Breitbart.com has an insightful piece on the Wisconsin recall campaign against Gov. Walker. Not happy with his reforms, big labor is pushing a "do-over"of Walker’s 2010 gubernatorial contest. Funny thing, labor’s candidate campaigned explicitly on restoring union perks and privileges and got "trounced" in the Democrat primary. Now they are pushing an alleged loss of Wisconsin jobs based on estimates of loss while the state’s quarterly census based on detailed data from every employer shows a gain in jobs.
On primary night last week, We Are Wisconsin, a union-funded campaign put out this breathless statement: "As governor, Tom Barrett will reverse Scott Walker’s worst-in-the-nation jobs record, end the corruption Walker and his cronies have brought to Madison, and finally halt the Republican war on women—a war Walker and his GOP allies have taken further here than any other state in America."
Whoa, Brietbart.com writes. Are things really that bad in Wisconsin? Turns out…no. Today, Wisconsin’s Workforce Development Agency released the results of its quarterly census of jobs:
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.
The Department of Labor number, showing a job loss, was based on a survey of employers in the state. Their survey drew from a sample of 3.5% of employers in Wisconsin. The state’s quarterly census, however, is based on detailed data from every employer in the state. Every state compiles this census data and sends it to the federal Department of Labor, who use the data to adjust their own estimates and surveys.
So, who you going to believe? The numbers or someone’s guess at the numbers?