August Wisconsin Employment: Continued Slow Recovery?

My guess, based on a first differences specification of Wisconsin employment on national, in logs, 2019-2020M07.

Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment in Wisconsin, June release (brown), August release (brown), Economic Outlook forecast of June (teal), author’s forecast based on national employment (brown box), in 000’s, s.a. Source: BLS, DWD, Wisconsin Economic Outlook (June 2020), and author’s calculations.

For July, the forecast error was -9547 (I overpredicted, by 0.35%), as discussed in this post.

33 thoughts on “August Wisconsin Employment: Continued Slow Recovery?”

  1. Moses Herzog

    This is not a request of the blog host per se, but it would be interesting to see this compared with regional numbers. It seems that Minnesota has been used sometimes as a measuring stick for comparison with Wisconsin?? Or is there a preferred state?? In all honestly, I haven’t been paying close attention to Governor Evers’ COVID-19 policy, or even his economic policies since Walker’s ouster (I hope Evers’ has worked hard on this, not to bend over for business interests, but make an extra effort to have efficient economic stratagems)

    I’m hopeful Evers can do more than one term, especially if he takes the extra effort on economic issues. I think this will depend largely on his staff—and I haven’t heard too many impressive names mentioned in reference to that—his economic team.

  2. Moses Herzog

    Off-topic
    I’m not trying to downplay this post, but since it only covers one state I’m considering it one of the more casual posts (And I’m not insulting Wisconsin either, I rank it in both national importance and sophistication of its residence way higher than the state I reside in). But I thought this is a good spot to meander a little.

    We discussed QAnon on here, and how at least one of Menzie’s semi-regular blog readers likes to quote outlandish claims on here. I can’t remember what it was now, something like 600,0000 grand jury findings that were supposed to be released like 2 years ago and then never happened and he was wholly convinced they were coming out any moment and were going to be a “bombshell”. I assume this commenter or the nutjobs he reads online have conjured up some excuse on why the “bombshell” never happened as we all wait on the edge of our chairs here.

    But this posting on “The Daily Beast” (I’m assuming QAnon types think the name of that web publication is “satanically inspired”) explains a lot about QAnon’s modus operandi–mainly that it is a scam to bilk white trash morons out of their bank savings, Alex Jones’ colloidal silver style:
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-got-trained-by-a-cia-officer-and-qanon-movie-star

    Is colloidal silver “skewed”?? Tune in tomorrow and Junior in Harrisonburg will update us on his Patreon and Discord site.

    1. The Rage

      Yee. Qnan is basically Lukud/Israeli operations. No antisemitism. I legitly have met some of their operatives. They all don’t see eye to eye, but have one mission like Lukud spy Alex.

      This also means 4Chan is also of the same ilk. Disinformation to help the Republican party stay in power.

      1. Moses Herzog

        @ The Rage
        My guess is since Likud bends more to the right politically, I wouldn’t be their biggest fan. However, I doubt if Likud goes around spreading false information and conspiracy theories based on nothing. As much as I dislike some Israel right-wing political parties, obviously most of them are Jewish—so they are nobody’s fool, unlike QAnon, who are comprised of people barely literate and easily led around by the nose. And keep in mind I am no fan of Likud, I don’t like any political group that encourages the breaking of international law in the name of nationalistic grab bagging (the more traditional meaning) of other’s land. But Likud are way more intelligent and way more sophisticated than the members of QAnon—i.e. “The Rage’s” analogy is laughable.

  3. Moses Herzog

    Uh-oh…… Fox News is going off the MAGA script.
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-calls-fox-news-fire-164226853.html

    Does this mean Ed Hanson, CoRev, and PeakTrader will cancel their cable provider and switching over to QAnon from here on out?? And where will “Princeton”Kopits go for his 4:00am time slot?? Join us everyday for updates in Ed Hanson’s, CoRev’s, and PeakTrader’s progress through the void:
    http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/51/4/511/F2.expansion.html

  4. AS

    Professor Chinn,
    Any advice on forecasting methods for September PAYEMS?
    Using the Atlanta Bell Telephone method, I find a forecast of about 1.5 million increase in non farm payroll for September. Other methods that require some sub forecasts range from 1.2 million to 1.7 million. I was way-off last month, hopefully better this month.

    1. Moses Herzog

      @ AS
      Because I have always appreciated your thoughts and contributions on this blog and found them personally edifying, I have been making some attempts to see if I can help you on your PAYEMS strivings. You have to respect a man who keeps digging, and so I do you.

