Today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the American economy added 114,000 jobs in September. BLS also revised the job gains for July and August up by a total of 86,000, and the report contained several other good signs for the economy. The private sector has now added jobs for 31 consecutive months, and there are more than 600,000 more total jobs than there were when Obama took office, even though the public sector continues to lag behind.

At the same point in his administration, President George W. Bush’s record wasn’t as positive. Through 44 months, the private sector had lost more than 1 percent of its jobs (under Obama, it has gained 0.46 percent), and the only reason Bush could claim positive overall growth was because the public sector had grown by almost 4 percent.

Both presidents experienced recessions early in their terms, but as this chart from Nick Bunker and Michael Linden from the Center for American Progress shows, the labor market has recovered faster under Obama even though the Great Recession was deeper and more painful than the 2001 recession:

Under Obama, the public sector has shrunk by more than 600,000 jobs, increasing only while the government conducted the 2010 Census. Without those losses, the unemployment rate would be near 7 percent. The unemployment rate would be lower still had Republicans not blocked the American Jobs Act, which economists estimated would have added more than one million jobs to the economy.

DENVER, Colorado — Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) told ThinkProgress at Wednesday’s presidential debate that he doesn’t think much of a group of Catholic nuns who traveled across the country this year to highlight the plight of America’s poor and the impact that the House Republican budget would have on the neediest. Tipton said the nuns wanted “to try and divide” the country. He went on to say that they lacked “the understanding” of how to pay for government programs:

KEYES: What did you think about the nuns who are going out and barnstorming across the country, campaigning against the Ryan budget?

TIPTON: I think one of the important things is that we often get people that want to try and divide. No one, Republican or Democrat, wants to hurt any individual.

KEYES: Do you think they’re being divisive?

TIPTON: I think pointing to this without the understanding apparently that we’ve got to be able to pay for those different programs. So how can we best deliver them in the most efficient way? What’s the best way to really address needs and concerns that people have right now? Wouldn’t it be better to actually create an environment where they could get a job and provide for their families? That’s what we’re pushing hard on.

Listen to it:

Specifically, the nuns were protesting the fact that the GOP budget would cut millions of low-income Americans off of food assistance and other programs. In all, nearly two-thirds of the budget’s cuts come from programs that help the poor, including Medicaid and Pell Grants.

If Tipton believes the nuns’ are being divisive by bringing attention to how the poor would fare under Ryan’s budget, he would also take issue with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who in April called the House GOP’s cuts to food stamps “unjustified and wrong.”