Odd and huge differences between household and payrolls surveys in Midwest over last year

Following up from last week's state jobs report, I noticed that Wisconsin has a disparity between their payrolls survey (which account for the number of jobs listed for a state) and the household survey (which is where the unemployment rate and labor force numbers are derived from). In our case, the household survey shows larger growth over the last year than the payrolls survey does.

June 2025-June 2026
Wisconsin
Change in Jobs +2,000
Change in Labor Force +25,900
Change in Employed +16,600
Change in Unemployed +9,300

Then I looked at the State-by-State jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, and I noticed that other states have much larger disparities between these two surveys. Look at these two charts, and note how many states have slow or declining job growth while also having low unemployment, or have stronger job growth with higher unemployment.

You’ll notice Minnesota is an especially odd case – being 1 of 6 states nationwide with a growth of jobs of more than 1% in the last 12 months, but is also 1 of 8 states whose unemployment has gone up by 0.6% or more in the same time period. And its labor force numbers are especially weird in light of what the payrolls numbers say.

June 2025-June 2026
Minnesota
Change in Jobs +45,900
Change in Labor Force -39,100
Change in Employed -56,400
Change in Unemployed +17,300
Change in Unemployment Rate +0.6%

That all can’t be true, unless cities like Hudson and Superior have become the biggest commuter communities in America, and/or Minnesota has had a massive increase of people working second jobs while a lot of others have none.

Illinois is a more negative version of the same story - recession-level numbers in the household survey, but growth in payrolls.

June 2025-June 2026
Illinois
Change in Jobs +9,200
Change in Labor Force -57,000
Change in Employed -102,800
Change in Unemployed +45,800
Change in Unemployment Rate +0.8%

We will likely have to wait a couple of months where we find out what the “gold standard” Quarterly Census of Employment of Wages (QCEW) says, which will lead to preliminary benchmarking of jobs through this March, which will be announced at the end of August. That’ll give an indication whether Minnesota’s (and America’s) payrolls or household surveys are closer to reality.

On the other side, take a look at Iowa and Indiana, who are reporting losses of jobs while having unemployment go down.

June 2025-June 2026
Iowa
Change in Jobs -9,500
Change in Labor Force -6,100
Change in Employed 0
Change in Unemployed -6,100
Change in Unemployment Rate -0.3%

Indiana
Change in Jobs -4,000
Change in Labor Force -18,300
Change in Employed -2,600
Change in Unemployed -15,700
Change in Unemployment Rate -0.4%

I suppose those numbers could be true if there were a large-scale exodus of working-age people going on from those two (red) states, but I think it’s more likely that there will be changes to make these two bits of data have a closer correspondence once benchmarking happens. Yes, sometimes the numbers diverge, but it's really weird to see things be this far off from each other.

And until we get more clarity, it's hard to figure out if the Midwest jobs market is one where jobs are growing and things are OK, or if people are exiting the work force with few replacing them, or if it is an outright recession for everyday people that isn't showing up in the payrolls numbers supplied to various state Workforce Development departments.