There are few things that surprise me in sports these days. But what the alma mater's basketball team has done for the last month is an absolute shocker.
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.
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates Tuesday in a rare emergency move, responding aggressively to the growing threat the coronavirus poses to the economy and financial markets.
The Fed lowered its key federal fund rates by half a percentage point to a range of 1% to 1.25%, the central bank said in a statement. It marked the Fed's first rate cut between scheduled meetings since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008….
“The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong,” the Fed’s policymaking committee said in a statement. “However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity.”
The Fed said it’s monitoring developments “and will use its tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.” That could signal the Fed may be "leaning toward an additional rate cut" at its meeting March 17-18, Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist of Capital Economics, wrote in a note to clients.
Usually, a cut in interest rates means that stocks jump, because it’s cheaper to borrow money and it becomes less worthwhile to stay with safe investments like bonds. And for about 5 minutes after the Fed's announcement, that happened, with the DOW Jones Industrial Average getting above 27,000.
But then that quickly reversed into a torrent of selling, with the DOW ending up down nearly 800 points for the day, and it not only fell below 27,000, it fell below 26,000.
So why did we see another dive today? Because some people like CNBC’s Jim Cramer didn’t see dollar signs from cheap money in the Fed’s move. Instead, he said it raised more questions as to why they had to do a surprise rate cut in the first place.
“It’s great that the Federal Reserve recognizes that there’s going to be weakness, but it makes me feel, wow, the weakness must be much more than I thought,” Cramer said, adding that the rate cut doesn’t exactly ease coronavirus fears.
“If you got something that allowed you to get out of the hospital, if we had a vaccine, anything, then you won’t need this rate cut,” Cramer said. “The more important thing is that we need people to be able to stay at work.”
Not that I like being on the same side as Jim Cramer, but I agree with this assessment. If things were under control and the economy was in decent shape, there’d be no need to cut rates 50 basis points below its already-low levels.
[Lawmakers] are facing a novel crisis: how to help an economy whose main challenge is that the epidemic means people are adverse to going out in public to work, shop or entertain themselves and spend money.
If the problem was in the housing sector, lower interest rates would spur mortgages lending and borrowing, but the problem in the coronavirus crisis is in the service sector - travel, tourism, and entertainment.
Lower mortgage rates are not going to convince people to go to the theater, noted David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
Without customers, a lot of small companies in tourism, travel, entertainment and leisure sectors are going to be strapped for cash flow. Without it, they’ll start laying off workers. The goal for fiscal policy is to avert this “vicious cycle,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton.
“I think the Fed is now saying we did the monetary side and it’s time to get the fiscal side involved,” said Leslie Falconio, senior strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management, in an interview.
But what how much fiscal room do we have to do that? We already were on track to have a fiscal deficit of over $1 trillion a year before any economic slowdown was accounted for, and we’ve already had a GOP Tax Scam that cut taxes for a sizable amount of people (but not for everybody - we owe $3,000 with no writeoff for our home AGAIN).
That being said, with the 10-year note falling below 1% (!), there's a lot of room to be able to do immediate, short-term spending to keepm the economy on track. This can include money for medical research and treatment to take care of people that might be stricken with coronavirus, and this also might be the right time to push through an upgrade in infrastructure that Trump promised when he was for office 4 years ago, but has never delivered on.
Of course, some of this fiscal response could be paid for by rolling back some of the tax cuts for the rich, we could do these investments, limit the growth in the deficit that results, and work to avoid recession by allocating funds in a much more effective way than giving it away to the rich and corporate.
I'm also reminded of this picture, which was taken on Wall Street less than a month after the Tax Scam was passed into law.
More than 2 years later, we are back below 26,000. That's despite all of the corporate tax cuts and stock buybacks that have inflated earnings per share. And now we have slower job growth and GDP growth than we were seeing before the Tax Scam became law.
