seasonal adjustment models, and annual adjustments resulting from unemployment insurance filings. Figures are seasonally adjusted, which removes from the series the effects of normal variation from recurring events within a year, such as holidays and weather changes, and helps reveal underlying economic trends. Journalist Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post explained in 2020 that economists debate which month to use as the base for counting job creation, between either January of the first term (the month of inauguration) or February. Survey data is typically from around the twelfth of the month, so January numbers are counted before the new president takes office. For that reason, The Washington Post uses the February jobs level as the starting point. For example, for President Obama, the computation takes the 145.815 million jobs of February 2017 and subtracts the 133.312 million jobs of February 2009 to arrive at the 12.503 million figure. Four of the top five presidents in terms of total jobs added were Democrats. For these 13 presidents beginning with Truman, total job creation was 2.4 times faster under Democrats, 70.5 million for the seven Democratic presidents and 29.1 million for the six Republican presidents. The Democratic presidents were in office for a total of 429 months, with 164,000 jobs per month added on average, while the Republicans were in office for 475 months, with a 61,000 jobs added per month average. The table below summarizes the results for the past seven presidents, with data through January 2021 for President Trump: Controversy The exact usefulness of these numbers is debated. On the one hand, they include only nonfarm payroll employment, which excludes certain types of jobs, notably the self-employed. However, as a semi-balancing factor, they count one person with two jobs as two employed persons. Additionally, for at least the first eight months of a president's term, he inherits a budget proposed and implemented by his predecessor (as well as an overall economy which may be in decline or recovery). The data in columns shown for September (in italic) correlate better with the federal fiscal year starting each October, showing the impact of a given president and resulting federal budget on the job count. Moreover, according to the United States Constitution, the United States Congress is responsible for government spending and thus, regardless of presidential advocacy, bears constitutional responsibility for such things as spending and tax policy that have enormous effects upon