Scott Walker recall takes an unexpected turn.

[BrainGlutton]

@FE3O4ENAIL

Marquette Law School Poll – A Comprehensive Look at the Wisconsin Vote

Sorry, this one says six percent.

Interesting. But this is more interesting. Trivedi actually is siphoning votes from Barrett – only 2%, but, still, who’d’a thunk it?!

The second poll of the week was from Public Policy Polling on behalf of the liberal collaborative blog, DailyKos. PPP has the unique distinction of being the most accurate pollster during the 2011 recall election. PPP has a five point spread between Walker and Barrett at 50-45 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent. What makes the PPP poll unique among the three polls released this week is they also polled for independent Gubernatorial candidate Hari Trivedi who managed to take 2 percent in the poll.

According to DailyKos political director David Nir that 2 percent is coming at a cost to Barrett, “their second choice is overwhelmingly Barrett, suggesting that Trivedi is pulling votes away from the Democrat. In a tight race, that could be a difference-maker.”

By that one, Walker’s lead ain’t much more than margin-of-error, and the election is June 5 – 2-1/2 weeks is a long time in electoral politics. I don’t hold out much hope Barrett will take it, but it can’t be ruled out.

[FE3O4ENAIL]

@BrainGlutton

By that one, Walker’s lead ain’t much more than margin-of-error, and the election is June 5 – 2-1/2 weeks is a long time in electoral politics. I don’t hold out much hope Barrett will take it, but it can’t be ruled out.

Agreed.
You would think that the recall effort could maintain the momentum it had.

[waterj2]

I’ve seen some grumbling on various lefty blogs and such that the DNC hasn’t been willing to put their own money into this race, and that the Walker campaign has something like 20 times the cash available that the Barrett campaign has. Anyone know what’s up with that? And why the Democrats seem to enjoy shooting themselves in the foot all the goddam time?

[elucidator]

Still remains the tantalizing prospect that millions of bucks could be spent for Walker and he loses. That would be sufficient cause to buy new dancing shoes.

[BigAppleBucky]

@waterj2

I’ve seen some grumbling on various lefty blogs and such that the DNC hasn’t been willing to put their own money into this race, and that the Walker campaign has something like 20 times the cash available that the Barrett campaign has. Anyone know what’s up with that? And why the Democrats seem to enjoy shooting themselves in the foot all the goddam time?

Two reasons for the money disparity. The obvious that Walker is beloved of anti-union billionaires and has collected big time from them and second a quirk in the Wisconsin law that allowed Walker, but not the Democrats, to begin raising money in November.

The Democrats are running a very good campaign for a shoestring budget. The final count will be similar to November 2010, with approximately half the voters on either side.

More importantly, perhaps, the Democrats have a good shot at regaining the state Senate.

A sign that Walker is worried is that he came out today and tried to sound reasonable. Said he wanted to be conciliatory. Ya right. Until the votes are counted.

Walker says he's not afraid to lose recall

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Thursday he’s not afraid to lose the historic recall election he faces in less than three weeks, but if he wins he intends to govern in a more inclusive, consensus-building way.

A new report today said Wisconsin had lost another 6,000 jobs in April.

Report shows Wisconsin lost nearly 6,000 jobs in April

Walker’s campaign disputes the numbers issued by the BLS, using a different metric than the standard used by the other states and Wisconsin until this month.

NLS:

State Employment and Unemployment Summary - 2025 M04 Results

Finally, an explanation from Forbes, of all sources, reconciling the two sets of numbers:

Scott Walker Magically Turns Dismal Wisconsin Job Numbers Into A Pre-Election...

The Governor has simply decided to ignore the system used by the Department of Labor —and every other state in the nation —to measure job growth (or loss) and elected instead to go with a different set of numbers that makes things in Wisconsin look better.

Who knew it could be so easy to solve a jobs crisis?

With Wisconsin’s lagging job growth now driving voter sentiment as the state heads towards the June 5th election, Walker’s Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s Chief Economist, John Koskinen, offered a presentation last week to Walker staff members and state economic officials accountants from the Association of Government Accountants wherein he made the case for an alternate system of measuring job creation—one that would be ‘unique’ to the Badger State.

Why are the jobs figures critical enough for Walker to fudge them? Because in 2010 he ran on a specific promise to produce 250,000 more jobs during his four year term.

[Reginald_Hobbes]

No, these are not fudged numbers or some never before used method.

