2013 New Jersey governor debates: on Jobs

Chris Christie: I inherited 119,000 private-sector jobs lost

Christie's number is in the ballpark. Let's look at the Republican governor's numbers and whether Corzine is truly to blame for those lost jobs. Both the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and NJ Department of Labor show NJ had 3,209,900 private-sector jobs in December 2009. A year prior, the state had 3,325,600 private-sector jobs. That's a net loss of 115,700 jobs.

Next, we need to determine whether Corzine really is to blame for those lost jobs. The first half of 2009--Corzine's last year in office--was marked by recession. The governor not only can't take all the credit for job gains, he can't pin blame for loss solely on another administration when there are other factors at work.

Our ruling: Since the governor's number is off slightly and the claim implies that Corzine is to blame for those job losses, we give Christie a ruling of Half True.

Barbara Buono: N.J. unemployment worse than US average & surrounding states

There are differing opinions about how unemployment should be measured but based strictly on the unemployment rate, Buono's three points appear to be valid. The national unemployment rate lingered at 9% throughout 2011. By February of this year it had fallen to 7.7%. So Buono is right that the US unemployment rate has declined steadily. Next, is NJ's unemployment rate nearly 2% higher than the nation's? It is, but only since about July 2012. Finally, how does NJ's unemployment rate stack up against CT and NY? BLS data shows that NJ's unemployment rate was at least 1% higher than CT's rate throughout 2012.

Our ruling: Given the varying degrees of accuracy, as well as the state measuring unemployment differently from the BLS, we rate Buono's claim "Mostly True."