Jobs? Walker's Wisconsin is losing its Midwestern edge

Couple of reports came up this week that illustrates the Walker Way isn't one that is and will not work for Wisconsin.

The first is the new statewide jobs report. A whopping 900 jobs was created in May in Wisconsin , a rate slightly below the dismal nationwide showing of 54,000 total jobs and 90,000 private sector jobs. In fact, if you take out the state government's addition of 1,700, Wisconsin would have LOST jobs in May, and only 4,400 jobs have been added in the last 2 months. Not exactly a pace for 250,000 in 4 years, now is it?

"But Jake, aren't we doing better than our neighbors?" Well, we survived the Bush recession job-wise better than our East North Central bretheren, and when Walker took over in January 2011, we had a smaller hole to dig out of, as Wisconsin's job loss was at least 1% less than any of the other states.

vs Jan. 2008 - 2009 2010 Jan. 2011
Wisconsin -2.57% -5.82% -5.11%
Illinois -3.19% -6.86% -5.79%
Indiana -4.34% -7.06% -6.09%
Michigan -6.59% -9.47% -7.71%
Ohio -4.04% -7.70% -6.61%

But since this January, we've seen now higher-taxed Illinois keep pace in job gains with Wisconsin and Ohio, while 2 other states have gone the other way of the rest of the country, and have job LOSSES- Indiana, which happens to be led by...Walker's "sell everything off" guru, Mitch Daniels, and Michigan, led by Rick "the hell with local control" Snyder.

Wisconsin +0.73%
Illinois +0.71%
Indiana -0.14%
Michigan -0.37%
Ohio +0.71%

If you go deeper into the BLS's May report on state job changes, you can see which states have been coming on, or coming down. Check out the picture on Page 18 of the report, and you'll notice a total of 2 states east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River that have the dark shading signifying a loss of jobs vs. this time last year. Who are the two? Indiana and New Jersey- home of union-bashers Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie. As I mentioned 4 months ago, these states are going the wrong way, but it seems to be what Scotty wants to be the Walker Way.

Well I don't want to be part of losing state, and before Scott Walker took over, Wisconsin wasn't a losing state, because our investments in social welfare and education stabilized us better than the other states in our region. But if we don't blow Walker and his supporters out of power soon, history suggests we will be losing. It makes it critical to drive these facts and figures about slowing job advantages to people over the next 6 months, because there is next to nothing in this budget bill that will actually create jobs and improve lives for real Wisconsin.