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State unemployment rate goes down due to 'data distortion'

Unemployment
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MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is looking better, if only on paper.

A revised report to update a “data distortion” discovered by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in Michigan dropped Wisconsin’s unemployment rate for September by half a percentage point to 3.4%.

It had been stuck at 3.9% for several months.

The DWD reported the unemployment rate for October at 3.2%, the lowest the state has seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020.

State Department of Workforce Development officials say the unemployment drop over the last two months is a result of adjusted data and cannot be attributed to any one economic event. That includes the end of enhanced federal unemployment benefits in early September.