I think that reality had a lot to do with the market falling apart with today's rate cut. The Fed's message wasn't "We will be OK and get by." It was "THINGS ARE REALLY MESSED UP AND WE FEEL WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING BIG!" And now, there isn't much left that the Fed CAN do.
The real message from the Fed came in loud and clear to the traders.
That fossil was everything wrong with modern political "journalism", making it all about him and the insider BS vs the people affected by politics. And seeing these washed-up Boomers get freaked out by the fact that people under 50 might want something better than the declining country these old white men left them with was both pathetic, and amusing.
Let's hope it's the start of a positive trend, where the people with mentalities of the past, who care more about political games than the outcomes of policy, are taken to the sidelines. And replace them with people who actually care about facts and reality beyond the Beltway.
This tweet summed it up well.
Chris Matthews' specific situation aside, this would be a good time to retire the Hardball name, along with any other news show/segment title that suggests politics is a sport.
Total Construction
Construction spending during January 2020 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,369.2 billion, 1.8 percent (±0.8 percent) above the revised December estimate of $1,345.5 billion. The January figure is 6.8 percent (±1.3 percent) above the January 2019 estimate of $1,282.5 billion.
Private Construction
Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,022.7 billion, 1.5 percent (±0.7 percent) above the revised December estimate of $1,007.6 billion. Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $554.8 billion in January, 2.1 percent (±1.3 percent) above the revised December estimate of $543.6 billion. Nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $468.0 billion in January, 0.8 percent (±0.7 percent) above the revised December estimate of $464.1 billion.
Public Construction
In January, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $346.5 billion, 2.6 percent (±1.5 percent) above the revised December estimate of $337.8 billion. Educational construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $81.5 billion, 0.7 percent (±1.8 percent)* above the revised December estimate of $80.9 billion. Highway construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $103.9 billion, 5.4 percent (±4.6 percent) above the revised December estimate of $98.6 billion.
I know interest rates had fallen by January, and have fallen a lot more since then, but who is able to pay another 14% to get a new house? Can’t think it’s the typical American, who’s seeing wages rise by an average of 3.1% a year.
Let's check back on these construction and home buying figures, because it got a nice boost at the start of January with many favorable conditions. The weather wasn't as favorable in February, and with talk of a global recession rising along with new coronavirus cases, will the plummeting interest rates be overridden by the fact that fewer people will have the financial security to buy in?
We finally are at the great month of March, and it feels like a whole lot is going to happen that'll clear things up in a very uncertain time where there are quite a few contenders, but no one established as the one to beat. And not just in college basketball, but also the Dem primary.
The great Charlie Pierce precisely pointed out on the eve of Joe Biden's large win in South Carolina that media would overtstate the importance of a state that only accounts for 2% of the total delegates Biden needs to clinch the Democratic nomination. And Pierce adds that few people really know how things will develop in the next few days, no matter how sure they seem as they throw their opinions against the wall.
It’s a bright, beautiful primary day here in the home office of American sedition, and people seem most convinced that Uncle Joe Biden has finally found a “path” to the nomination that doesn’t lead to the Sarlacc pit. The next five days, in which a whopping share of the delegates can be won, either will bring some clarity to this race, or leave it in a hopeless muddle. I’m inclined to the latter speculation, and not just because I’m a big fan of chaos.
Elizabeth Warren could finish second in both California and Massachusetts, which would be good and very bad for her. Tom Steyer, who's pumped so much money into this state they should name a bridge after him, may turn out to be a one-state wonder (and wasn't even that, as Steyer dropped out after failing to get ONE delegate in SC), and Michael Bloomberg’s wallet remains more impressive than the candidate ever was. If Biden gets a big win here, the only story coming from an elite political media that has been dying of thirst for it over the past three months is going to be The Biden Bounceback. But Biden’s chances three days later are far murkier. I am told that his presence in California is minimal at best. So, what do we learn if Biden doubles up Sanders here, but then goes to California and doesn’t even land a single delegate? Surging can’t be entirely in the eye of the beholder. It remains the William Goldman election: nobody knows anything.