Revisions to jobs statistics nothing new for politics

The governor released fourth-quarter employment data - not due for formal release until June 28 - showing Wisconsin added about 23,321 public and private sector jobs last year. Those figures from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages - which is collected from 95% of the state’s private and public sector employers and deemed reliable by most economists - contrast sharply with more than a year’s worth of monthly employment surveys, which suggested that Wisconsin lost 33,900 jobs last year, ranking it last among the 50 states.

It was those monthly survey numbers that Walker’s op ponents have used since last year to criticize him.

The accuracy of the monthly data has been called into question in the past. The monthly estimates, after all, are based on surveys of only 3.5% to 5% of the state’s businesses each month and then extrapolated statewide under a mathematical model that’s routinely prone to error.

Inaccurate data

And it brings up an issue that’s been reported, but is often overlooked or willfully ignored: The state employment data that triggers each month’s partisan eruption is prone to stunning degrees of inaccuracy. It’s a fact that even government statisticians don’t talk about unless asked. But the common margin of error would astonish anyone who assumes that Wisconsin’s monthly unemployment reports are a reliable reflection of the Badger State economy.

An example: On any given month, the margin of error for the net change in Wisconsin employment can be off by 9,340 jobs in either direction, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the figures for the nation and each of the 50 states.

Using the most recent monthly data - in March, when the data reported an estimated loss of 4,500 jobs in the state - that could either mean a dispiriting loss of 13,840 jobs or a respectable gain of 4,840.

And that range of standard deviations, as the discrepancies are known to the green-eyeshade crowd, is only to achieve a 90% degree of confidence in the numbers. “Ten percent of the time, it’s outside of those bounds,” meaning they are even more wildly erratic, said Kenneth Robertson, chief of the division of Current Employment Statistics at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Enough on jobs

First, the claim that Wisconsin lost jobs in 2011 is wrong. Sorry, but an actual count (and the QCEW is pretty close to that) trumps an estimate. The reason that the surveys are used is that the QCEW - as its name suggests - comes out quarterly and even then at a substantial delay. (The numbers that were released “early” are for a period ending almost five months ago - December 31, 2011.) But you can’t contradict a count with a survey. That narrative is over.

This isn’t “fiction” and it isn’t “made up” or “new” numbers. The QCEW is a standard economic measure that the federal government has used for years. The most that can be said is that we don’t know how Wisconsin’s job gains in 2011 compared to other states.

But if they [Walker’s policies] were that bad, we wouldn’t need to be having esoteric arguments over quarterly censuses and benchmarked surveys and tweaked numbers. If Scott Walker deserved to be recalled for “wrecking” the economy, we wouldn’t need any numbers at all. We’d see newly shuttered stores and homeless encampments on the lakefront. We’d see Detroit.

But we don’t. We see a state that is in better fiscal shape than it was a year ago with rising tax revenue. We see a state in which we were told that the new budget would lead to disaster, but where disaster is no where to be seen. To be sure, the budget entailed hard choices and cutting things that we might have preferred not to cut, but those choices were inevitable.

The recall is about a garden variety policy dispute. It is about the prerogatives of the public employee unions and Party of Government being challenged. Let’s just admit that and move forward.

[elucidator]

Your second cite is an opinion piece. Nothing wrong with an opinion. But its not a “cite”, as such. Its more like “Hey! Here’s a guy that agrees with me!”

[BigAppleBucky]

@elucidator

Your second cite is an opinion piece. Nothing wrong with an opinion. But its not a “cite”, as such. Its more like “Hey! Here’s a guy that agrees with me!”

Wisconsin gained 23,000 jobs in 2011 if you count Wisconsinites working in neighboring states. If not, Wisconsin may have lost jobs. Either way, the actual number is so close to zero as to not matter.

[Fear_Itself]

@BigAppleBucky

Wisconsin gained 23,000 jobs in 2011 if you count Wisconsinites working in neighboring states.

If we count Wisconsinites that had to leave the state because there was no work for them in Wisconsin…

Uh huh.

[FE3O4ENAIL]

@Fear_Itself

If we count Wisconsinites that had to leave the state because there was no work for them in Wisconsin…

Uh huh.

So they are Wisconsinites with jobs, but we shouldn’t count them among Wisconsinites with jobs? Because they drive over a bridge?

[Fear_Itself]

@FE3O4ENAIL

So they are Wisconsinites with jobs, but we shouldn’t count them among Wisconsinites with jobs? Because they drive over a bridge?

That’s correct. Do you expect they won’t be counted in the state where they work? Or should they be counted in both states? They don’t work in Wisconsin, so they don’t count in Wisconsin’s stats.

[Fuzzy_Dunlop]

@FE3O4ENAIL

So they are Wisconsinites with jobs, but we shouldn’t count them among Wisconsinites with jobs? Because they drive over a bridge?

