Wisconsin and Minnesota released March employment figures today. Here, without comment (as none are needed) are year-on-year growth rates relative to the US average for Minnesota (blue) and Wisconsin (red).
Figure 1: 12 month log-differences of nonfarm payroll employment for Minnesota (blue) and Wisconsin (red), relative to US. Green shading denotes sample not updated to reflect QCEW-related benchmarking. Source: WI DWD, MN DEED, BLS, and author’s calculations.
For a longer term perspective on trends since the elections of Dayton and Walker, here are NFP log levels normalized to 2011M01.
Figure 2: Nonfarm payroll employment for Minnesota (blue) and Wisconsin (red), and US, logged and normalied to 2011M01=0. Green shading denotes sample not updated to reflect QCEW-related benchmarking. Source: WI DWD, MN DEED, BLS, and author’s calculations.
It was just reported Wisconsin’s unemployment rate in March fell to the lowest level in 17 years – 3.4%.
which would be great, except conservative walker was specific that he would grow jobs-by the tens of thousands.
but it is interesting, obama drops the unemployment rate and you rant. walker drops the unemployment rate and you claim success. i prefer the guy who drops the rate because of an increase in jobs.
Baffling, I simply stated a fact. I’m not going to argue with the narratives you make up. So, you’ll just have to keep arguing with yourself, unless someone else is willing to waste their time.
so you deny that you support walker’s unemployment rate, but you considered the obama rate a failure? i think one phrase you like to use is not a recovery, but a depression under obama. these are not narratives i make up. they are your responses through the years. a lack of integrity in your postings.
PeakTrader: WI UE fell 0.1 ppts; MN UE fell 0.2 ppts.
I recall you using the State Coincident Economic Activity Indexes released by the FRB Philadelphia. The latest data are released through February only. How do you reconcile the latest figures with your NFP analysis above? By this measure, the Wisconsin economy has expanded 3.7% over the last year compared to growth in Minnesota of 2.4%. It looks like the Wisconsin economy has been outperforming (in terms of growth rates) consistently since September 2013.
Minnesota gained 5,300 jobs in March as the state’s unemployment rate dipped to 3.8 percent, down from 4 percent the previous month, the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) reported Thursday.
Wisconsin’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.4 percent in March as employment grew by 16,400, according to figures released today by the state Department of Workforce Development.
UE is not non-farm payroll.
The UE rate can rise because workers fell out of the sample, not because they got jobs. And the term “jobs” is more tenuous than ever.
Neil- You’re mixing up the household survey (for unemployment) with the payrolls survey (the jobs numbers Dr. Chinn has on his charts). In fact, there’s been an odd disconnect in Wisconsin’s numbers in these 2 surveys over the last year, where the household survey shows 45,000 jobs added, but the payrolls survey only says 25,100 overall jobs, and 22,100 private sector jobs.
http://jakehasablog.blogspot.com/2017/04/wisconsins-jobs-riddle-low-unemployment.html
Also noteworthy, Minnesota is the state that has hit 250,000 jobs under its current Governor, while Wisconsin (whose governor claimed 250,000 was a “floor” for his first term) has barely seen 200,000 jobs in those same 6 years, despite having more jobs and people than Minnesota when 2011 started.
Oh, and Wisconsin’s revenues are falling short again while Minnesota has a $1.65 billion budget surplus. Who would you rather be?