Category Archives: Wisconsin

Wisconsin NFP Employment Continues Decline

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.
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A Wisconsin Fixed Effect

Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has dropped to 2.8 percentage points in April. The national rate is 3.9 percentage points. Proof of Walkernomics success? Well, since on average Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is typically 0.9 percentage points below, the answer is “no”. Consider the Wisconsin and US unemployment rates.


Figure 1: Unemployment rate for United States (blue), for Wisconsin (red). NBER defined recession dates shaded gray; Walker administrations shaded orange. Source: BLS, DWD, NBER.

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Wisconsin CPI-deflated Wages back to January 2011 Levels

Regarding the slowdown in employment growth in February, reader Neil asks:

To what extent could the weakness in February be a payback for the outsized growth in December and January. The three month average for nonfarm growth in Wisconsin looks solid. Also, do you have any thoughts on the average hourly earnings data? Looks like Wisconsin is seeing strong growth over the last year.

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Wisconsin February Employment Wrapup: Growth at Standstill, Private NFP Still 18,800 below Gov. Walker’s 250,000 New Jobs Promise

Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment for January revised down, flatlines for February.


Figure 1: Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment, February release (dark bold red), January release (red), December (pink), 000’s, s.a, on log scale. Light green shaded period denotes data benchmarked to QCEW data. Source: BLS.

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