But let's face it, all these February contests in unrepresentative, small states are good for are related to fundraising and media narratives. It has little to do with how these candidates are connecting with the voters in the majority of the country.
Many more of those voters will get a chance to have their voices heard in the next 16 days, and we'll see who is left standing by the time the race hits Wisconsin in early April.
But hey, at least we're finally going to get some definitive results. And it's coming in one of my favorite times of the year, a month where ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN, BAY-BEEE!!!
Now excuse me, but I gotta make my way downtown this PM to check out our 53 degree weather, and see if my alma mater can make it 6 in a row on the court.
Saw this comment from a certain GOP loudmouth on Joint Finance, and figured I'd send it ahead to you, even after Governor Evers sent back these plans with a veto last week.
Did you know the largest percent reduction in our tax cut package is nearly 36% for filers earning $10,000 to $15,000 according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau? These tax cuts are a win for Wisconsin and @GovEvers should sign the bill. pic.twitter.com/0IcYsB3P9z
Stroebel is using the information from the LFB analysis of the GOP's latest tax scheme. And when you look at those numbers, you see that this 36% tax cut doesn't mean much.
$37 dollars in a YEAR? And 57% of people in that tax bracket would have gotten ZERO. I pointed out this lameness on my lunch hour this week.
Not mentioned is that the "36% tax cut" is LESS THAN 75 CENTS A WEEK.
Know what else would do more to help these lower-income Wisconsinites? Passing Badgercare expansion to increase job options for people in that income range (so they don't fall off once they get above poverty). In addition, maybe Stroebel and his fellow Republicans shouldn't have turned down Governor Evers' budget proposal to expand the state's Earned Income Tax Credit, which the Wisconsin Budget Project noted would have given a much larger benefit to these lower-income individuals.
Unlike the Republican plan, the Evers plan cuts taxes for working parents who have low incomes by expanding the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit. The expansion proposed by Evers would put $27 million a year back into the pockets of working parents who are struggling to make ends meet. Working parents with incomes of about $12,000 who received the increased credit would get about $200 more in their tax refund that they could use to cover expenses like getting their car repaired or buying groceries. Helping low-wage workers by increasing the EITC would be a positive step in reducing racial inequity in our state because people of color comprise a disproportionate portion of the working poor.
Soon afterwards, Stroebel chose a different group of people to sell the tax cut for.
The average married couple earning between $70,000 and $80,000 a year would have received a $197 tax cut under the GOP tax plan. Now that @GovEvers has vetoed the tax cut instead of returning that money to taxpayers who could spend or invest it the money will sit in Madison.
At least the targeting is correct here, a bit more money for a relatively middle-class income in Wisconsin. But what Duey's not telling you is that this extra money wouldn't been in anyone's pocket until this time next year. Because it wouldn't have done anything for paychecks, and instead would only have manifested itself in the form of higher tax refunds of 2020 taxes in early 2021.
Know what would get the money into those pockets at a faster rate?
1. Changing the withholding tables, which apparently the Evers Administration is planning to do later this year. I think Evers should have waited till after the New Year to make this move, and put a new Legislature on the spot, but as a result, the tax cuts signed in 2019 will result in larger refunds in the coming months as well as higher paychecks in July.
2. Do a one-time tax rebate check that goes to all taxpayers. You could give away an average of $150 to all 3.17 million tax filers in the state, and it would cost as much as the GOP's proposed tax cut would have over the next 2 years. It also doesn't depress revenues for future years, when we might well need the cushion if/when the economy declines.
Know what else could have helped? Giving property tax cuts to homeowners and not businesses. Which Evers' proposal would have done, and which the gerrymandered Republican Legislature could sign on to if they choose to end their 10 1/2 month paid vacation.
But let's face it, today's Republicans have no coherent idea on how to handle specific economic circumstances. They just throw up the same answer to any issue, even when it has nothing to do with tax policy.
I never thought I would have to say this, but you can’t stop a global pandemic with tax cuts. https://t.co/KrqUsSQfMt
