Walker admin struggling to employ the state

Employment numbers from Doyle years match those from last month

I just felt like adding some more evaluation to the Wisconsin jobs numbers from last August, which were released just last week.

As I pointed out this past weekend, the job numbers from last month aren't impressive. Indeed, while the Walker administration may be able to claim that more jobs have been created this year, overall employment has decreased -- more Wisconsinites were employed in January, when Scott Walker assumed office, than were employed in August (by a margin of 3,300).

But the number of Wisconsinites who are currently employed in the state in August is also lower than a different time in our state's history. For instance, Walker's job numbers from August (2,816,003) are actually lower than the last month that former Gov. Jim Doyle was in office, by 1,039 (Doyle's last month total was 2,817,042).

But that's not the only bad news. In July of 2009, in the midst of the economic meltdown, the nation's unemployment rate was 9.5 percent while Wisconsin's rate was 9.2 percent. Yet in spite of those numbers, the state still had more individuals employed than was had in August of this year. 2,820,395 people were employed in the state of Wisconsin at that time.

In other words, 4,392 more people were employed at that time than were last month.

Wisconsin is headed in the wrong direction. After eight months of Walker's rule, his tax cuts to supposed "job creators" has failed to employ more Wisconsinites. A change is drastically needed, a departure from the current policy required, to put our state back on track towards recovery.