Thanks for trying to pull some RNC heads out of the sand.
There is no 'debunking' the story, both surveys do measure jobs AND job-creation.
Counting self-employed people as employed is not having one's "head in the sand".
The figures are explained in the "notes" section here: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
"...Coverage, definitions, and differences
Household survey. The sample is selected to reflect the entire civilian noninstitutional population. Based on responses to a series of questions on work and job search activities, each person 16 years and over in a sample household is classified as employed, unemployed, or not in the labor force.
People are classified as employed if they did any work at all as paid employees during the reference week; worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm; or worked without pay at least 15 hours in a family business or farm. People are also counted as employed if they were temporarily absent from their jobs because of illness, bad weather, vacation, labor-management disputes, or personal reasons...
Differences in employment estimates. The numerous conceptual and methodological differences between the household and establishment surveys result in important distinctions in the employment estimates derived from the surveys. Among these are:
• The household survey includes agricultural workers, the self-employed, unpaid family workers, and private household workers among the employed. These groups are excluded from the establishment survey
. • The household survey includes people on unpaid leave among the employed. The establishment survey does not.
• The household survey is limited to workers 16 years of age and older. The establishment survey is not limited by age.
• The household survey has no duplication of individuals, because individuals are counted only once, even if they hold more than one job.
In the establishment survey, employees working at more than one job and thus appearing on more than one payroll would be counted separately for each appearance. ..."
An obvious difference is that the "household" survey counts as employed those on unpaid leave- like casual, and self-employed workers- teachers too I would think.
The notes also make clear that the numbers mean nothing:
"For example, the confidence interval for the monthly change in total employment from the household survey is on the order of plus or minus 290,000. Suppose the estimate of total employment increases by 100,000 from one month to the next. The 90-percent confidence interval on the monthly change would range from -190,000 to 390,000 (100,000 +/- 290,000). These figures do not mean that the sample results are off by these magnitudes, but rather that there is about a 90-percent chance that the “true” over-the-month change lies within this interval."