Here are the basic job stats and ratings for Wisconsin over the past 15 months since Scott Walker was elected governor: *Updated information at bottom
Total jobs in Wisconsin, private and government, have moved from 2,740,800 in December 2010, just before Scott Walker took office, up to 2,775,100 in June 2011, back down to 2,732,000 now.
When we rank states, we take the percentage of jobs increased or decreased in an effort to level the playing field between small and large states. Here are 7 jobs rankings for Wisconsin:
- Month over month (March to April 2012): 44th with a decrease of 5,900 jobs.
- Three month change (January to April 2012): 30th with an increase of 7,000 jobs.
- Year to date (December 2011 to April 2012): 32nd with an increase of 12,200 jobs.
- Year over year (April 2011 to April 2012): 49th with a decrease of 21,400 jobs.
- Since December 2010, the month before Walker took office: Dead last (50th) with a loss of 8,800 jobs.
The following two measures can't be completely attributed to Scott Walker, but I believe he made them worse than they would have been otherwise. (I'm going to do a couple of checks and add to this tomorrow.)
- Ranking since Obama took office (from January 2009 to April 2012): 48th with a decrease of 83,400 jobs.
- Ranking since the "trough" of the recession in jobs (February 2010): 45th with an increase of 17,500 jobs.
- Illinois: Up 1.92% (36th)
- Minnesota: Up 2.89% (18th)
- Michigan: Up 4.08% (7th)
- Ranking since Obama took office (from January 2009 to December 2010): 31st with a decrease of 74,600 jobs.
- Ranking since the "trough" of the recession in jobs (February 2010 to December 2010): 28th with an increase of 26,300 jobs.
Compare these rankings with the rankings since Walker was elected above.
(Note: These numbers are based on the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Reports. The BLS reports include month over month and year over year numbers. Data for my monthly reports is taken from that BLS report copied to a spreadsheet every month. If you want or need more details, please email me or leave a comment!)
Unemp Rate Total
ReplyDeleteMay 2011 7.6% 232,294
April 2012 6.7% 205,310
Not sure where you are getting your sources.. the latest unemployment rate data for Wisconsin that I can find shows the following:
ReplyDeleteMay 2011 7.4%, 227,800 unemployed, 2,844,200 employed.
April 2012 6.7%, 205,300 unemployed, 2,863,600 employed.
You have to compare Wisconsin to the rest of the country. Here are the percentages:
U.S. decline in unemployment rate May 2011 to April 2012: 10% (9.0 down to 8.1). Wisconsin decline in the unemployment rate same time: 9.5% (7.4 down to 6.7).
U.S. decline in unemployment numbers May 2011 to April 2012: 10%; Wisc decline in unemployment numbers same time: 9.9%
U.S. increase in employment numbers (people actually working) May 2011 to April 2012: 2,057,000 or +1.47%. Wisconsin increase in employment numbers same time: +0.7%.
The jobs numbers do not count some groups of employed people, such as farm workers or some people who are unincorporated and self-employed, which is why the number of jobs do not equal the number of people employed.
I don't have overall comparisons among the states based on unemployment rate/numbers/ employed numbers. But Wisconsin is still obviously below average in employment.