July numbers improve, but much progress needed

July's jobs numbers brought pleasing news to Gov. Rick Scott, who is watching the state's economic data like a hawk.

The state gained a net 27,600 jobs from June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Scott put an even more positive spin on the news: It was a record month during his tenure for private-sector job growth, at 34,500 jobs.

"We are more than halfway to our goal of creating 700,000 jobs in seven years," Scott said in a Aug. 16 statement.

We have a few quibbles with Scott's statement.

One, he is counting private-sector jobs. By our count, which factors in government job losses, that moves the net jobs total since Scott took office to 336,700 -- so it's actually less than halfway to 700,000.

That's better than the last time we visited the jobs data, but the state is not creating jobs at a fast enough pace for Scott to really be powering toward the jobs goal he articulated on the campaign.

That goal, of course, was that his 7-7-7 plan would create 700,000 jobs on top of what state economists predicted the economy would churn out anyway as it recovered from a painful recession. At the time, they predicted the state would add 1 million jobs by 2017 regardless of changes in policy.

That's why we rated Scott's assertion back in May that "we are already almost halfway to our 2010 goal of creating 700,000 new jobs in seven years” as Mostly False.

The unemployment rate is not particularly relevant to this promise, but we thought we'd note it remained unchanged at 7.1 percent.

Even more, economists have told us it takes several years to assess what influence, if any, a governor or president has over job creation or losses.

This promise remains Stalled on out Scott-O-Meter.