Raw Data + Cooked Books = Same Old Slop

So now that the recall election is over, the real official job numbers for 2011 (as opposed to the Walker official numbers) are out.  The numbers aren't as bad as originally believed to be, but they aren't great news either:

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday confirmed Gov. Scott Walker's assertion that Wisconsin did add jobs last year, though the federal agency scaled the total back a few thousand.

According to BLS, Wisconsin ended 2011 with 2,689,565 jobs, a 19,551 increase over the previous year. Those figures represent a 3,749 decrease from the quarterly census of employees and wages submitted by the state in May.

Those numbers are usually kept secret until the federal government signs off on them. The governor, however, broke with established protocol and released the figures early — less than two weeks before his recall election — in a move critics panned as overly political.

However, the new jobs numbers show Wisconsin lagged the rest of the country in job creation in 2011.

The roughly 20,000 jobs the state added last year ranked it about 40th in the country when compared with all 50 states.

And before anyone starts jumping up and down in excitement, saying that Walker created jobs, you'd better check your facts real close.

The reality is that Walker did not create any jobs, he just didn't lose as many as what was feared, as shown by this graph:

Yup, the blue line is the jobs that were created due to Governor Jim Doyle's budget and policies. The job losses didn't kick in until Walker's policies started putting their chokehold on the state's economy.  Also notice how they really plummeted as his budget kicked in.

Walker has has much to do with job creation as he does with the integrity of an Eagle Scout.

Absolutely nothing.