"Gold standard" jobs report shows Wisconsin had its worst year yet in 2019

Today had the release for 2019's year-end totals of the "gold standard" Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). And it completed an awful 2010s for Wisconsin, whose economic policy was dominated Scott Walker and a gerrymandered GOP Legislature after November 2010.

Wisconsin's rate of job growth started to decline in mid-2016, and has pretty much gone down since then, with the except of a Bubbly 6 months after the GOP Tax Scam was signed into law. But last year was a new depth, with barely more than 5,000 jobs added from December 2018 to December 2019, and we even slipped below 0 in November before a small rebound in the last month of 2019.

It completes a series of bad years since Walker and WisGOP gained power in Wisconsin state government. We've never been above 25th in the nation for job growth since 2010, been 32nd or worse in 8 of the last 9 years, and had our worst ranking yet in 2019, at 43rd. We do not have private sector figures from this report yet, but I'd imagine it isn't going to be much better.

And notice that high ranking in 2010. That's the one full year we had under Dem governor Jim Doyle and a Dem Legislature. Hmmm...

Along the same lines, I can't help but notice that Minnesota chose a Democratic governor in 2010, which blocked gerrymandering for the 2010s. This allowed for Dems to regain one or both houses of the Legislature for much of the 2010s.

At the end of 2010, Wisconsin had more than 87,300 more jobs than Minnesota did. Flash forward to the end of 2019, and Minnesota had more jobs than we did.

Put another way.....

Total jobs added, QCEW 2010-2019
Minnesota 330,103
Wisconsin 227,993
Difference 102,110

Today's QCEW report didn't have an industry breakdown, nor did most Wisconsin counties get broken down today. But the largest 7 counties in the state were accounted for, and that tells its own story. In particular, Dane County added more jobs than the state as a whole.

Jobs added, Wisconsin 2019
Dane County +7,446
REST OF WIS -2,367

Meanwhile, Milwaukee County lost 3,541 jobs in 2019. So maybe that whole "starve Milwaukee of resources" thing that WisGOP likes to do isn't such a great plan when it comes to having Wisconsin's economy do well.

This data sure seems to indicate that we could learn something by being more like Minnesota and Dane County, because that's what was working before the COVID-19 recession hammered everyone starting in March. And today's report is yet another blaring piece of evidence of just how much we have been held back during the Age of Fitzwalkerstan. It needs to be ended ASAP, and it goes well beyond changing who is in the Governor's office.