The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today released the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revisions for the month of October and preliminary estimates for the month of November. The data showed that Wisconsin added a statistically significant 9,900 private sector job from October 2018 to November 2018. From November 2017 through November 2018, Wisconsin added 40,500 private-sector jobs, 19,000 manufacturing jobs and 8,400 construction jobs, all of which were deemed statistically significant by BLS. Wisconsin's unemployment rate for November remained at 3 percent, a record 10th straight month that the rate has been at or below 3 percent.And a Governor (who for some reason is still trying to sell his record to Wisconsinites after being thrown out of office) was glad to mention it.
Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has been at or below 3% for 10 straight months! We also added nearly 10,000 Private-Sector Jobs in November, bringing the total jobs created since we’ve taken office to over 250,000.
— Governor Walker (@GovWalker) December 20, 2018
And a check of the figures shows it's true - we are finally at 250,000 private sector jobs added since January 2011! Of course, there are 2 problems with Walker's statement about job growth.
1. The "250,000 jobs" claim was supposed to happen in 4 years, not 8. And as late as August 2013, Walker was claiming that hitting the mark oin 4 years was still the goal.
Then after that didn't happen, Walker "shifted" into caring about improving the work force for employers, which really hasn't happened either.
2. If Wisconsin had kept up with the job growth in the rest of the country, we would have hit 250,000 private sector jobs in less than 5 years, and we would have surpassed 400,000 jobs last month.
And Walker's DWD followed that up with this release on Friday, that trumpets "Unemployment Rates in Racine and La Crosse Metros, Numerous Cities and Counties Set Record Lows." Well sure, when jobs are (slowly) being added while populations stagnate, the unemployment rate will drop. It's happening all over an America that has a Bubblicious 3.7% unemployment rate.
What we should care more about is the underperformance in Wisconsin's largest metro area, which keeps getting "otherized" by a Wisconsin GOP that has run the state for the last 8 years. While most metro areas have thrived in the 2010s (including booming Madison, Wisconsin), the Milwaukee area has trailed the US rate of growth by more than 2 to 1.
Job growth, Nov 2010 - Nov 2018
US +14.63%
Madison Metro +46,700 (+12.69%)
Milwaukee Metro +59,500 (+7.26%)
Isn't it nice that we're getting a Governor in power that actually seems to care about Wisconsin's largest city and economic engine? Seems well overdue and needed.
It's also obvious what the WisGOPs' game is for the coming 4 years. They want to claim that things were great under Scott Walker and that it got worse under Tony Evers, with WisGOPs trying to sabotage Evers as much as possible to make the state dysfunctional and declining. Then the WisGOPs plan to use that disillusion to return to power in 2022. What people need to know is that we were held back by WisGOP's regressive policies in the 2010s, and we only stayed afloat due to the Obama Recovery.
By comparison, Evers comes into office at a time when regressive GOPs in Washington that have blown Bubbles with a stupid Tax Scam that will lead to an economic slowdown and/or outright recession in the coming years. And this will be especially true in Wisconsin, as many residents are likely to write surprise checks to the IRS in the next few months due to a lack of deductions that get taken for the 2018 tax year (interestingly, you'll be able to write off many of the same items at the state level, so keep your receipts).
When that happens, we need to be comparing how Wisconsin holds up compared to the rest of the nation and mention that the problems are being caused by irresponsible Republicans. Because you know the GOP and their spokespeople on AM radio won't want you to think about that over the next 4 years.
I'm unconvinced by any 250k claim, for a few reasons:
ReplyDelete1. The exact same November report shows household survey employment dropping by a statistically signficant 6,700. When the household and place of work surveys go in opposite directions a correction to the mean is almost always indicated upon benchmarking.
2. This relies upon unbenchmarked figures. The most benchmarked/gold-standard figures you can get for Walker's term so far would be Jan 2011 - June 2011 CES (benchmarked) plus June 2011 - June 2018 QCEW (census count) plus June 2018 - November 2018 CES (unbenchmarked). That gives 248,126 so far.
3. December 2010 - December 2017 QCEW showed that Wisconsin was still 34,435 jobs short of the 250,000 mark going into Walker's last year. The pace was nearly there in January this year, but June 2017 - June 2018 (latest QCEW figures) was only growing at a rate of 22,729 per year. Of Walker's 7 completed years in office, 34,435 net new private sector jobs has only been exceeded twice, in 2014 and 2015 (whether considering QCEW or CES figures).
4. The Philly Fed coincident index shows an increase for Wisconsin of only 0.51% from June to November, compared to 1.21% nationally, suggesting that those mid-year QCEW figures might not improve much by the end of this year. The YoY increase to November 2018 - with the exception of October 2018 - is the lowest it's been since June 2013, when Wisconsin didn't quite manage 28,000 net new jobs.
On the plus side there's the 6.5% year-on-year increase in personal income tax collections July-November, compared to 2.1% for the same period in 2017. Indirect, but promising that the second half of calendar 2018 might be an improvement on the first half.
It's not going to be completely clear until the middle of next year when December 2018 QCEW is finalized of course, but I daresay the balance of probability is that the monthly figures are currently overstating things.
Oh, I'm definitely skeptical of these numbers holding up when benchmarked in 2 1/2 months, especially in manufacturing.
DeleteI'm just saying that even if you take the monthly numbers at face value, they still reflect a very subpar record for the Age of Fitzwalkerstan
Oh, you've been incredibly clear on that for nearly eight years now. I just wished to point out the size of the grain of salt that the November figures need to be taken with.
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