MADISON — The John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy is launching MacIver Reality Checks, a new feature that will hold elected officials, bureaucrats and politicians accountable for misleading the public — free of the bias and opinion of mainstream media “fact checkers.” “Too often politicians get a free pass for misleading the public with distorted stats and outright lies, and the mainstream media refuses to hold them accountable,” MacIver CEO Annette Olson said. “As Wisconsin’s leading free market think tank, MacIver is uniquely positioned to cut through the nonsense and provide voters the facts and the truth about pressing issues affecting the state and remind them the status quo isn’t working.” With the State of the State address scheduled for Wednesday, the first MacIver Reality Check is of Gov. Tony Evers’ economic track record. While Evers likes to tout employment figures that appear to show positive developments for the state, the reality is that half of all jobs created in the last year were government jobs and his preferred metric doesn’t differentiate between part-time jobs and full-time, family supporting jobs. See the Reality Check below. MacIver Reality Checks are intended to inform and educate the people of Wisconsin and may be freely shared and republished with proper crediting. |
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MI Reality Check: Job Numbers Tell A Different Story Than Evers’ Rosy Employment Boast |
The claim: Over the last several weeks, Gov. Tony Evers has been talking up his economic record. According to Evers, the economy is going great — recently bragging about seven months of record high employment. In fact, you’ll probably hear the Governor cite this statistic during his State of the State address tonight. It sounds good, but the reality is something very different. Reality: Most people would think that record employment would mean businesses and job creators are growing and hiring at a swift pace. But in reality, it’s government jobs that are propping up Evers economy. In fact, nearly half of all new jobs in Wisconsin last year were government jobs. Since the beginning of 2024, Wisconsin has created only 15,800 jobs — and 7,800 of these were government jobs.Moreover, this statistic only counts jobs — and doesn’t differentiate between someone picking up a second job to help pay the bills and an unemployed person gaining employment. In Depth: Check out a full breakdown of this issue by MacIver Policy Analyst Michael Lucas. |