What Did $1.4 Billion Buy in Manufacturing Employment?

Not much…Wisconsin manufacturing employment up to February; January revised down…

Figure 1:  Wisconsin manufacturing employment from December 2018 release (red), January 2019 (blue), February 2019 (black), 000’s, s.a. Benchmarked data shaded green. Source: BLS, DWD. 

The Wisconsin Manufacturing and Agriculture Credit has cost $1.4 billion through FY2019, over twice the estimate.

Since the phase-in of the Manufacturing and Agriculture Credit, Wisconsin manufacturing employment has lagged the Nation’s. Since full phase-in in 2016, the lag has persisted.

Figure 2:  Wisconsin manufacturing employment from February 2019 (red) and US (black), in logs 2011M01=0. MAC phase-in in orange (percentage credits). Source: BLS, DWD. 

9 thoughts on “What Did $1.4 Billion Buy in Manufacturing Employment?”

  1. Moses Herzog

    I tend to feel sad when Menzie puts up graphs like the second one above. I was always hoping it wasn’t a coincidence Menzie wasn’t using orange to signify the donald trump years/months. We need to work harder to bring out Menzie’s killer instinct. Can someone send a DVD copy of the 1982 version of “Rambo” to Menzie’s research office??

    1. Moses Herzog

      “it wasn’t a coincidence Menzie was using orange” I should have said. Wow, is Sunday going to be one of those days??

  2. Moses Herzog

    There are no doubt some people on this blog who think I disagree with donald trump just to disagree with donald trump. That is not the case. About 98% of the time I disagree with donald trump, but every once in awhile that tiny 2% of the things I agree with him on pop up. So, to humor our “usual suspects” on this blog, I present you with a topic I agree with the “VSG” on:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/us/politics/drug-prices-on-tv.html

    If donald trump or Mitch McConnell want to pass a law like this with no earmarks or addendums added on, I’m fully on board.

  3. Moses Herzog

    Did I mention Oklahoma’s current state AG (Mike Hunter) has been close friends with Scott Pruitt for a long time and not long ago was Scott Pruitt’s right hand man in the AG’s office?? Scott Pruitt committed many crimes in Oklahoma related to his office’s handing of state funds and hiring of extraneous AG office personnel that were never (and most likely will never be) prosecuted.
    https://oklahomawatch.org/2019/01/07/stitt-unveils-plan-to-address-potential-business-conflicts/

    https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-attorney-general-oks-governors-transition-plan/26844922

    These things never end badly……..

    There is no doubt, that if Kevin Stitt stays in office as Oklahoma Governor 8 years, which, as the Republican incumbent in Oklahoma his odds of being in office 8 years are extremely high, that somewhere along the line there will be a bank and/or mortgage lending scandal—connected to lack of state level enforcement of lending regulations. Certain to have similar sounding notes to Scott Walker’s FOXCONN fiasco. Mark my words kids. It’s written in the heavenly stars.

  4. Jake formerly of the LP

    I also have strong suspicions the Walker Administration was being generous with the job growth “estimates” before November’s election.

    And Wisconsin’s wages for manufacturing are still the worst in the Midwest, well behind their neighbors in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan.

    Investing in infrastructure and education and quality of life sure seems like a better bet than throwing $220 mil a year away on this tax cut that hasn’t helped job or wage growth.

    1. Menzie Chinn Post author

      Jake previously of the LP: Previous numbers were compiled with BLS, so I don’t think the Walker Administration manipulated them. But they certainly didn’t caution people about the fact that there’d been big revisions of late.

      1. Jake formerly of the LP

        As I understand it, those numbers are reported by the Wisconsin DWD to BLS for the monthly numbers. Then the QCEW is held 5-6 months later, and then BLS benchmarks to that in March.

        So if the Walker DWD had a “faulty model”, they knew it wouldn’t be corrected for many months, allowing them to claim good numbers to the voters.

        1. Vg

          No. BLS sets the policies and procedures for how the data is collected and processed. The state has some involvement but even that has been reduced precisely to reduce any possible political interference.

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