Job Losses From WI Budget Cuts Accurately Predicted A Year Ago

Tip your hat to UW Economics Professor Steven Deller.

Too bad he doesn't manage the State Department of Workforce Development. Or Walker's brain:

Who could have predicted at this time last year that Wisconsin would experience the nation's largest percentage decrease in employment over this 12-month period?

Um ... actually, UW-Madison economist Steven Deller could have. And did.

Last March, Deller, a professor of applied economics, studied the ripple effects of Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill and two-year budget proposal.

Deller felt Walker's plans to balance the state's budget by cutting spending and public workers' take-home pay will slow the state's economic recovery.

In a story that ran March 20, Deller estimated the state would lose more than 21,000 jobs as public agencies and workers were able to spend less in their communities. According to the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wisconsin lost 23,900 jobs from March 2011 to March 2012.