Employment Data

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) recently told President Obama he “should be looking to states like Wisconsin as an example.” If Walker had any sense, he should be looking for a rock to hide under.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently updated their Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). This is the Gold Standard of employment data.

The most recent month analyzed was September 2014. Compared to the same month a year earlier, the US increased private sector employment 2.31%.  Wisconsin increased private sector employment 1.16% in the same period or 50% of the national increase. This is not good since annual gains during  Walker’s governorship were running 60% of the national rate.  (This compare to 100% of the national rate over Governor Jim Doyle’s eight years in office). However, Mississippi, with supposedly the US’s worst schools and job prospects need not worry about the challenge to the bottom from Walker led Wisconsin. Their increase in private sector employment from the previous year was only 0.5%.

Forget about drug testing the unemployed. There are more obvious needs for this kind of test.
Forget about drug testing the unemployed. There are more obvious needs for this kind of test.

Wisconsin’s private sector weekly wage increases that were just below the national rate were a relative bright spot during Walker’s  governorship. This changed with the latest data release.  Average weekly pay in the US increased 2.8% from $914 to $940 from September 2013 to September 2014. In Wisconsin, average private sector pay went from $795 to $809 during the same period, or a 1.8% increase. Wisconsin’s wage gain is 65% of the national increase while average wages are 14% lower than the US level.

There is one area where Wisconsin’s employment picture is rosier than the nation . The number of state government employees in Wisconsin increased another 1% as Walker builds the largest government workforce in the state’s history. The federal government workforce dropped 1% in the same period.  (Military are not included in state or federal government workforce totals).

All leaders occasionally have things not go their way. The best re-evaluate what went wrong and make changes that fix the problems. Not so with Governor Walker. The latest job and wage numbers show the impact of Walker’s ultra-liberal, big spending, big government and anti-education policies in his first four years in office. Rather than make changes, he has taken on the destruction of the University of Wisconsin and continued hits of K-12 financing while planning on giving government even more power over women’s family planning.  The future looks bleak for Wisconsin’s job and wage prospects.

The only way Wisconsin can get back to matching national wage and job gains is to get Scott Walker elected president. Working his “Wisconsin magic” on the nation will result in an economic recession that makes George W. Bush’s look mild. Wisconsin will finally blend in with the rest of the country again.