Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Politi-crap is in the tank, keeps up their bad work on jobs

Another day, another dishonest Politi-crap rating on Wisconsin job numbers that I have to knock down. It’s becoming a bad habit with these guys, and this latest effort not only kills any remaining chance they aren't GOP-biased, but is also a lazy effort that wouldn't work in a high school journalism class.

This time, they’re parsing out a claim Mary Burke made on Wisconsin Public Radio, where she took a shot at Scott Walker’s lousy job creation record.
"Frankly, it’s not getting any better," Burke told host Joy Cardin. "The longer he’s in office, the worse it’s getting."

She continued: "So, 2013 job creation was worse than 2012, which was worse than 2011. And 2014 is shaping up to be the worst year ever, with the loss of 4,300 jobs in August alone."…

The data says that’s not the case -- it’s been an up and down performance. And employers have continued to add jobs, albeit not at a strong pace.

We rate the claim False.
As support, Politi-fact points to the Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages (QCEW) stats for the 3 full years of Scott Walker’s tenure, and if you look at those stats for private sector job growth for December-December of each year, here’s what it shows.

Private sector job growth, Wisconsin
2011- 29,800 (+1.31%)
2012- 33,872 (+1.47%)
2013- 29,723 (+1.27%)
(BONUS NOTE 2010- 33,658 (+1.50%))

So yes, Politi-fact is correct that private sector job growth hasn’t dropped EVERY YEAR in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan (the basis of the “False” rating), but that doesn’t change the fact that it is lower now than when Scott Walker took over at the start of 2011, and that 2013 had the lowest private sector job growth of Walker’s 3 years.

But wait, there’s more! If you look at that QCEW table again, you’ll notice an “annual” stat, which averages all 12 months of the year. And by that standard, private sector job growth has indeed declined for every one of Scott Walker’s 3 years in office.

2011- 37,069 (+1.65%)
2012- 32,117 (+1.41%)
2013- 28,452 (+1.23%)

Now maybe that’s not what Burke campaign spokesman Joe Zepecki meant when he tried to explain Mary Burke’s claim in the Politi-“fact” article, but it certainly holds true if you use the “weighted average” method of figuring out job growth in a year.

And there’s a second part of Politi-crap’s “analysis” that should be severely questioned. They mention Burke’s other claim that 2014 is on pace to be the worst job growth of all of Walker’s 4 years, and like the GOP-favoring outlet they are, they blow it off.
In 2011, after eight months, the state had added a total of 900 jobs for the year, according to the monthly estimates. The final total for the year, based on the more accurate Census figures, was 29,800.

In 2012, there was a similar pattern -- minus 500 jobs after eight months, but a year-end total of 33,872.

In 2013, there was less growth. There were an estimated 26,210 jobs after eight months, and the year-end total was 29,723.
I took a look at the monthly job numbers myself, and it seems like Politi-crap pulled these numbers right out of their ass. The only way I can even see where they’re close to these figures is by using the household “employment” survey, which is somewhat near Politi-crap’s claim, but they still don’t match up.

Besides, those weren’t the numbers Burke was referring to in her statement on WPR. She's referring to the monthly non-farm payroll numbers, and in this claim, she is 100% correct. 2014 is by far the worst start of the year we’ve had since Walker took office 3 ½ years ago.

Wisconsin private job growth, Dec-August
2011- 24,000
2012- 18,500
2013- 18,900
2014- 8,800

In fact, every other year of Walker’s tenure has had job growth more than TWICE AS FAST AS WHAT WE HAD THIS YEAR. And even those numbers are relatively unimpressive.

But that’s not what you’ll hear from Republi-fact and related GOP-aganda today. It’ll just be “Mary Burke is making false claims about Scott Walker’s record.” Walker just released an ad today (hilariously titled “The Facts”) which props up a Politi-crap rating that I refuted on Monday that put words in Mary Burke’s mouth to give her a “False” rating.

At this point, this ignorance of jobs numbers and mislabeling of Burke claims isn’t an accident. I have strong suspicions these guys at Politi-crap Wisconsin are in cahoots with the pro-Walker corporates at the Journal-Sentinel, and are intentionally downgrading Dem claims to boost their boy Scotty. It also makes me wonder if we’re looking at the wrong building to demolish for the Bucks Arena, but that’s a topic for another today.

Politi-crap’s act is disgusting because it’s done under the guise of “third-party objectivity”, and at the very least, they should be removed as the state’s “official fact-checker”, because they cannot be trusted to give a fair assessment. In fact, it seems that Politi-"fact" is not a legitimate news outlet, but instead a puppet of the corporate interests that pay their salaries.

No comments:

Post a Comment