Sunday reading - Milwaukee's long-term economic struggles continued in Fitzwalkerstan era

Wanted to forward the results of a study from Marquette University and republished in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel late last week. It's from former news anchor Mike Gousha and researcher John Johnson, and looks at how the economy has changed in Milwaukee and other Midwestern metros in the last 40 years, and how they have performed.

The study uses Census Bureau definition of Milwaukee metro as Milwaukee County and the three WOW Counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington), and Gousha and Johnson notes that both the City and suburbs have declined in inflation-adjusted incomes since 1980, but the City has fared worse for declines in income, popultion, and jobs in the metro area.

In 1980, 31% of the residents of metro Milwaukee lived outside Milwaukee County. Today, nearly 40% do. But the WOW counties’ evolution from commuter suburbs to full participant in the metro economy is the bigger story. In 1980, 15% of metro Milwaukee’s jobs were in the WOW counties. Today that number is 42%.

But what about the region’s relative prosperity?

In 1980, the nation’s median household income was $54,000. The city of Milwaukee closely mirrored that number, at $53,000. But by 2018 — the last year for which data was available — the nation’s median household income had grown to $64,000. The city’s household income had fallen to $44,000.

The city’s suburbs and surrounding areas remain relatively prosperous compared to the rest of the nation, and especially the city. But even their median household income today — $73,000 — is $5,000 less than it was in 1980.

The study uses 10-year benchmarks for incomes (except for the 2010-2018 time period), which includes the peak income year of 2000 and the Great Recession depth of 2010. And while Madison and the Twin Cities metros have thrived and gained back most of their losses of the 2010s, incomes and jobs in Milwaukee and other former industrial powers in the Midwest are far behind.

The story of household income in metro Milwaukee bears some resemblance to other Midwestern cities, but not in a good way. In real dollars, Detroit and Cleveland have also seen their median household income decline since 1980, and by an even larger amount than Milwaukee.

Some other Midwestern metros have fared better. Household income for metro Indianapolis is the same as it was in 1980. The Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis metro areas have seen a modest increase, while Madison and Minneapolis have seen significant gains.

As we reported in June of this year, metro Milwaukee’s population has been in a slow or no-growth mode since 2000. That is reflected in employment numbers. Despite two recessions in the 2000-2010 decade, the Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Kansas City metro areas all added tens of thousands of employees to their economies from 2000 to 2019. The Minneapolis-St. Paul metro added 235,000. Indianapolis added 201,000. Both had such strong population and jobs growth that their metro areas physically expanded. Kansas City added 92,000 employees.

In contrast, metro Milwaukee lost more than 6,200 employees during that period. That performance ranked Milwaukee 309th out of 352 metro areas, but it was still better than Detroit, which lost 152,000 employees, and Cleveland, which lost 87,000.

In that map, you can see that Milwaukee was hammered hard in the 2000s, with median household income dropping by more than $12,500 after inflation vs the Twin Cities' decline of $10,400 and Madison's decline of a little over $8,000. And Milwaukee also lagged those two metro areas in the 2010s, both in income growth and in jobs.

Change in inflation-adjusted income, metro area 2010-2018
Twin Cities +$7,750
Madison +$4,062
Milwaukee +$3,400

Change in total jobs, Dec 2009 - Dec 2019 (QCEW)
Hennepin Co. (Minneapolis) +140,124 (+17.4%)
Ramsey Co. (St. Paul) +19,593 (+6.2%)

Dane County (Madison) +53,665 (+18.1%)
WOW Counties +44,694 (+14.7%)
Milwaukee County +19,559 (+4.0%)

So perhaps that whole WisGOP strategy of "handcuff Milwaukee and encourage more economic apartheid" isn't something that worked out well in the 2010s. Sure, the WOW Counties did better than Milwaukee County, but they're still underperformed the other 2 peer metros in the Upper Midwest, and now that 2020 and the COVID pandemic has hit, any of those gains of the 2010s are likely to be wiped out.

So maybe it's time for different leadership at the State Capitol, if we really want the state's largest metro area to try to catch up to the gains that the Mad City and the Twin Cities have had over the last 40 years. Because using "Milwaukee" as code for race-baiting, and a place to disinvest from (outside of sports arenas) has kept that metro area behind. And it's kept our state behind.