Fewer jobs in many areas of Wisconsin under Trump 2.0

If you'd checked out the annual benchmarking of jobs numbers in Feburary and combined it with March's release of the "gold standard" Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), you noticed that jobs growth numbers were revised down, and had gone in decline in much of America during 2025.

You'll notice that Wisconsin is among those states losing jobs, which means that we should have expected that the growth we were seeing reported in Wisconsin jobs numbers in 2025 was also likely to be revised away. And indeed, when the January benchamrked jobs data for Wisconsin was released earlier this month, it showed a sizable decline.

That's not good, and like the US jobs picture overall, it got worse in Wisconsin in February.

When you look at the trend over the recent years, you can see where the revisions really start to kick in around the start of Trump term 2.0, and the declines in February took away any gains that might have happened in January (although I strongly suspect they're just seasonal adjustments).

The revisions also show up in the sector data, especially in manufacturing, where the newly revised data shows that 2025 was a third straight year of notable job losses for Wisconsin manufacturing.

The new data also shows that jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector hit its post-COVID peak in October 2024, and has had a small decline in the 16 months measured since then.

One of the few sectors to see significant job growth in the last year in Wisconsin has been the construction sector, which not only continued the strength it had during the last 3 years of the Joe Biden presidency, but has kicked into higher gear since November, with over 5,000 jobs added in the following 3 months.

Wisconsin's growth in construction jobs continued last year even as the sector had US job growth as a whole go flat in 2025. Not sure why we're getting all this growth in our area for construction (I'd guess some of it is likely data centers, and some is likely the fact that Milwaukee is among the hottest housing markets in America), but worthy to see if that holds for the rest of 2026 as gas prices and other inflation are likely to make construction costs go higher.

It also makes me interested in seeing how Wisconsin's tax filing numbers look from the revenue side. We know that there was a decrease in income tax revenue of more than 30% for February 2026 vs February 2025, and while that reflects new tax cuts passed in the last state budget, are we also starting to see a decline in income tax withholdings if we have fewer Wisconsinites working? It seems like that's something we need to have answered before we proceed with any additional tax cuts, because a lack of revenues would make the projected $2.5 billion budget surplus from January go away quickly.

So if it seems like things have been slow in the Wisconsin jobs market and that we are largely stuck in place (if not outright declining), that's because it largely has been. And that was before the bombs started falling in Iran and gas prices neared $4 a gallon in our state. Not that we're alone among states that are struggling during Trump 2.0, but it does seem like things have to be changed from the trajectory they're on today if we want Wisconsin to get back to increasing jobs and improving our quality of life. Unless you're in construction, of course.