The first headline in the Google list told the whole story: “Government Data Shows Wisconsin Leads Nation In Job Loss Under Walker.”
The paragraphs that follow cite a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report that says Wisconsin lost 23,900 jobs over the past 12 months, more than any other state in the union, and then the article quotes numerous opponents of Governor Walker who demand that he be recalled because of it.
Actually, I was hoping to avoid yet another swim in the murky waters of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, but since none of my fellow countrypersons whose crushing student loan debt bought them a degree in journalism seem inclined to use it for the five minutes it takes to discover a fly in any BLS ointment, I passed on the SNL musical guest last night and contradicted the BLS headline with its own data. You can fact-check me yourself; here is the link:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST55000005?data_tool=XGtable
A little housekeeping first…can we all agree that the “last twelve months” is March 2011 to March 2012? Fabulous. And can we agree with the experts at BLS that the term “employment” means the number of persons who are working? Outstanding. And one last thing - more persons working is better, and fewer persons working is worse, are you with me? Terrific. I can feel that civil war healing itself already.
So here we go. According to BLS – not me - the number of persons employed in Wisconsin in March of 2011 was 2,838,145. And according the BLS – not me - the number of persons employed in Wisconsin in March of 2012 was 2,856,643. My calculator says that is an INCREASE of 18,498.
My Excel spreadsheet says that is an INCREASE of 18,498. Arithmetic by hand says that is an INCREASE of 18,498. Slide rule, abacus, ponies stomping – anyway you count ‘em up, that is 18,498 more people are working now than a year ago, not less. When do I get my Pulitzer Prize?
While we are at it, the BLS – not me – says that during Walker’s first 15 months in office the number of people working in Wisconsin has INCREASED by 23,575. And BLS – not me – says that during his predecessor’s first 15 months in office, with a national economy growing at more than double the current rate, the number of people working in Wisconsin DECREASED by 143.
Don’t shoot the messenger, especially now that we have concealed carry and you never know which messengers will shoot back. Did we recall Governor Jim Doyle after a year? No, that was a different time; nearly a decade before we lost our minds. Should we have recalled Doyle in 2004? Absolutely not – he won an election, and elections should mean something in a democracy.
My point is not that Walker’s policies have led to high rates of job creation; 23,575 more people working is anemic and we need to do a lot better than that. My point is that the professional axe-grinders would like you to believe BLS data is some Biblical truth whenever a slice of it can be carved out to support their narratives, but a BLS headline is not truth. They do statistics, not truths, and there are limits to statistics.
If you want to go cherry-picking BLS data, Milwaukee is pretty gruesome; so whose fault is that – Barrett, Abele, Walker, Obama, or whoever is running the U.N. these days? Dane County is not exactly frackin’ North Dakota, so which Madison politician wants to fall on their sword for that? What next – should we go ward by ward and start recalling aldermen?
The fact is that none of our elected officials who promise to create jobs in the private sector have any say in the matter; politicians can only put up or tear down barriers to job creation.
If you want to judge Governor Walker, or any other politician for that matter, on job creation, then list the barriers he has erected to private sector job creation down one column, and list the barriers he has removed down a second column. As a businessman and job creator, I can tell you that one of my lists is substantially longer than the other, but everyone is entitled to their own list and their own opinion.
Just don’t form that opinion based on one headline – especially when the headline is based on a description of BLS jobs data that is contradicted by its own employment data three rows up in the exact same data set. It is not BLS’ fault that headline-hawking partisans don’t appreciate the limits of statistics; they tell you they are not counting jobs on their fingers and toes:
“The sampling errors provided in this technical note have been estimated using the Repeatedly Grouped Balanced Half Samples (RGBHS) method, a modification of the Balanced Half Samples (BHS) technique used for the National estimates…This technique involves the repeated calculation of BHS estimates R times. After each calculation, the sample units are randomly assigned to two groups in order to produce new BHS estimates. The final estimate of variance is an average of R BHS estimates. This method is used in calculating the sample errors for each published basic and summary cell. Under normal circumstances, where the average response rates are met and there are no reporting anomalies...”
Still think you know how many jobs there actually are in Wisconsin? And if any of you student-debt-laden journalism majors want to do a little investigative journalism, why don’t you go figure out why one floor of the BLS – not me – says that 2,856,643 people are employed in Wisconsin today while another floor of the BLS – not me - estimates there are only 2,730,100 jobs?
How could that possibly be? That is 126,543 more people working than there are jobs to employ them; do people think they are working when they are not? The data comes from the same federal Department, same agency, same website, same web page, same table even – and only 3 rows apart.
And which of these two conflicting pictures – 24,000 fewer jobs or 18,000 more people working – is consistent with the other BLS data that shows the number of unemployed Wisconsinites dropping from 232,167 to 207,527 over the past year? Which one is consistent with the unemployment rate dropping to 6.8%?
I don’t know if any of the BLS numbers are accurate to the last digit, but one of these things is not like the other and it was that one thing that set off the media frenzy and poured gasoline on the recall fire. Is it too much to expect that our objective journalists might tell us there was a lot more to the story?
It didn’t take much work to find the information that I have presented here; any 9th grader could have done it in a half hour with a little encouragement. So ask yourself why you are just reading this now for the first time. Better yet, ask your favorite news outlets why they didn’t tell you about employment going up under Governor Walker, since that is what BLS – I repeat, not me – says.
Now there is a recall story that might actually be interesting.