      Maybe this can help?? First read this first link below from top to bottom very carefully, then after you have digested and metabolized the information, Go back to the top and look for the “Homebase” link. I think this “Homebase” data may help you to “fine tune” your forecast. I am not sure if it is proprietary or free data, but they have an email on the “Homebase” website, and seemingly encourage people to email them if they want more access to data, with no mention of a fee. If I was you I would email them and query whether they would send/email you the data for free. I’m guessing any data more recent than 30 days is going to cost something. It might be very helpful. I hope it’s helpful in your efforts!!!!
      https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2020/august/recent-covid19-us-employment-slowdown

      https://joinhomebase.com/data/

      This twitter thread is old, but still might add perspective: https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/status/1290971597508169729

      1. Moses Herzog

        The “Household Plus Survey” has now closed “phase 1” and is now going in to “Phase 2”. I do not know the planned timings of the releases of the data for “Phase 2” of the “Household Plus Survey”, but the data collection I think goes from late August to late October, and that should also prove to be interesting. Though how helpful it will be in PAYEMS forecasts I couldn’t guess.
        https://www.census.gov/data/experimental-data-products/household-pulse-survey.html

        1. AS

          Moses,
          Thanks for the links. you are a wizard on finding links. Have you found an excel file of total national daily or monthly virus cases? A couple months ago I was manually inputting virus cases into some models, but got tired of the manual entry. Early-on I saw an EViews blog concerning virus data downloads, but the data sets seemed to have more detail than I wanted. I wanted only national data, not data for every state. I saw no ability to restrict the data to national only, perhaps my oversight.

        2. AS

          Moses,
          I found a NY Times text file showing daily confirmed cases. However, I don’t see how to incorporate the data into non farm payroll forecasts since there is only a few months of data. Even using a daily mixed frequency model, there does not seem to be enough data to make monthly payroll forecasts. I need to look more closely at what the Fed. Reserve Bank of St. Louis did.

        3. Moses Herzog

          @ AS
          I think Menzie has given you the best one. Just off-hand I was trying to think, I guess your second best choice would be 538’s models page?? The excess deaths one, of course I have already gone on endlessly about that, seems the only place on that (much to my severe disappointment) is CDC?? But that Atlantic one and that one Menzie just gave (maybe the same link) are your best bet. I’m pretty decent at snagging links but obviously Menzie is better at minutia and drilling down to the the core of things, so the one he gave is your best bet. I may start “importing” some of this stuff into my “R” but it’s kind of useless until I get confident I can actually crunch the numbers. It’s like learning a foreign language, there’s always this “breaking point” where you hit this point where you learn enough that you start making a big jump in your learning and I haven’t hit that point yet. I think l’ll know when I can do a semi hard OLS or NOVA/ANOVA or that other one with the time series, ARIMA??. I’m certain that time series stuff will be about the last thing I figure out. And then those quartile things Menzie does sometimes?? If I have to go back and learn calculus where I’m canceling out variables is probably where I’m really gonna hit a brick wall if I STILL have to do that in the “R” instead of just popping in the variables.

        4. Moses Herzog

          I must have been groggy in the head when I typed that, it’s obviously “Household Pulse”, not “House Plus”. Oh, that’s almost funny.

    2. The Rage

      Lets don’t forget the very distorted ppp/pua says goodbye October first. Everything is relative. I find NFP and the unemployment rate trash due to that bad bailout job. Total unemployment hasn’t barely dropped any with that included in. Most businesses will just take the income dump and close. Then we wonder why Trump wanted it extended until October 1st.

    3. Julian Silk

      Dear AS,

      You might try a forecast that relies on scenarios: 1) Continued increase in Georgia COVID-19 cases as an extra variable, 2) Diminution of the cases to the national average per million residents. This will behave like a dummy variable, but may improve the forecasts.

      J.

  5. pgl

    Trump is patting himself for doing a “heckuva job Brownie”. First of all – he is babbling in some speech right now that our second quarter economic performance was not all that bad when compared to the rest of the world and we will see the greatest recovery ever this quarter. Then there is this:

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-claims-very-high-marks-for-covid-response-as-death-toll-approaches-189k

    President Donald Trump patted himself on the back for his widely panned response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has reached a death toll of nearly 189,000 in the U.S. as of Monday morning. “Starting to get VERY high marks in our handling of the Coronavirus (China Virus), especially when compared to other countries and areas of the world,” Trump tweeted on Monday. It is unclear where the “marks” are coming from. The White House did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for clarification.

    No Trump is not so dumb that he believes any of this malarkey. But he is betting his base is that incredibly stupid.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Is Professor Chinn some guy, or what?? You know how many blog hosts are too snobbish to answer questions on their own blog, and a guy as good at mathematics and empirical truths as Menzie taking the time to answer blog thread questions after all the BS guff he has taken from some on this blog?? On top of classes, publishing papers, Graduate student advising, on and on and on?? Then we can get into other stuff Menzie probably had to put up with related to race, which he probably just doesn’t wanna talk about and just carries inside like it’s nothing.

      I’m in a good mood now, drinking this “Liberty Creek” stuff in Modesto CA. NO idea if this is on route 101 or not. Watching Rambo 1 while getting sauced on “liberty Creek”. I mean the scene with the black Mom, and then the scene where he walks right back over the bridge with Dennehy watching in the rear view mirror. And the little piano key motif from Jerry Goldsmith—the same dude that did the music for “Chinatown”. I mean can you imagine this guy, Jerry Goldsmith does the music score for Rambo 1—that many consider to be “low brow”entertainment, and then doing the score for “Chinatown” arguably one of the best movies of the 20th century, and what does Jerry Goldsmith do?? Yeah, he nails it on the music scores—both of them.

      1. Moses Herzog

        Excuse me, Black Mom, I read AP syndicate news now makes it official policy to capitalize the B in reference to race. I never (or rarely) thought about this before, so I am trying to break the habit and doing it same as AP news.

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