More jobs numbers released, debate between candidates continues
MADISON -- Even more new jobs numbers for Wisconsin were released Thursday, May 17th, from a state agency showing Wisconsin lost 6,000 jobs in April.
These numbers come one day after Gov. Scott Walker pointed to a state survey of 150,00 employers that shows Wisconsin is gaining jobs.
Now, both candidates are using these two different sets of facts, based upon different data, to try to drive their message home to voters in advance of the June 5th recall election.
Speaking in front of a Talgo train, Milwaukee Mayor and Democratic candidate in Wisconsin's gubernatorial recall election Tom Barrett asked Gov. Walker to save 80 jobs in the city of Milwaukee.
"Governor Walker and his administration terminated the contract with Talgo. I'm asking the governor to honor the contract that this state signed," Barrett said.
Barrett and Talgo are blaming Walker directly for these potential job losses. "He will take jobs out of the poorest neighborhood in this city and one of the poorest neighborhoods in this state for political reasons," Barrett said.
With the new jobs numbers, Barrett also blamed Walker's policies for Wisconsin's economic woes. Meanwhile, Walker has muddied the waters in the jobs debate - releasing unverified state statistics that he says shows a much brighter economic outlook.
"On every major issue they've said this election was about, the facts have suddenly proven them false, so I think you're going to see anything but a discussion of the facts. The facts are clear that the state is headed in the right direction - adding more jobs," Walker said.
Within hours of the release of the new numbers, Walker released a new ad.
"He got what he wanted. He got a newspaper article that he put into a TV commercial, probably five hours after this data was released, and because he's using tens of millions of dollars from out of state, he can use his paid media to carry this argument for him and whether the earned media corrects the confusion or not, he doesn't care," Barrett said.
Every other state in the country relies on the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics to measure job creation, but Walker, with his sleeves rolled up, says the jobs debate is over.
"They're desperate, absolutely desperate. They said jobs went down and the facts clearly show jobs were gained in 2011. They said in the past the budget wasn't balanced and we have a $150 million surplus. They said our reforms wouldn't work and we now have $1 billion worth of savings," Walker said.
Essentially what the so-called jobs debate has done is give the supporters of both candidates their own set of facts, and their own set of realities. An informative debate must, at the very least, be about the same set of data, and that is something the public is not likely to get in the coming weeks.
"This is why Americans hate politics and hate politicians," UW-Milwaukee Professor of Governmental Affairs Mordecai Lee said.
Lee says the recent jobs numbers are a thicket of statistics even an economist could get lost it. However, he says he expects most voters have already decided who they trust.
"Whatever side they're on, they're filtering the news, and they're saying 'I knew my side was right,' and when they hear the news from the other side, they think 'they're a bunch of liars. They're manipulating statistics,'" Lee said.
The jobs numbers Barrett supports are the numbers reported every month, based off a survey of 3.5 to 5 % of businesses.
The data Walker is pushing is based on a survey of 95 percent of businesses. That is a new method of gathering job numbers, and cannot be verified until after the election.
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