The numbers are in and what a mess Scott Walker has made of his jobs and open for business plan.
AP: Gov. Scott Walker's administration is reporting that just over 28,000 private sector jobs were created in Wisconsin last year, the lowest annual amount since Walker took office.
The figures reported Thursday have been submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics which will verify and report them, along with other state figures for comparison, on June 19. In 2011, Walker's first year in office, 29,800 private sector jobs were created. In 2012, just over 33,870 were added.
The three year total is just shy of 91,700 jobs. That isn't even halfway toward Walker's 2010 campaign promise of creating 250,000 private sector jobs by the end of this year.
Here's WKOW's coverage:
Of course, the one thing that is working for Walker are the tougher requirements for unemployment, and the end of the federal extension. See, there are fewer people unemployed...magic:
Of course, the one thing that is working for Walker are the tougher requirements for unemployment, and the end of the federal extension. See, there are fewer people unemployed...magic:
The Department of Workforce Development also reports the state's unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 percent in April, down from 5.9 percent.
That jobs plan in full, scraped by the Wayback Machine on election day 2010.
ReplyDeleteMaking UI harder to claim though does not directly make the U3 unemployment rate go down - the latter being from the household survey of people asking if they don't have a job and have looked for one in the last four weeks. You have to meet the survey definition of unemployed (and then some) to claim UI, but you don't have to claim UI to be unemployed (roughly 40% of the unemployed in Wisconsin receive UI).
But making UI harder does make the Walker Admin claim of "lowest claims in years" very dubious. Even more so when you realize the DWD is being audited after numerous complaints about not responding to people who were trying to get benefits after being laid off
DeleteFor the LAUS reference week, in April 2014 the unadjusted U3 rate was 5.9% while the insured UI rate was 2.65%.
ReplyDeleteIn April 2013 U3 was 7.0% while the insured rate was 3.55%.
In April 2012 U3 was 6.8% while the insured rate was 3.4%.
In April 2011 U3 was 7.6% while the insured rate was 4.0%.
In April 2010 U3 was 8.8% while the insured rate was 5.0%.
So in 2010 through 2014 the fraction of the unemployed who received UI was 0.57, 0.53, 0.50, 0.51 and 0.45.
For Minnesota the ratios were 0.46, 0.45, 0.43, 0.50, 0.47.
For Illinois the ratios were 0.39, 0.40, 0.39, 0.37, 0.42.
So during Walker's term it has notably dropped compared to our two neighbors where the fraction of the unemployed who receive insurance has been far more constant.
(Handy reference).