It’s below peak, and April numbers revised down.Private employment 17,500 below Governor Walker’s target of an additional 250,000 jobs by January 2015. From WI DWD today.
Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment in Minnesota (blue), Wisconsin (red), and US (black), all in logs normalized to 2011M01=0. Light green shaded dates indicates data not yet benchmarked using QCEW data. Source: WI DWD, MN DEED, BLS and author’s calculations.
Figure 2: Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment, May 2018 release (blue), April (red), March (green), December 2017 (black, pre-benchmark), 000’s, s.a, on log scale. Light green shaded period denotes data not benchmarked to QCEW data. Source: BLS and DWD.
Figure 3: Wisconsin private nonfarm payroll employment (red), and Governor Walker’s promise of 250,000 new private jobs by end of first term (gray line), 000’s, s.a. Light green shaded period denotes data not yet benchmarked to QCEW data. Source: BLS, DWD, author’s calculations.
“The most recent release showed Wisconsin adding 32,259 jobs in 2017, a 1.32 percent increase that ranks 2nd in the Midwest and 26th in the country.”
https://www.biztimes.com/2018/biztracker/employment-biztracker/wisconsin-workforce-grew-in-may-but-state-lost-5300-private-sector-jobs/
It’s tough to add a lot of jobs when your overall workforce (population) isn’t growing much. Wisconsin is not alone in that regard in the Midwest. Obviously, Walker’s “promise” was a lot of wishful thinking about getting people to come to Wisconsin. . At 2.8% unemployment, Wisconsin is doing pretty well… even accounting for “fixed effects”. Yes, I realize that state level statistics are BS, but that’s what’s being addressed in this post.
Off topic of post
Well, certain phrases will jump out at you when you read things, yeah??
“Agreement leaves out U.S. demands for ‘verifiable’ disarmament”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-14/trump-kim-deal-signals-north-korea-may-never-give-up-its-nukes
Now if this country was still being managed by a Democrat of above average intelligence (President Obama for example) imagine all the crying and gnashing of teeth we would have had on FOX news, Wall Street Journal, Alex Jones, etc had they gotten back onto Air Force One with no such assurances. Now we have this figurehead leader who spends half of his day watching TV and now we’re all doing victory laps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2cK2D2Iams
China (through its North Korean proxy) is playing world stage chess with a child, and toying with him as he fails to get his queen piece back using the “En Passant” move. Only it’s not Trump who loses. The American people lose big as Trump gets his Indonesian loan on crony loan terms.
Just remember Menzie chose the employment measure, not Walker, who left it unsaid. Actually, if you look for not seasonally adjusted numbers, Wisconsin hit the 250,000 mark back in the middle of 2017. Not that it means anything, because who could have imagined that we would have a President who destained from job creation so as to concentrate on his ideological pursuits.
Thank you President Obama, fortunately, very much like Jimmy Carter before you, you brought about an election of a President who is a doer of good things that help us who live away from the great liberal centers of thought.
Ed
Just remember Menzie chose the employment measure, not Walker, who left it unsaid. Actually, if you look for not seasonally adjusted numbers, Wisconsin hit the 250,000 mark back in the middle of 2017. Not that it means anything, because who could have imagined that we would have a President in those years whose disdain of job creation and wage improvement was clearly evident. All so as to concentrate on his ideological pursuits.
Thank you President Obama, fortunately, very much like Jimmy Carter before you, you brought about an election of a President who is a doer of good things that help us who live away from the great liberal centers of thought.
Ed
Ed Hanson: Governor Walker had many opportunities to state that he was using private not-seasonally adjusted employment. He never did. He referred to the conventional seasonally adjusted, he referred to QCEW (until it didn’t confirm what trend he liked), but I never saw him state his preference for the NSA series.
So Menzie you had ample opportunity to designate another measurement of jobs, but never did. So written to show how meaningless your response was.
Almost as meaningless as following this lime all these years. A waste of bits. Any question about the promise was settled with his reelection.
Ed
Ed Hanson: I didn’t think you were serious…you made the most stupid calculation possible (mid-2017 vs. January 2011 using seasonally non-adjusted data), and want a serious response? I’m not going to waste my time trying to respond to an economically/statistically illiterate request.
But you have inspired me to post once again on the failures of the Walker administration regarding his promises on private employment growth, the Manufacturing and Agriculture Credit and manufacturing output, etc.
Now go back to citing goods trade numbers mendaciously to defend Mr. Trump’s assertions regarding US-Canada trade. You would fit well as an official in (Orwell’s) Oceania.
Menzie
Amazing I was wrong, thank you Menzie for pointing it out. The first time Wisconsin exceeded 250,000 was June 2015. This is from an alternative measure of employment found at FRED. All Employees: Total Nonfarm in Wisconsin (WINAN). Not Seasonal Adjusted. The numbers are:
Jan 2011 2,676,600
June 2015 2,927,300
For a difference of 250,700
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WINAN
But of course, the reelection had already occurred which ended any importance of the promise. The voters decided the Walker alternative was the best choice compared to the dems. Only in your mind and your posts did the 250,000 number remain important. The voters knew better.
Ed
Ed Hanson: If you want to hang your hat on that hook, be my guest.
Menzie
These are just numbers, and for that matter, I believe actual numbers. I can hang my hat on them easier than politician promises or lefties interpretation of those promises.
But you continue to ignore my more important point. Non-policy promises made during campaign for a first term have no importance after election to a second term. The voters have determine both the importance of the promises and progress made toward them. After 2015 your post on new jobs and the 250,000 promise has no importance and is a waste of computer bits.
Ed
Ed Hanson: Thank you for your advice regarding the right and proper things for me to write on.
Ed Hanson: Maybe a reason to ponder what Mr. Walker promises
Here is one of David Brooks’ “masterful” columns, written about 11 months ago. (Remember folks, NYT pays David Brooks to write these) Maybe David thought Trump was having a bad day, so decided to pull some material out of his nether region.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/opinion/tuners-spinners-socializing-personality.html
And here is Matt Taibbi and Alex Pareene on the “TARFU” podcast. Skip up to the 2:00 minute mark:
https://soundcloud.com/user-630789397/a-david-brooks-helium-moment-spinners-and-tuners-1
Now if any of you totally braindead Republicans who visit this site would like to explain to us all WTF David Brooks is talking about, that would be so awesome.
Why is average hourly earnings growth for all employees much stronger in Wisconsin than Minnesota? 6.4% YoY vs. 1.8% YoY.