We should give tons of credit to Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan tons of credit for creating those jobs outside of Wisconsin. But Scott Walker? Nope. He doesn’t get to count a single one of them.

[Jack_Batty]

Fucking anchor-badgers.

[elucidator]

We don’t need no steeenking badgers!

[FE3O4ENAIL]

@Fuzzy_Dunlop

We should give tons of credit to Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan tons of credit for creating those jobs outside of Wisconsin. But Scott Walker? Nope. He doesn’t get to count a single one of them.

I agree, tons of credit to job creaters who get tons of credit for creating jobs. (Sorry, couldn’t resist mocking redundancy).

[elucidator]

I’m sure Minnesotans could be persuaded to accept more Wisconsin workers for some minor concessions. Eradication of Green Bay would be a good first step.

[Fuzzy_Dunlop]

@FE3O4ENAIL

I agree, tons of credit to job creaters who get tons of credit for creating jobs. (Sorry, couldn’t resist mocking redundancy).

Not my best writing but, gosh, I was just so damn excited to give people other than Scott Walker credit for creating jobs outside of his state.

[Reginald_Hobbes]

@BigAppleBucky

Wisconsin gained 23,000 jobs in 2011 if you count Wisconsinites working in neighboring states. If not, Wisconsin may have lost jobs. Either way, the actual number is so close to zero as to not matter.

So, you’re saying all 23,000 jobs created last year were actually in neighboring states?
Do you have some evidence for that?

[Fuzzy_Dunlop]

@Reginald_Hobbes

So, you’re saying all 23,000 jobs created last year were actually in neighboring states?
Do you have some evidence for that?

Of course that’s not what BigAppleBucky is saying. The point is that even if 0 of those now unemployed needed to obtain jobs out of state, 23,000 jobs is so far from Walker’s promise of 250,000 jobs in 4 years that it might as well be 0.

I’d say that’s an exaggeration, but it’s definitely a very horrible performance on jobs even in the best case scenario. And BigAppleBucky certainly wasn’t saying that all 23,000 newly employed Wisconsins were working out of state… I can’t see how you got that.

[BigAppleBucky]

@Fuzzy_Dunlop

Of course that’s not what BigAppleBucky is saying. The point is that even if 0 of those now unemployed needed to obtain jobs out of state, 23,000 jobs is so far from Walker’s promise of 250,000 jobs in 4 years that it might as well be 0.

I’d say that’s an exaggeration, but it’s definitely a very horrible performance on jobs even in the best case scenario. And BigAppleBucky certainly wasn’t saying that all 23,000 newly employed Wisconsins were working out of state… I can’t see how you got that.

There are two possible measures. Both rely on estimates and surveys and neither is a 100% canvass.

The first, which has been used in the past to talk about jobs within any particular state is a survey of employers.

Scroll down about 7/8 of the report at the link.

State Employment and Unemployment Summary - 2025 M04 Results

That link is to the new report released May 18 and it compares April 11 to April 12 changes. The previous report showing a loss of 23K jobs was March to March.

This new report shows Wisconsin with no statistically significant change April to April, which is an apparent improvement.

However . . .

I dug into the BLS details:

Table 6. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by state and selected industry...

I see the following comparative figures and I don’t really see an improvement for April. (Numbers in 000’s)

March 11 2,705.0
March 12 2,682.3
change minus 22.7

April 11 2,742.4
April 12 2,712.9
change minus 29.5

Why 22.7 should be “statistically significant” and 29.5 not, is beyond my imagination except that perhaps it became a political hot potato that the BLS did not want to deal with or that omitting Wisconsin was a mistake they’ll fix soon.

I also see this language (bold mine):

In April 2012, nonfarm payroll employment increased in 32 states and the District of Columbia and decreased in 18 states. The largest over-the-month increase in employment occurred in Indiana (+17,100), followed by Texas
(+13,200) and Georgia (+7,800). The largest over-the-month decrease in employment occurred in Maryland (-6,000), followed by Wisconsin (-5,900) and New Hampshire (-4,800).

Anyway, the employer survey has been the commonly used measurement.

Walker, seeing that the prior number was the worst in the country, is trying to get folks to look at the survey of households and the unemployment rate. Those surveys showed a better picture, slightly positive.

Why would households be reporting more jobs than employers. The biggest reason would be people working out of state.

I believe that there are also some differences with regard to the tally of people with two jobs. Households might be reporting employment, but businesses might be reporting on FTE (Full time equivalents) and the two numbers might make comparisons difficult.

Here is a link to the BLS technical note. If someone wants to wade through this, be my guest:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.tn.htm