Not Mississippi, but Darn Close. Wisconsin is 47th in Economic Growth Since January 2011

Here is the pledge Governor Walker made at the start of his inaugural address:

And as your Governor, I make this pledge:

Wisconsin is open for business. We will work tirelessly to restore economic growth and vibrancy to our state. My top three priorities are jobs, jobs, and jobs.

We will right-size state government by ensuring government is providing only the essential services our citizens need and taxpayers can afford. My fellow state workers, I invite you to partner with me in this necessary work.

Reasonable minds might differ on whether the governor has achieved his promise to "right-size" state government.  But it is difficult to find any indication that the governor's policies have restored economic growth and vibrancy to Wisconsin.

This past Tuesday the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank issued its Coincident Index for each of the fifty states for September 2012.   The coincident index is a measure of the growth of state economies.  Since Governor Walker's inauguration in January the economies of the fifty states taken as a group have grown at a rate six times the rate of growth of Wisconsin's economy.  Here is how Wisconsin's economic growth rate compares to our Midwestern neighbors over the twenty months since the governor came to office:




So Wisconsin's rate of economic growth is less than one-tenth that of Ohio,  less than one-eighth of Indiana's, and one-fifth of Illinois'.    Only three states have had slower rates of economic growth since January 2011:  Alaska, Delaware and Mississippi.  Remember back in February and March of last year when protestors around the state capitol in Madison carried signs accusing the governor of trying to remake Wisconsin into the Mississippi of the Midwest, "Wississippi?"  Well, we aren't Mississippi on the Philly Fed's Coincident Index.  We beat them out by one one hundredths of a percent!!

68 Nobel Laureates in the Sciences Support Obama

 Nobel Prize Medal




The New York Times reports today that sixty-eight American Nobel Prize winners in the science fields, including the two Americans who won this year’s chemistry prize have signed an open letter to American voters endorsing Barack Obama for president over Mitt Romney.  Is it any wonder that these distinguished scientists support the president?  The Republican party has become the home of some of the weirdest deniers of scientific facts imaginable.

The New York Times back in March 2011, reported on what Henry Waxman, the former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee had to say at a forum in 2011 at the Center for American Progress, a left leaning research institute:

"But I have never been in a Congress where there was such an overwhelming disconnect between science and policy,” he said. “The Republicans in Congress have become the party of science deniers, and that is profoundly dangerous."

Waxman also said that Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan, the new chairman of Energy and Commerce, had joined Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, in sponsoring a bill to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that heat-trapping gases endanger public health and the environment. Mr. Inhofe has repeatedly referred to climate change as a hoax perpetrated by an incestuous coterie of climate scientists unwilling to consider contrary evidence.

If you are interested in trying to decide if this seemingly inane GOP opposition to findings about Climate Change  is heartfelt, or purchased,  read this article by Bill McKibben in the July 12, 2012 edition of Rolling Stone magazine.

Deep in the Hole! Walker yet to Create a Net Job in Wisconsin in his First Term

Big Hole in the Ground in the UK.




I have previously (ad nauseum) posted about the Walker Administration's vacillation between two different Bureau of Labor Statistics' job data surveys as providing the most appropriate scoring matrix for the Governor's promise to the citizens of Wisconsin to create 250,000 new private sector jobs in his first term in office. Originally the matrix the Governor was touting was the BLS' Current Employment Statistics (CES) monthly survey of jobs.  When earlier this year that survey proved to be unhelpful in demonstrating any measurable improvement in jobs in Wisconsin, the Governor's staff began to rely on the BLS' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), data that only comes out 6 months after the period of data being reported. (CES data comes out monthly and shows the survey results from the previous month.) 

The Department of Workforce Development issued the September job numbers based on the CES survey today.  Once again its press release doubled down on the QCEW being the far more reliable measurement:

The most accurate count of jobs data, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), is based on a census of approximately 96 percent of Wisconsin employers. DWD last month submitted unemployment insurance (UI) records for the first three months of 2012 to the federal government. The federal government will incorporate the data in its next QCEW release covering the first quarter of 2012 for all states.

Now we are assured that the Governor intends to use the QCEW data to score his job creation promise.  So we have an accepted matrix.  That's the good news.  No more waffling around on the data set to use.  Here is the bad news:  Starting with the December 31, 2010 QCEW data for private job employment, and using the most current QCEW data for March 31, 2012, the State of Wisconsin has lost a net of 19,255 private sector jobs in the Governor's first term.   That leaves the Governor with 269,255  net private sector jobs to create in Wisconsin from March 2012 to December 2014.   We need to see over 8,000 net new private sector jobs created per month for the final 33 months (beginning in March of this year) of the Governor's term.   If that were an event listed on Intrade I am guessing it would probably cost you $9.99 a share.

Not only is the Governor in the hole on job creation but the QCEW also shows that average weekly wages for  Wisconsin workers in the private sector have declined by $13.00 per week from December 2010 through March 31, 2012.  That's $676.00 per year.

You can double-check my accuracy on the data at this page of the BLS.  Make sure you enter the relevant quarter from which you wish to see data, and enter "all industries" and "private" ownership on Map Series "No. of Employed."

The Vagina Whisperer

Colbert, at his funniest. See his Super-ego kick in at 5:01.

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