Walker's Wisconsin Lost Most Jobs in Nation

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to keep his job took a hit this week by way of a report showing how many voters lost theirs. Between March 2011 and March 2012, the state lost 23,900 jobs, more than any other state in the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Some 17,800 of those were in the public sector, but the state also led the country in private-sector job losses with 6,100, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Only Mississippi and Rhode Island also saw the number of private sector jobs shrink in the same period.

Walker—who faces a recall election in June—has been playing up more recent data in his campaign, pointing out that the state gained 17,000 jobs in the first two months of this year. But another 4,300 jobs were lost in March, and his Democratic opponents note that Walker promised to bring 250,000 private sector jobs to the state in his first term. "He really put this number on the table. If anyone said, 'Judge me by the jobs,' it was Scott Walker," a labor economist notes. (More Scott Walker stories.)