Data: Wisconsin Trailed U.S., Neighboring States In Job Growth Last Year

Wisconsin ranked 37th in the nation in private-sector job growth in 2013, trailing the United States as a whole and most of its Midwest neighbors, according to a state report.

Private-sector jobs here grew at a rate of 1.2 percent in 2013, according to quarterly numbers from the state Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to 2.1 percent at the national level.

Michigan added private-sector jobs at a much faster clip than Wisconsin, ranking 14th in the nation. It was followed by Minnesota, which ranked 23rd, and Iowa, which ranked 26th. Only Illinois trailed Wisconsin among its Midwest neighbors, ranking 39th among all the states.

The 37th place ranking marks the continuation of a remarkably consistent trend in Wisconsin in the three years since Gov. Scott Walker took office. The state was 36th last year, and it was 35th the year before that.

Donald Grimes, a labor economist with the University of Michigan, said that a year ago, he thought Wisconsin would snap the trend and break into the 20s by now. He was surprised to see that it didn’t.

“The Wisconsin numbers are actually surprisingly low,” he said. “It actually looks like Wisconsin is sort of following Illinois very closely both last year and in prior years in terms of your total employment growth.”

Wisconsin trailed all its Midwest neighbors and the nation as a whole in private-sector job growth during those three years under Walker. Labor economist Laura Dresser with the Center on Wisconsin Strategy said that’s significant.

“Every time the national economy produced three jobs, Wisconsin’s economy produced two,” she said.

The numbers show that in Walker’s first three years in office, the state added 102,013 private-sector jobs. That’s 147,987 shy of the 250,000 Walker said he’d help the state create during his first term.

The data comes from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which economists call the “gold standard” of job metrics. Because it’s so comprehensive, it takes a long time to compile, which is why the numbers released on Thursday only run through December 2013.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated with information from the afternoon news broadcast.