Walker will claim 23,321 jobs created between Dec. 2010 - Dec. 2011

It looks like Scott Walker is going to attempt to muddy up the job creation numbers just in time for his recall election, meaning any future numbers won't count because they won't be accurate. The new numbers are better than the current estimates though, which are always adjust 6 months later, using the data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. And that's the source of Walker’s new numbers:

jsonline: State officials said they show a gain of 23,321 jobs (public and private) between December 2010 and December 2011, which represents Gov. Scott Walker's first full year in office.

That stands in sharp contrast to a commonly used and widely reported monthly jobs measure, the Current Employment Survey, which earlier this year showed an estimated loss of 33,900 jobs in Wisconsin for the same 12-month period.

But if these Quarterly Census numbers are used for Wisconsin, then the same comparison has to be made for every other state, bringing us back to…the back of the pack?

With the early release, it's impossible to compare Wisconsin's performance in 2011 with other states. But that wasn't the point that Walker wanted to make. He wanted to show that Wisconsin generated jobs last year.

The next monthly jobs numbers come out Thursday, and the Walker administration is already signaling that it wants to discredit them before they even come out.

My conservative friend in Milwaukee tipped me off to a video presentation making the rounds in conservative circles, supporting Walker’s claim of job creation. The argument that Walker must have created jobs is presented in a clean and logical manner, but lacked hard numbers. Now Walker is about to add those numbers. But how does Wisconsin compare to other states using the same data?

Pro-Walker activists circulated a video this week by a Department of Revenue economist, John Koskinen, who methodically critiques what he calls the flaws in the standard monthly employment estimates. Koskinen argues the monthly jobs data is out of step with other more positive indicators.

One final thing; on an earlier post, I mentioned how the state has lost 10,000 businesses in Walker’s first year, he’s made up for a few since, and is now just 4330 short. How can you create jobs when you're losing businesses? I'll bet the business losses won't even enter into the discussion.