ALEC-run Wisconsin continues to lag for jobs, no matter how you look at it

Another week, and more information that shows just how badly Wisconsin has been left behind under the rule of the GOP.

Let's start by digging into the “gold standard” Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) and compare the latest report (which goes up to March 2018) to where we were in March 2011 (the first quarter that Scott Walker and 5 other Midwestern Governors were in power), and see how we shape up.

This shouldn’t surprise you, but Wisconsin was in the bottom half of the pack in the Midwest for both private sector jobs and total jobs added. And the US’s rate of growth outpaced Wisconsin by a factor of 3-to-2.

Note Minnesota being in the top half. Our neighbors to the West have had notably higher job growth over these 7 years, and they didn’t have to wreck public education, worker wages, and the state’s roads in the process. Despite starting from a lower number in 2011, Minnesota now has almost completely caught Wisconsin when it comes to overall and private sector jobs.

Zooming out to how Wisconsin shapes up vs the rest of the nation, we look like a state that hasn’t been in the top half for job growth since June 2011. In total, since March 2011 we are 31st in the US for private sector job growth, and 31st for all jobs. Hey, can’t say we’re not consistent(ly subpar).

Bruce Thompson also took a look at how Wisconsin shaped up to the rest of the country for Walker’s tenure in office in his most recent Data Wonk column for Urban Milwaukee. In particular, he looked at the ratings for policy from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), who has been a puppetmaster driving force behind many Walker and WisGOP bills for the last 7 years.

Not surprisingly, ALEC likes what Wisconsin has done in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan, but Thompson notes that hasn’t come close to meaning success in the real world.

The graph below comparing Wisconsin and Minnesota shows the measure that ALEC uses in rating the states’ policies, its so-called “Outlook” score: The bigger the number, the worse the policy, in ALEC’s view. As can be seen, the measures are heavily skewed towards low taxes, particularly taxes on wealthy people. Conversely, states are penalized for such measures as minimum wage laws that are aimed at helping lower-income people. In most cases, Minnesota (in blue) has a higher and thus worse rating than Wisconsin (in red).

In their overall “Outlook” score, Wisconsin ranks 19th best, easily beating Minnesota, which ranks 44th best among the states. Yet when it comes to ALEC’s ranking of the states’ performance, Minnesota, in 22nd place, is far ahead of Wisconsin at 37th.

If ALEC were honest, they would then adjust its criteria in the face of Minnesota’s clear outperformance. But they wouldn’t dare do that, because then they’d have to rethink their whole low-tax/wage-suppression agenda, and honest analysis is not why the oligarchs who fund ALEC give them big money.

Thompson goes on to cite two examples of mid-size states that followed the ALEC agenda to the letter, and the failures that followed.

The best-known attempt to apply supply-side principles at the state level is Governor Sam Brownback’s in Kansas. Taxes were radically slashed, as was state spending on services like education. The cuts in services led to a backlash and a split between moderate and very conservative Republicans. Another governor entranced by the supposed economic magic of tax cuts was Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal in 2008-2016, who left his state in dire financial straights without creating the promised economic boom. As can be seen below, both attempts failed to generate the promised economic gains from businesses rushing in to take advantage of the lower tax rates. instead, job growth in both states badly trailed the nation.

Also notice that the chart shows Kansas finally going back on the upswing for jobs in early 2017, which coincides with 14 ALEC/Brownback puppets getting booted out of the State legislature in the 2016 primaries, followed by tax hikes in 2017 that were passed over Brownback’s veto to get the budget more in balance.

The Kansas example gives a road map for how a state can start to work itself back from a damaging, Koched-up agenda. Our Governor and Koch/ALEC Legislature have gone down the same failing path as the Jayhawks, and also followed in the footsteps of Jindal, who was as hilariously awful on the 2016 presidential trail as Walker was.

This brings us to Wisconsin and the eight years of Scott Walker administration. As a whole, Walker’s policies follow the supply-side prescriptions—cut taxes, weaken regulations particularly on the environment, and keep labor cheap to attract industries. Has this worked? As the chart above shows, Wisconsin has seen job growth during this period that is moderate but well below the national average.

The question then is how much of the gap results from things inherent in Wisconsin (cold winters, dependence on manufacturing, the state’s culture, etc.) and how much on Walker’s policies. In a recent column, I presented one way to get at this question. Calculating Wisconsin’s relation to six other upper Midwest states in the period before Walker took office and projecting it to the Walker period results in a prediction about 80,000 jobs higher than the actual Wisconsin count. Walker’s policies, in short, have cost the state 80,000 jobs.

And Thompson is being kind. If you assume Wisconsin would have grown at the same rate as the US as a whole since January 2011, we’d have around 140,000 more jobs today. This is illustrated through the Walker jobs gap, which includes today’s report which shows 2,000 fewer private sector jobs in August than we thought we had, after July’s totals were revised down.

Thompson finishes his column by noting that supply-side ALEC BS usually leads to subpar economic results anyway, but it’s especially awful in this time of rising inequality and stagnant wages.

Supply-side economics suffers from three strikes. First, at a time when growing economic inequality is raising increased concerns, its recommendations help increase the gap. Second, it results in more pollution and a less-desirable environment. Finally, the evidence indicates it fails as an economic development strategy. With the support of wealthy people who benefit from supply-side’s prescription, the theory has lasted long beyond its expiration date. The sooner it is taken out back and buried, the better off we will all be.

You got that right, Bruce and it’s especially true in Wisconsin. But burying this supply-side BS won’t happen until we get rid of the Dropout Governor and the ALEC-owned GOP legislators that have been his rubber-stamp through these underperforming years in the 2010s.

So let’s get on with that step in November, and put these GOP-puppets and their failed feudal philosophy deep into the Swamp for a while. They’ve earned it.