September 2015 jobs report shows we're still in a slowdown under Walker

Walker has yet to surpass former Gov. Jim Doyle's final budget year in terms of jobs creation

Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development released yearly jobs gains ending in the third quarter for last year (PDF). The news isn’t that stellar.

Because Wisconsin releases its preliminary numbers ahead of the rest of the nation, there’s no way to compare our state to others. So we can’t look at how we did versus Illinois or Minnesota, but we can look at how we did compared to ourselves in previous years.

Though the state gained 30,235 from September 2014 to September 2015, when compared to what happened before Walker took office it’s clear that number isn’t anything to brag about.

Growth from year-to-year was similar to what it was in 2013 and 2014. But gains in those years were also consistent with a slowdown, especially when contrasted with the year ending in September 2011 -- the last year that involved Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s final budget.

During that time (September 2010 to September 2011) Wisconsin saw 41,461 jobs created. That year included nine months of Jim Doyle’s budget and three months of Scott Walker’s first budget.

We did much better then than we did now. The third quarter report from 2011 is more than 27 percent better than what we see in this latest report. In fact, in the five years since he left office there hasn’t been a better third quarter report produced in Wisconsin since the last one that involved a Democratic Jim Doyle budget.

Data derived from Bureau of Labor Statistics

Scott Walker came into office promising 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term. By September of last year, one year into his second term, Walker had all but forgotten about that pledge. He was too busy trying to recover from his dwindling presidential polling numbers to care, until he ultimately dropped out later that month.

How many jobs had we created up to that point? From December 2010 to September 2015, we have created about 169,568 new jobs -- about two thirds of what Walker had promised, with nine months of extra time.

At this rate, we will reach Walker’s jobs pledge of 250,000 new jobs in November 2018...right when he’s up for re-election.

What a stark reminder that will be for voters who once supported him, to have that jobs pledge finally be realized almost four years after it was supposed to be realized. Thankfully most Wisconsin voters already understand that Walker’s been a terrible governor. They would be right to request new leadership at that time.