Gov. Walker’s conjured jobs numbers were not actually confirmed by the BLS

I’ll give Fred Dooley credit….he’ll believe anything that comes out of the mouth of a Republican, whether it’s actually based in reality or not.

Not one for fact-checking, Dooley saw fit to attack Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in a recent blog entry, claiming the jobs numbers conjured up by Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s administration were confirmed by President Barack Obama’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). As proof that Gov. Walker’s conjured jobs numbers were confirmed by the BLS, Dooley cited a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article in which Department of Workforce Development spokesman John Dipko (clearly not an unbiased source) said the Washington-based agency confirmed Wisconsin added 23,608 jobs in 2011.

The only problem with Dipko’s statement? It’s not true. As has been reported by Jud Lounsbury at Uppity Wisconsin, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Communications Director Gary Steinberg was reached by phone and issued the following comment on whether Gov. Walker’s conjured jobs numbers had been confirmed by the BLS:

“The Bureau can not comment on the fourth quarter numbers because they haven’t been released. I can say that we would not have confirmed the numbers yet, but would only have confirmed the methods used.

We can’t confirm fourth quarter or later data and would not have confirmed it to the governor’s office either.”

While the point might be lost on some, confirming a method and confirming a number are two completely different things.

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