Happy talk can't hide more weak job news for Wisconsin, Midwest

I saw this blurb yesterday from the Wisconsin DWD on the full release of the "gold standard" jobs report.

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today announced that the latest Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that Wisconsin's private-sector wages grew by 3.3 percent from September 2018 to September 2019. Notable increases include a 4.7 percent increase in wages for the construction sector, a 2.3 percent increase for the manufacturing sector, a 4.8 percent increase for the education and health services sector, and a 1 percent increase in the trade, transportation, and utilities sector.

"With Wisconsin's unemployment rate hovering near record lows, it is encouraging to see employees securing higher wages," DWD Secretary Caleb Frostman said. "Many of the economic policies advanced by the past administration were decidedly anti-worker, preventing Wisconsin's working families from experiencing the same level of wage growth and prosperity as their neighbors. Thankfully, the latest QCEW data shows that by prioritizing economic infrastructure investments over corporate welfare and attacks on working people, the Evers administration is building an economy that works for everyone."

The latest QCEW data also shows strong year-over-year growth in the number of people employed in construction (1,689), manufacturing (4,870), and education and health services (6,528), industries that provide family supporting employment.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? But, much like we saw during the Walker era, the happy talk from DWD obscures a generally downcast picture in Wisconsin.

First of all, the full QCEW report places Wisconsin 42nd in the nation for private sector job growth in that time period, at a paltry 0.11%. It's the lowest amount of 12-month growth in nearly a decade, and continues a downward trend that has ailed Wisconsin since 2015.

It also puts us 5th out of 7 in the Midwest, although it is noteworthy that the country as a whole is growing multiple times faster than any of the states in our part of the US.

Private sector job growth
U.S. +1.2%
Minn +0.4%
Ind. +0.3%
Ohio +0.2%
Mich +0.12%
Wis. +0.11%
Iowa -0.02%
Ill. -0.1%

And while the manufacturing and construction gains were good news for people in those jobs, that comes with a couple of caveats. First, note the DWD’s reference to an “increase in wages”, because that’s not per person, but OVERALL. When you account for the fact that more people were working in those types of jobs, there wasn’t much gained at all.

Average weekly wage, Sept 2019 vs Sept 2018
Manufacturing +$10 (+0.9%, 40th in US)
Construction +$40 (+3.4%, 36th in US)
Education and Health +$30 (+3.2%, 35th in US)

That's pretty lame you look at it that way.

And again, workers in manufacturing in Wisconsin made less per week than workers in any other Midwest state, and are nowhere near the levels of 3 of the states that border us.

Average weekly wage, Sept 2019
Minn $1,294
Ill. $1,283
Mich $1,233
Ohio $1,161
Ind. $1,136
Iowa $1,123
Wis. $1,088

One other item brought up in the DWD press release is Wisconsin’s low unemployment rate. But as we see, it wasn’t because jobs were being added in the state. Instead, Wisconsin’s work force keeps shrinking, and that was reiterated by a surprising stat in this recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In 2019, the largest employment-population ratio increase among the states occurred in Iowa (+1.5 percentage points), followed by West Virginia (+1.2 points) and New Jersey and Tennessee (+1.1 points each). Twelve other states also had significant increases in their ratios. Hawaii and Wisconsin were the only states with over-the-year decreases in their employment-population ratios (-0.9 percentage point and -0.8 point, respectively). The remaining 32 states and the District of Columbia had ratios that were not notably different from those of the previous year, though some had changes that were at least as large numerically as the significant changes.

That means only 1 other state lost a higher proportion of people out of its work force in 2019, and Hawaii’s loss is likely for a much better reason than ours.

So don't believe the words about a "growing economy" from either Wisconsin's jobs agency or the GOPs trying to distract from what is clearly a Trump Slump in the Midwest.