Welcome back to You Be The Judge, where our team of independent fact-checkers looks at a claim, puts it in context, goes beyond the carefully worded claim to break down the issues, presents all the facts and then lets you be the judge on whether it holds water.
This week we’re going back in time—to two weeks ago, to be precise.
It’s Official: Walker Broke His Promise
Two weeks ago in this space we examined whether Scott Walker’s central campaign promise to create 250,000 new private sector jobs in his first term in office could rightly still be considered “Stalled” as rated in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s PolitiFact or whether it should be moved into the “Promise Broken” column.
When evaluating the promise two weeks ago, we noted that Wisconsin would have to average 29,437 new jobs over each of the next five months to reach Scott Walker’s promise on jobs. In context, that number is more than the state created in each of the past two years. Only in 2011, when the first half of the year was under the previous governor’s budget, did Wisconsin create more than 29,437 jobs, with 33,872 jobs added. Based on those figures, top economic experts noted that while Walker’s goal was “worthy” it would not be achieved.
And we agreed—the chance of hitting the 250,000 jobs promise in the remaining months of Walker’s term was virtually impossible. We know the governor likes football analogies, so we’ll use one here: If your team is down 49-21 with just four minutes left in the game, things aren’t looking so good to pull out a victory.
Flash forward to Sept. 18, which brought the release of the latest round of “gold standard” Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages federal jobs numbers and the most recent monthly jobs numbers. Those numbers showed that not only was Wisconsin trailing badly, we had barely even moved the ball; Wisconsin remains dead last in the Midwest on job growth during the Walker era and posted an estimated loss of 4,300 jobs in the month of August.
Those figures also prompted PolitiFact to take another look at Walker’s jobs promise. And here’s what they found: “There are four months remaining before the end of Walker’s term. To meet the promise, state employers would have to add 147,805 jobs, or an average of 36,951 per month in each of the next four months. That’s far more than have been added in any recent year.”
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That’s also a big deviation from the previous month’s analysis, when Wisconsin would have needed to average 29,437 jobs per month to reach the promise; we’re losing ground, not gaining it. That means “time has run out,” according to top economists—and Scott Walker’s central campaign promise is officially rated a “Promise Broken” according to PolitiFact.
While we don’t always agree with PolitiFact, we do always promise to give you all the facts and let you decide what’s right. There seems to be a consensus among independent fact-checkers and top economists alike that Scott Walker’s jobs promise is out of reach. Or can Scott Walker still pull off a comeback that would make Vince Lombardi proud? You be the judge.
