Scott claims more private sector jobs, but net growth still below 1 million

Gov. Rick Scott is claiming Florida has added more than 1 million new jobs since he took office, so the time is right to tout his legislative agenda for 2016.

"Thanks to our focus on cutting taxes and making it easier for job creators to succeed, our businesses are creating jobs faster than we ever expected," Scott said in a Dec. 18, 2015, press release about November jobs figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Even though today's news is great, we have to continue to diversify our economy by cutting $1 billion in taxes and creating the Florida Enterprise Fund so Florida can be FIRST for jobs."

The BLS did say that between the end of December 2010 and November 2015, private businesses had added 1,011,800 jobs in Florida. Scott's office did not want to comment for this Scott-O-Meter update, but they have been using the figures to argue Scott has guided the state out of the recession.

Scott announced a nine-city, statewide bus tour called "Million Miles for a Million Jobs" to highlight the new report. The tour comes ahead of the 2016 legislative session, which begins Jan. 12.

He also has asked the Legislature for $250 million for an economic development fund and $1 billion in tax cuts. The tax cuts would eliminate income taxes on manufacturing and retail businesses, reduce taxes on commercial leases, and permanently repeal sales taxes on manufacturing equipment.

Scott ran for governor in 2010 on his 7-7-7 Plan, in which he promised to use seven steps to create 700,000 jobs in seven years. The state reached 700,000 not long after Scott won re-election in 2014.

But Scott said his program would create those 700,000 on top of the 1 million jobs state economists predicted Florida would add by 2017, no matter what policies came out of Tallahassee. He later denied saying that, but as far as we're concerned, Florida has to create 1.7 million jobs for Scott to keep his promise.

When the Scott-O-Meter started running on this promise, that meant the state needed to add 20,238 jobs a month, every month, for 84 straight months. That's happened 23 times since Scott took office in January 2011.

We need to point out that Scott is only counting private jobs, and never includes government positions in his jobs totals. He even said he'd cut the state's workforce 5 percent, something we've rated a Promise Kept.

We count them, however, because those jobs across federal, state and local governments still mean a paycheck to the people who have them. Government jobs counted in this category include everyone from teachers to firefighters to the number taker at the tax collector's office.

The federal data show that 27,300 government jobs have been lost since Scott took office. When we factor in those losses, the total jobs picture shows 984,500 net new jobs in five years, a bit less than 1 million.

These new jobs haven't been the highest-paying, either. Three industries that tend to favor lower wage positions accounted for 134,800 jobs: education and health services; trade, transportation and utilities (including retail); and leisure and hospitality.

There is some recognition from the administration that the jobs being created aren't necessarily high-paying, sustainable positions. In an interview with the Tampa Bay Times in December, outgoing director of the Department of Economic Opportunity Jesse Panuccio said Scott has started to focus on quality over quantity.

"If you've been listening to the governor in recent months, he's really starting to talk about economic diversity," Panuccio said. The quality of the positions are more important "now that we've recovered from the recession," he said.

But jobs are still being created, and we will continue to track this promise until Scott reaches his previously stated goal of 1.7 million. We rate this promise In The Works.