Wednesday, July 25, 2018

"Dead last for Midwest GDP" isn't something Walker agencies want to mention

You may remember our Wisconsin Department of Revenue tweeting this out in May.



I called that taxpayer-funded campaigning out at the time for its obvious cherry-picking, and how it forgot to mention the state’s underperformance for all of 2017 as well as the first 6 years of the Age of Fitzwalkerstan.

Well yesterday, we got a report from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis that gave the 1st Quarter GDP figures for Wisconsin and all other 49 states. So why didn’t I see that news being plastered on Walker Administration social media?



Oh, that’s why. Dead last for GDP growth in the Midwest for the first 3 months of this year (BEFORE we started losing jobs in Q2), and 40th in the US.

A big culprit in Wisconsin’s subpar showing was a significant loss in agriculture/forestry sector, which subtracted nearly 0.5% from Wisconsin's total by itself. I've got to wonder if it’s related to the increasing number of dairy farms going under at the time, a trend that continued through the 2nd quarter.

Despite the weak 1st Quarter, the last 12 months measured still has GDP looking pretty good for Wisconsin (4.5% for current dollar GDP, around 2.0 % in real GDP). But in the 7 years since Act 10 was rammed through the Legislature in March 2011, the picture continues to show a subpar performance in Wisconsin.



5th out of 7 Midwestern states, and well behind the US rate of growth. I'm guessing Scott Walker's taxpayer-supported campaigners won't be tweeting out that picture either.

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