Wisconsin and Minnesota are neighbors, but they’ve followed very different paths in recent years. In 2010, as Wisconsin notoriously elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Minnesota elected Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton. While Walker immediately began waging war on his state’s workers, Minnesota increased its minimum wage and taxed the wealthy to invest in infrastructure and education, among other worker-friendly moves. The two states' economies have also gone in different directions, a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute shows. Overall:
From 2010 to 2017, Minnesota has had stronger overall economic growth (12.8 percent vs. 10.1 percent), stronger growth per worker (3.4 percent vs. 2.7 percent), and stronger population growth (5.1 percent vs. 1.9 percent) than Wisconsin. In fact, over the whole period—as well as in the most recent year—more people have been moving out of Wisconsin to other states than have been moving in from elsewhere in the U.S. The same is not true of Minnesota.
Let’s break that down a little:
- Take job growth. Minnesota’s nonfarm job growth since December 2010 is 11 percent. Wisconsin’s is 7.9 percent.
- Wages grew faster in Minnesota, too—at every level, but especially for low-wage workers. Workers at the 20th percentile in Minnesota saw their wages go up by 9.7 percent. In Wisconsin, it was just 6.4 percent.
- Minnesota is doing better on the gender wage gap, median household income, reducing poverty, and on the proportion of people with health insurance.
Scott Walker: he’s not good for workers. He’s not good for families. He’s not good for the economy. And Scott Walker is representative of the Republican Party on all these issues.
