The important figure to look at is the net change in jobs created or lost.
When Obama took office, the economy was losing 800,000 per month. We're gaining around 150,000 a month today. That's a change of nearly a million jobs a month.
Is it enough?
No. More is needed.
That's why we need a different Congress: one that will be part of the solution, or get out of the way.
How many TOTAL jobs have been lost or gained since Obama was inaugurated?
4,303,000 jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession in early 2010. That's a decrease of 3.2%.
1,886,000 jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were CREATED from the "trough" of the recession until now, August, 2011. That's an increase of 1.5%.
In total, 2,417,000 jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until now, August 2011. That's a decrease of 1.8%.
We have experienced 11 months WITHOUT job losses since September 2010. We have added 821,000 jobs during those 11 months.
Molly's Middle America: Private and Government Jobs Lost and Gained Under Obama: Through August 2011
As of Feb. 1, 2009 there were 110,260,000 private sector jobs in the US.
As of Nov. 1, 2011 there were 109,719,000.
That's a difference of 541,000 jobs, not 2.4 million.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/USPRIV.txt
Those are the official numbers.