt Romney's four years in as governor. It's an effort to counter Romney's promises to fix the nation's ailing economy.

NPR's Jim Zarroli examines the claims.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: The ad says that between 2003 and 2007, Massachusetts had one of the worst economic records in the country.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: When Mitt Romney was governor, Massachusetts lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs, a rate twice the national average, and fell to 47th in job creation.

ZARROLI: This claim that Massachusetts was 47th in job creation is one that the Obama campaign has been making for months. And it's been independently verified by PolitiFact. Romney maintains his record was a bit better than that, but no one disputes that job creation during his term was pretty lackluster.

MICHAEL GOODMAN: If you take a look at the job creation experience of Massachusetts between 2003 and 2007, I don't think there is any way of getting around the fact that it was disappointing.

ZARROLI: Michael Goodman is a professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth. He says when Romney took office, Massachusetts was at the tail end of a brutal recession. Goodman says the state is heavily dependent on information technology and had been devastated by the dotcom bust.

GOODMAN: We fell first and harder and faster. And so, when Romney took office in early 2003 Massachusetts was still struggling even though the nation, for the most part, had moved on from that experience.

ZARROLI: During his term, Romney worked to try to bring businesses to the state. He was able to persuade Bristol-Myers Squibb to relocate in an abandoned military base.

Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told ABC "This Week" on Sunday, that by the time the governor left office the unemployment rate had fallen from 5.6 to 4.7 percent.

ERIC FEHRNSTROM: That's close to full unemployment. What does that mean? It meant anybody who wanted a job had a pretty good chance of finding one. I have no doubt that President Obama would happily trade his 8.2 percent unemployment rate for Mitt Romney's 4.7 percent.

ZARROLI: But the low unemployment rate obscures some facts. There is no question the Massachusetts economy grew under Romney. And with its highly-educated population it gained a lot of white collar jobs, especially in finance, technology and health care. But like many states it was also losing manufacturing jobs.

Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, says this didn't start under Romney. With its high wages and high cost of living, the Bay State had been bleeding factory jobs for at least three decades.

MICHAEL WIDMER: The Obama campaign is factually accurate but I think it's a bit misleading, in the sense that this is really part of a long term trend.

ZARROLI: So on balance, Massachusetts added only about 50,000 jobs during Romney's term. That places the state near the bottom in job creation.

So how come the unemployment rate fell anyway? Partly because a lot of people moved away. During Romney's term, Massachusetts was one of only four states to lose population. And when people move away there are fewer job-seekers and the unemployment rate falls. Michael Widmer says this isn't necessarily Romney's fault. The state fell victim to forces beyond its control. But neither did Romney do much to reverse the trends.

WIDMER: The reality, of course, is that governors don't have a lot of control over creation of jobs in one term - either on the upside or the downside.

ZARROLI: Presidents may not always have much power over the economy either but candidates for president like to tell voters they can make a difference and voters tend to judge them on whether they do.

Jim Zarroli, NPR News.

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