Our families can’t afford any more of his ‘success’

Check and Balance Walker Before

He Chases More Jobs Away

Cap Times Editorial (8/8/11)

“Governor Walker’s strategies to improve Wisconsin’s business climate and create jobs are working,” Department of Workforce Development Secretary Scott Baumbach, a Walker appointee, declared the other day.

Walker has been peddling similar statements as Tuesday’s Wisconsin recall elections approach. But what do the unemployment figures tell us?

Now that the latest data, from June, have been adjusted by state and federal analysts to account for seasonal shifts, we know that, as the governor’s policies have begun to take hold, unemployment in Wisconsin has been rising.

Unemployment statewide was at 7.3 percent in April.

Unemployment statewide was at 7.4 percent in May.

Unemployment statewide was at 7.6 percent in June.

In June, unemployment in Wisconsin increased at twice the rate that it did nationally.

So the statewide numbers do give us a sense of the impact of “Governor Walker’s strategies.” But the numbers from cities and counties across the state are even more devastating. In many cases the increases were dramatic:

Unemployment in Stevens Point rose from 7.9 percent to 9.6 percent.

In Beloit, it was up from 13.1 percent to 14.2 percent.

In Janesville, it was up from 9.9 percent to 10.5 percent.

In Madison, it was up from 5.1 percent to 6 percent.

And it’s not just in urban areas that unemployment has spiked since Walker began to implement his agenda.

In Caledonia, where unemployment has traditionally remained very low, the jobless rate has jumped from 4 percent to 4.7 percent.

In the small towns and the farm and lake country of southern Wisconsin’s Walworth County, it has leapt from 7.6 percent to 8.5 percent.

In Menominee County, the unemployment rate is up 2.5 percent to a 20.6 percent. That means that one out every five adults is out of work in this northern Wisconsin county …

Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_933ad345-33c5-5e97-9ed0-1405d722481d.html#ixzz1UV4wSe7A

(Authorized and paid for by Mark L. Taylor, Genoa, WI. and not a campaign committee.)