Rep. Peter Barca: "By Any Measure, Governor Walker Has Nation’s Worst Jobs Record"

Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca offered this week's Democratic Weekly Radio Address. The topic is Gov. Walker's terrible jobs record, including a review of more than 20 years of federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) seasonally adjusted job data that shows Wisconsin has never led the nation in job loss as far back the current methodology accurately accounts.

Also released this week was a report by the federal BLS showing Wisconsin is the only state to endure "statistically significant" job losses over the past 12 months.

A written transcript of the address is below:

This week, we received more startling news about Wisconsin’s jobs record under Gov. Walker. A new report from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Wisconsin is the only state to endure 'statistically significant' job losses over the past 12 months.

That means we are dead last on job creation.

Wisconsin also led the nation in job losses in 2011. We researched it, and that’s the first time in more than 20 years of federal record-keeping that our state has ever had that unfortunate distinction.

And since Gov. Walker took office, Wisconsin has lost 10,200 total jobs – far more than any other state in the country.

By any meaningful metric, Gov. Walker has the worst jobs record of any governor in the nation. While the nation as a whole has added jobs for 18 straight months and neighboring states like Illinois have posted large job gains, Wisconsin continues to move in the wrong direction.  

But instead of leading on this issue, Gov. Walker and legislative Republicans passed laws that are actually harmful to our workforce, like rolling back equal pay protections for women.

We must be far more aggressive in advancing policies that help create good-paying jobs for Wisconsin families. My fellow Democrats and I have proposed more than two dozen job creation bills. And I will continue to reach out and try to work on a bipartisan basis to put people back to work quickly.

Every Wisconsin worker deserves elected leaders who are working for them – not pushing an extreme agenda that does nothing to create jobs.

The governor’s approach is clearly not working. It’s time Wisconsin gets back to being a national leader in something other than job losses.