Capitol Report
By State Representative, Leon D. Young
Leon D. Young
With a $7 million war chest at his disposal, Scott Walker has begun his television media assault, in earnest, against his gubernatorial opponent Mary Burke.
Finding himself in virtual dead heat, in terms of current polling statistics, and with so much riding on the November 4th election, Walker is invariably pulling out all the stops.
Case in point, Walker’s new TV ad says the latest jobs figures show Wisconsin in third the Midwest on number of jobs created.
Moreover, the ad boasts that Wisconsin has created more private-sector jobs that Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and both, North and South Dakota.
This statistic, on its face, sounds quite impressive. But, let’s examine the real facts on the job numbers.
Working to blunt criticism and the repeated claim from Democratic challenger Mary Burke that Wisconsin is “dead last” in job creation the Midwest, Walker has gone on the offensive in asserting that our state is actually third in the Midwest in adding new private-sector jobs.
But, like so many things in life, the devil is in the detail.
Walker doesn’t say it to the camera, but the fine print on screen says the ad’s claim is based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics for the period of July 2013 to 2014.
In other words, he’s only talking about the most recent one-year period, not his entire term. Moreover, let’s not forget that it was Walker himself that called the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which is based on a census of 96 percent employers, the “gold standard” for jobs.
But shortly after taking office, Walker’s spokesperson issued an email statement in March 2011 saying the governor would use the quarterly data because of his “commitment to use verifiable, actual job counts, not just monthly job estimates.”
Now with an extremely close election on his hands, Walker has once again changed the script, by altering the method used to determine job creation.
Scott Walker knows all too well that he’s vulnerable on this issue. After all, Walker’s No. 1 campaign promise was to add 250,000 private-sector jobs in his first term.
Using the solid quarterly jobs numbers from 2011, 2012 and 2013, this tally shows that 147,187 jobs still need to be created in order for Walker to make good his campaign pledge of adding 250,000 jobs to our state economy.
Hence, Walker’s latest TV ad should be viewed for exactly what it is: a glitzy smoke screen to deceive Wisconsin voters on the real job creation numbers during his watch.