Category Archives: Wisconsin

Context Is Important: More on MN vs. WI

Reader Jesse Livermore thinks he’s discovered Wisconsin is in actuality doing really well vis a vis Minnesota. He writes:

Wisconsin personal income growth dramatically outperformed Minnesota in Q1.

Well, I’ll just say the level is sometimes just as important as the first derivative. That’s why I plot time series, rather than just quoting a quarter’s worth of growth. Here is a comparison of personal income over the past few years.



Figure 1: Log nominal personal income for Minnesota (blue), Wisconsin (red), and US (black), all normalized to 2011Q1=0. Source: BEA, June 27, 2017, and author’s calculations.

On a per capita basis, cumulative Minnesota personal income growth remains 0.7 percent higher (log terms) than Wisconsin’s. It has been higher since 2011Q1.

My advice to anyone trying to assess relative economic performance: plot the time series.

Pangloss in Wisconsin

In search of a “supply side success” after the end of the Kansas experiment, conservative observers turn to Wisconsin. The Manhattan Institute’s Mr. Riedl declares victory:

Wisconsin’s job growth over the past six years has been extraordinarily strong.

When last we met Mr. Riedl, he was explaining why fiscal policy could have no impact on GDP because, well, because. That does not augur well for his abilities an economic analysis, and indeed we can easily poke holes into the argument that Wisconsin’s doing just great!

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Minnesota Employment Growth Accelerates Relative to Wisconsin (Again)

Wisconsin and Minnesota released March employment figures today. Here, without comment (as none are needed) are year-on-year growth rates relative to the US average for Minnesota (blue) and Wisconsin (red).



Figure 1: 12 month log-differences of nonfarm payroll employment for Minnesota (blue) and Wisconsin (red), relative to US. Green shading denotes sample not updated to reflect QCEW-related benchmarking. Source: WI DWD, MN DEED, BLS, and author’s calculations.

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“The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”

That’s what Governor Walker said today about Wisconsin’s economy, quoting from a 1980’s song. This was apparently spurred by DWD’s release “Wisconsin Employment Reaches All-Time High in November”. This statement is true, when referring to the relatively imprecisely measured household survey figures [1]. It is not true when referring the (more precisely measured) establishment series.

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