Not so certain the slowdown will be similarly erased.
Category Archives: Wisconsin
Stall Speed in Wisconsin?
The Philadelphia Fed has released leading indicators for December. Essentially zero growth in Wisconsin over the next six months is predicted.
Philadelphia Fed Coincident Indices: National, Regional and State Trends
More states are slowing even as the Nation continues to expand. The states that contracted include Wisconsin and Kansas, states pursuing a contractionary fiscal policy. Wisconsin’s level of activity lags that predicted by historical correlations.
Wisconsin Governor Walker: “The state of our state is strong!”
That’s the first line of an op-ed published Monday. In other news, Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment (NFP) and private nonfarm payroll employment is decreasing. And NFP lagging what should be the case if the historical correlation between national and Wisconsin employment held, after Governor Walker’s inauguration.
Figure 1: Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment (blue), forecast from error correction model estimated over 1990M03-2009M06 (red), and 90% confidence band (gray lines), all on log scale. Dashed line at 2011M01 when Walker takes office, and light green denotes sample period. Source: BLS, author’s estimates (as described here).
Three Random Graphs: Recession Watch, Wisconsin Employment Decline, Global Temperatures
Industrial production is down. Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment is down. Global Temperatures hit records in 2014, 2015.
Governor Walker: “There are more people working in Wisconsin than at nearly any other point in our history…”
Where are the factcheckers when you need them?
What Happened in Wisconsin in January 2011?
I don’t think it’s structural change associated with the recession.
Wisconsin Employment Falls in November, Continues to Lag
Governor Walker blames the workers.
The Minnesota-Wisconsin Divergence in Family Income Continues
The American Community Survey data for 2014 are out (h/t Samuel). Real household family income in Wisconsin continues to decline relative to that in Minnesota.
Wisconsin Employment Exceeds March 2008 Levels
In an op-ed published yesterday, entitled “Wisconsin is working and growing jobs”, Governor Walker wrote:
More people are working in Wisconsin today than at just about any other time in our history.
This is correct. According to BLS statistics, in October Wisconsin civilian employment rose above March 2008 levels. They are still 13,855 below levels recorded in February of this year. This is why the Governor had to include the proviso “just about any other time”.
Figure 1: Wisconsin civilian employment, seasonally adjusted (blue), 2008M03 peak value (red horizontal line). Source: BLS.
As noted by Justin Wolfers, household surveys based estimates at the state level are subject to high levels of uncertainty. This doesn’t stop some people from citing state-level unemployment rates almost to the point of excluding other estimates. But it should — or at least make people a little reticent about unemployment-rate based boosterism, as we have heard from certain quarters.
For discussion of the trends in the establishment series, see here. To see how far Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment has lagged what should have been expected given historical correlations, see this post (hint: Wisconsin lags, and statistically significantly so).
This lackluster performance is likely why “…57 percent of voters said that they think Wisconsin is lagging other states in job creation”, according to a Marquette University Law School poll (WPR).