We’re back with the latest installment of 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.
Last week we took a look back at an earlier claim on Scott Walker’s 2010 campaign promise to create 250,000 new private sector jobs in his first term in office. This week we’re going to take another look back as we examine a claim that may have changed, according to the Journal Sentinel’s PolitiFact Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Lost 4,300 Jobs in August
PolitiFact Wisconsin is examining a claim in a television ad from Democratic candidate for governor Mary Burke that under Scott Walker Wisconsin has fallen to dead last in job growth in the Midwest. If that sounds familiar it’s because PolitiFact looked at the same claim from Burke over Labor Day weekend.
Citing the latest and most accurate jobs numbers available, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), Mary Burke says that Wisconsin ranks dead last in private sector job growth in the Midwest, trailing North Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. At the time, we found Burke was completely right; from the time Scott Walker took office through the end of 2013—the latest QCEW data available—Wisconsin was in fact dead last in private sector job growth in the Midwest looking at the percentage change in employment.
But fast-forward to Oct. 3, when PolitFact re-evaluated Burke’s claim and gave it a “False” rating. What’s changed since September? Has Wisconsin made a miraculous jobs recovery?
We do have a new QCEW data set to look at from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, so let’s start there. The latest QCEW numbers, which are Scott Walker’s “gold standard,” cover March 2011 through March 2014—and since economists caution against combining quarterly numbers with monthly estimates that are subject to significant revisions, this time period is seemingly a pretty accurate snapshot of Walker’s time in office.
A look at the March 2011 through March 2014 data cited by the Burke campaign confirms Burke’s claim: Wisconsin in fact ranks dead last in the Midwest in job creation for the three-year period. PolitiFact even acknowledges that point as “true enough”—so what makes this a “False” statement?
Two pieces of the ad appear to have moved this claim from the “True” column to the “False” column for PolitiFact.
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First, citing monthly data in a different claim in the television ad, Burke claims that Wisconsin lost 4,300 jobs in August, the most recent preliminary monthly numbers available. PolitiFact apparently takes issue with using two different types of data, even though both are accurately cited in the ad. We’d argue that it’s an important, and honest, point that gives further context to broad claims about our state’s economy; not only has Wisconsin fared poorly over the past three years, but we don’t seem to be gaining any ground.
But PolitiFact seems to disagree, and then points out another perceived deficiency in Burke’s claim. At issue are the words “And we’ve fallen to dead last in Midwest job growth.” As PolitiFact says, “It suggests that falling to the bottom is a new development.”
Certainly falling to the bottom isn’t a new development. We’ve been dead last in the Midwest in job creation for months now. If we’re parsing words, it’s true that Wisconsin didn’t fall to dead last in the past three months—we were already at the bottom—but did we fall to dead last since Scott Walker took office? The answer there is yes, and in our opinion it’s a disservice to the readers of PolitiFact to rate “False” a claim previously and correctly rated as “True” based on semantics.
With less than four weeks until an election that is largely a referendum on our state’s job performance and economic growth, it seems unfair at best to ignore the full context of the point Burke is trying to make. And in fact, context is supposed to be one of the guiding principles of PolitiFact. As its creators put it, “Context matters—We examine the claim in the full context, the comments made before and after it, the question that prompted it, and the point the person was trying to make.”
Now to wrap this edition up, let’s put this claim in context. In her television ad, Mary Burke is clearly trying to make the point that under Scott Walker Wisconsin is trailing the entire Midwest in job creation and that our state’s recent jobs performance isn’t looking much better. The latest, most accurate jobs numbers confirm that she is correct. PolitiFact Wisconsin previously confirmed that she is correct. So does that point fall apart simply because we haven’t “fallen” to dead last but were already there? You be the judge.
