Walker's Manufacturing Tax Cut = 4,000 lost manufacturing jobs, but who cares, wages up.

It won't matter to "Stand with Walker" Borgites, but their unintimidated leader's job's recored still stinks, and probably still won't be enough to throw this bum out of office. WPR:

The job loss figure comes from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which economists regard as the most accurate job metric.

1. Wisconsin lost more than 4,000 manufacturing jobs in the 12 months leading up to last September, marking the worst such period for the state since the end of the Great Recession.

2. The drop came at a time when Wisconsin was spending nearly $300 million a year to cut manufacturers’ income and corporate taxes in an effort to grow the state’s manufacturing economy.

3. A total of 27 states lost manufacturing jobs over the same span, and so did the national economy.

4. The same employment report showed Wisconsin added 25,562 private sector jobs from September 2015 to September 2016, which ranked 32nd in the nation in overall private sector job growth.

"It mostly shows the limited power of politicians and efforts by state government to change economic forces," said Don Grimes, a labor economist at the University of Michigan. Grimes said that’s largely because manufacturers have improved their productivity to the point that they can make more goods with fewer people.

But now this is all good news for Walker. Completely ignoring his failed manufacturer tax cut, Walker said he cares more about raising wages in the industry, not how many jobs?

Gov. Scott Walker said fewer manufacturing jobs might not be such a bad thing for Wisconsin, as long as wages are increasing. 

"It's not just how many jobs — it's are those jobs paying at a significant level. If we see wages go up in manufacturing, to me, that's my ultimate goal. Overall, it’s just a different type of manufacturing – you’re going to see more and more automation. You can have successful manufacturing companies that don’t necessarily match all those (previous) numbers."

Walker said Wednesday some jobs that have left Wisconsin may be coming back in smaller numbers, but they offer workers higher wages. Walker said higher-paying jobs will require more skilled workers in the state.