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order Tim’s new book, “BRING IT!
The paragraphs that follow cite a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report that says Wisconsin lost 23,900 jobs over the past 12 months, more than any other state in the union, and then the article quotes numerous opponents of Governor Walker who demand that he be recalled because of it.
Actually, I was hoping to avoid yet another swim in the murky waters of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, but since none of my fellow countrypersons whose crushing student loan debt bought them a degree in journalism seem inclined to use it for the five minutes it takes to discover a fly in any BLS ointment, I passed on the SNL musical guest last night and contradicted the BLS headline with its own data. You can fact-check me yourself; here is the link:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST55000005?data_tool=XGtable
A little housekeeping first…can we all agree that the “last twelve months” is March 2011 to March 2012? Fabulous. And can we agree with the experts at BLS that the term “employment” means the number of persons who are working? Outstanding. And one last thing - more persons working is better, and fewer persons working is worse, are you with me? Terrific. I can feel that civil war healing itself already.
So here we go. According to BLS – not me - the number of persons employed in Wisconsin in March of 2011 was 2,838,145. And according the BLS – not me - the number of persons employed in Wisconsin in March of 2012 was 2,856,643. My calculator says that is an INCREASE of 18,498.
My Excel spreadsheet says that is an INCREASE of 18,498. Arithmetic by hand says that is an INCREASE of 18,498. Slide rule, abacus, ponies stomping – anyway you count ‘em up, that is 18,498 more people are working now than a year ago, not less. When do I get my Pulitzer Prize?
While we are at it, the BLS – not me – says that during Walker’s first 15 months in office the number of people working in Wisconsin has INCREASED by 23,575. And BLS – not me – says that during his predecessor’s first 15 months in office, with a national economy growing at more than double the current rate, the number of people working in Wisconsin DECREASED by 143.
Don’t shoot the messenger, especially now that we have concealed carry and you never know which messengers will shoot back. Did we recall Governor Jim Doyle after a year? No, that was a different time; nearly a decade before we lost our minds. Should we have recalled Doyle in 2004? Absolutely not – he won an election, and elections should mean something in a democracy.
My point is not that Walker’s policies have led to high rates of job creation; 23,575 more people working is anemic and we need to do a lot better than that. My point is that the professional axe-grinders would like you to believe BLS data is some Biblical truth whenever a slice of it can be carved out to support their narratives, but a BLS headline is not truth. They do statistics, not truths, and there are limits to statistics.
If you want to go cherry-picking BLS data, Milwaukee is pretty gruesome; so whose fault is that – Barrett, Abele, Walker, Obama, or whoever is running the U.N. these days? Dane County is not exactly frackin’ North Dakota, so which Madison politician wants to fall on their sword for that? What next – should we go ward by ward and start recalling aldermen?
The fact is that none of our elected officials who promise to create jobs in the private sector have any say in the matter; politicians can only put up or tear down barriers to job creation.
If you want to judge Governor Walker, or any other politician for that matter, on job creation, then list the barriers he has erected to private sector job creation down one column, and list the barriers he has removed down a second column. As a businessman and job creator, I can tell you that one of my lists is substantially longer than the other, but everyone is entitled to their own list and their own opinion.
Just don’t form that opinion based on one headline – especially when the headline is based on a description of BLS jobs data that is contradicted by its own employment data three rows up in the exact same data set. It is not BLS’ fault that headline-hawking partisans don’t appreciate the limits of statistics; they tell you they are not counting jobs on their fingers and toes:
“The sampling errors provided in this technical note have been estimated using the Repeatedly Grouped Balanced Half Samples (RGBHS) method, a modification of the Balanced Half Samples (BHS) technique used for the National estimates…This technique involves the repeated calculation of BHS estimates R times. After each calculation, the sample units are randomly assigned to two groups in order to produce new BHS estimates. The final estimate of variance is an average of R BHS estimates. This method is used in calculating the sample errors for each published basic and summary cell. Under normal circumstances, where the average response rates are met and there are no reporting anomalies...”
Still think you know how many jobs there actually are in Wisconsin? And if any of you student-debt-laden journalism majors want to do a little investigative journalism, why don’t you go figure out why one floor of the BLS – not me – says that 2,856,643 people are employed in Wisconsin today while another floor of the BLS – not me - estimates there are only 2,730,100 jobs?
How could that possibly be? That is 126,543 more people working than there are jobs to employ them; do people think they are working when they are not? The data comes from the same federal Department, same agency, same website, same web page, same table even – and only 3 rows apart.
And which of these two conflicting pictures – 24,000 fewer jobs or 18,000 more people working – is consistent with the other BLS data that shows the number of unemployed Wisconsinites dropping from 232,167 to 207,527 over the past year? Which one is consistent with the unemployment rate dropping to 6.8%?
I don’t know if any of the BLS numbers are accurate to the last digit, but one of these things is not like the other and it was that one thing that set off the media frenzy and poured gasoline on the recall fire. Is it too much to expect that our objective journalists might tell us there was a lot more to the story?
It didn’t take much work to find the information that I have presented here; any 9th grader could have done it in a half hour with a little encouragement. So ask yourself why you are just reading this now for the first time. Better yet, ask your favorite news outlets why they didn’t tell you about employment going up under Governor Walker, since that is what BLS – I repeat, not me – says.
Now there is a recall story that might actually be interesting.
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order Tim’s new book, “BRING IT!
