Moving Backwards With Scott Walker

Before Scott Walker and Republicans attack Tom Barrett and Democrats over their supposed economic failures, Walker and his ilk should look at their own abysmal record. 

Let's face it, the whole economy has been bad for workers for the past 5 years (actually since the 1980s). We're in a recession. And, the austerity measures and budet slashing are making things worse. Unemployment is high all over. Blaming this all on Tom Barrett makes as much sense as blaming it all on Scott Walker. (Although, Republican austerity policies are definitely prolonging the recession and adding unneeded suffering to the equation.)

But I get it, it's politics. So, with that in mind, here are various graphs of indicators of Wisconsin's economic performance and how Scott Walker is failing Wisconsin:

"The leading index for each state predicts the six-month growth rate of the state's coincident index. In addition to the coincident index, the models include other variables that lead the economy: state-level housing permits (1 to 4 units), state initial unemployment insurance claims, delivery times from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing survey, and the interest rate spread between the 10-year Treasury bond and the 3-month Treasury bill."

"The Coincident Economic Activity Index includes four indicators: nonfarm payroll employment, the unemployment rate, average hours worked in manufacturing and wages and salaries. The trend for each state's index is set to match the trend for gross state product."

"Estimated using sales prices and appraisal data."

"A statistic researched, recorded and reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics intended to represent the total number of paid U.S. workers of any business, excluding the following employees: general government employees, private household employees, employees of nonprofit organizations that provide assistance to individuals, and farm employees."

"A term used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to describe the subset of Americans who have jobs or are seeking a job, are at least 16 years old, are not serving in the military and are not institutionalized. In other words, all Americans who are eligible to work in the everyday U.S. economy."