During his first answer of tonight’s presidential debate, President Obama repeated a claim regarding employment numbers that, while true, makes his own record on jobs appear rosier than reality.

Specifically, the president claimed, “over the last 30 months we’ve seen 5 million jobs created.” While that is true, the president’s choice of the “30 months” time frame was deliberately chosen so that he could tout the largest number of jobs created.

If measured from February 2009, the month Obama took office, the American economy has only created about 316,000 jobs.

The president made a similar claim in a recent “60 Minutes” interview. While technically accurate, it distorts his own record on employment by measuring an incomplete time frame.