UPDATE: Grand Old Partisan has an interesting take at Illinoize.

First, let’s go to the usual he-said, she-said from the AP:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Thursday that Illinois added more jobs - 23,100 - in April than any other state in the nation, but his opponent in the fall gubernatorial election questioned the numbers, charging the governor has released misleading figures before.

According to a statement issued by Blagojevich, state and federal figures show that April was the first month since January 1995 in which Illinois led the nation in monthly job growth and bring to 43,600 the number of new jobs in the state in the past three months. […]

But state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, the GOP nominee for governor, questioned the figures. Earlier this year, Illinois Auditor General William Holland contended that a count of jobs by the administration’s Commerce Department was filled with errors, missing information and had questionable definitions of what to count as a job as well as figures contradicted by other documents.

Said Topinka: “This particular administration just has a problem with numbers.”

But there’s nothing in the story to indicate which side is telling the truth. For any discussion of that we have to go to blogger Greg Blankenship of the Illinois Policy Institute:

I have to say though, the Governor’s numbers are consistent with the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s April numbers on regional and state employment (.pdf). Illinois did create 23,100 jobs in April. For the Topinka campaign to question these numbers is misguided. These aren’t Gov. Blagojevich’s numbers, they are the Federal Government’s.

Still, Blankenship continues…

The Illinois’ economy has only improved .8% on the job’s front since a year ago April and unemployment in Illinois is still over 5% at 5.1%. Nationally, the unemployment rate is hovering at 4.7%. 8 states enjoyed higher growth statistically — many more with 1% growth or more — than Illinois including Iowa which added a full percantage point.

And blogger Dan Curry adds this to the mix:

Rod Blagojevich’s Illinois is 45th in the nation creating jobs since he took office in 2003. Today, he bragged about having one month where he created more raw jobs than [any] state in the country. That’s not a big accomplishment because Illinois is the sixth largest state in the country and statistically it ought to lead the nation occasionally in monthly raw statistics.

Overall, it’s like a baseball team bragging after a three-run inning that it scored more runs than anyone in that inning even though it is now behind 12-3.