During "recovery", much of Wisconsin has stayed subpar

A great cover story by the Isthmus's Mark Eisen helps to explain why the economic situation in Wisconsin may seem very different depending on where you may live. It helps to explain why much of the state seems to be drowning in resentment and stangation, with alarming trends that only project to get worse if we continue in the same direction.

As the article notes, when it comes to economic performance, we have "Two Wisconsins." The Madison area and a few suburban counties have done very well in the last few years, but the rest of the state is falling behind.

Today, while Dane County booms and the bigger cities in the Fox River Valley and western Wisconsin prosper, the rest of the state is largely mired in a downturn that is a recession in all but name.

Wisconsin is not alone. This dichotomy is also America’s story, as the Economic Innovation Group, a centrist research group in Washington, D.C., first documented in May 2016. The EIG study — widely ignored and fraught with political implications, as pundit Harold Meyerson has argued — detailed how painfully limited the economic recovery from the Great Recession (the magnitude of job destruction earned its adjective) was compared to post-recession periods in the early 1990s and early 2000s.

That EIG report referenced in the article noted that in particular, bigger urban areas came back very well in the 2010s, but the rest of the nation may never have noticed that we were in a recovery. From 2010 to 2014, the EIG says a total of 73 counties in the US accounted for 50% of the new jobs in the country, and that counties with 1 million or more people added jobs twice at twice the rate as counties that had less than 100,000 people of them. In fact, 31% of US counties still lost jobs from 2010 to 2014 while the rest of the country was recovering. In addition, the amount of new businesses starting up has notably declined compared to the recoveries in the 1990s and 2000s.

Wisconsin fares even worse than most states for these troubling trends. Only 27% of Wisconsinites lived in counties that had job growth beat the US rate in that 2010-2014 period, we are notoriously dead last for entrepreneurship, and our population has stagnated in many of those counties that have trailed for job growth.



Eisen notes that the state is failing when it comes to attracting people to the state, and it's a definite indicator as to how we are being left behind in general.

Truth be told, Wisconsin is old and unadventurous in many ways. Almost 72 percent of the population was born here, according to the UW-Extension. That’s the fifth highest percentage in the nation. In more economically dynamic states like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California and Washington, the percentage of homeys is under 50 percent. That’s because ambitious job-seekers are steadily flocking to those states.

Ain’t the case in Wisconsin. The state’s “brain drain” — the loss of college graduates, despite the presence of the expansive UW System — is a recurring topic of worry in Wisconsin business circles. How can we compete in the knowledge economy if our best and brightest graduates leave the state?

[The UW-Extension's Steven] Deller and his colleagues counter that the problem isn’t so much outflow — they say the Wisconsin exodus of its college grads is not extreme. The real problem is inflow. Wisconsin just isn’t attracting college grads to move here.

Huh, sounds like we need a number of policies that encourage talent to locate in Wisconsin, eh? You know, like not having the regressive social legislation and the defunding of education that are a hallmark of the Age of Fitzwalkerstan. And maybe we should use the state's "Economic Development" organization for something other than a slush fund for donors from established corporation.

And it needs to change soon, because the inability to get young people to come into the state and raise families here is leading to a demographic nightmare in the state, especially in the rural areas that are being left behind. It's bad enough today, and it'll be a lot worse in 20 years if it doesn't change.



If there are no jobs being added and no one moving to these places, how are we going to be able to support a bunch of elderly people, especially with very few additions to the tax base in those places? It's going to lead to an even bigger displacement of resources, with more areas needing to be supported by the few places doing well.

These economic and demographic trends make it obvious that we need new strategy and leadership in the state, and it has to happen ASAP.