The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

Jonathan Alter (Newsweek) | In Jan 2009 the US economy was losing 740K jobs a month, and now it is gaining 250K jobs a month. – MOSTLY TRUE

MR. ALTER: When Barack Obama came to office, the economy was losing 740,000 jobs a month in January of 2009. We’re now adding about 250,000 jobs a month

From crowd-sourcer Joshua:

Regarding Jonathan Alter’s comment re jobs lost/gained, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that non-farm payroll employment fell by 598,000 in January 2009 (see http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit…). For context, it had fallen by 524,000 in December 2008 (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit…) and would fall by 651,000 in February 2009 (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit…).

As for how it is doing now, the BLS figures show that non-farm payroll employment fell by 36,000 in February 2010 (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit…), increased by 162,000 in March 2010 (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit…), and increased again by 290,000 in April 2010 (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit…).

Therefore although Mr. Alter’s numbers are somewhat off, the ballpark is correct and the difference does not change the overall point he was trying to make. The statement gets a MOSTLY TRUE.

The fact-checking of this statement took a combined 20 minutes.