Well, Williams is back with a new bit of data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to try to convince people that things are working great in Wisconsin under the Republicans.
Solid 1.2% growth in personal income in Wisconsin for 2017 Q1 (vs 1% national). Flat WI pop. = per capita even better relatively. pic.twitter.com/5RnXvtZ4p8
— Noah Williams (@Bellmanequation) June 29, 2017
Sounds great, and indeed, the BEA Wisconsin was 13th in the nation for income growth over the first 3 months of 2017 while 4 of the 7 Midwestern states were in the bottom 10. The flat population growth is an economic problem and indicative of a state that's not attracting people, but Williams doesn't mention that reality, of course.
Also not mentioned by Williams was that Wisconsin was DEAD LAST in the Midwest in this same stat for the last quarter of 2016.
Change in income, Midwest Q4 2016
Mich +0.8%
Ind. +0.7%
Minn +0.43%
Ohio +0.41%
Ill. +0.1%
Iowa -0.3%
Wis. -0.4%
So no surprise that it's a "higher" increase from a lower base amount. Let's combine those two quarters and see what the total difference is over the last 6 months, to get a fuller picture.
5th out of 7. Not that impressive. The pattern continues if you look at income changes over the last 12 months, with Wisconsin still mired in 5th.
Williams' tweet illustrates the type of cherry-picked GOPperganda that the Walker Administration and their allies are trying to float out there in the runup to their 2018 election. They have to do this in order to try to trick many of the same Trump voters who saw the economy as failing them in 2016 that the WisGOPs that have been in charge since 2010 shouldn't share at least some (if not all) of the blame.
It's exhausting having to constantly shoot down the spin and lies from these hacks, and many of us have real jobs, unlike the Noah Williams types and the Bradley slime who live off of wingnut welfare. But we have to keep telling the truth, and hopefully some of it will break through the Bubble of right-wing BS that is the biggest product being manufactured in Wisconsin these days.
As John Casper would say, thanks for the catch.
ReplyDeleteNoah Williams, if I'm not mistaken, is from Menomonie (his academic specialty is to contrast Wisconsin and Minnesota), home of UW-Stout--which was just given a "free speech" Institute via the Kochs to push their agenda.
I just wonder if they're trying to make what Noah Williams is to economics what Charles Franklin is to voting...they're both so "go-to."
There's no question the Bradley Boys and other WisGOPs want to blur the lines for the average Wisconsinite over which research is legit. Putting UW's good name behind garbage research by a hack like Williams would absolutely be in that realm, leading to an attitude from non-Econ journalists to say "Well, Noah Williams says this, and this other professor says this, we dunno what's right."
DeleteI'm not as suspicious of Franklin, because he's pretty transparent on his outcomes. The only area I've seen Bradley BS there is in what Franklin chooses for "issue questions" and his magical shift of more Republicans in his latest poll (which was the only reason Walker had a "rise" in approval). But as you allude to, Franklin and Williams and Bradley mouthpieces like Sleazy-berg get the media megaphone that liberals don't get in this state, and that "hack gap" (as Paul Krugman calls it) is something that has to be ended.