According to a report released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Wisconsin ranks dead last for start-up businesses, for the second year in a row.
Under Governor Scott Walker, things in Wisconsin aren’t getting better and this new report proves it. The Walker administration has made history-making funding cuts to K-12 education, so historic that we won’t know there effects for years to come. Cuts to higher education and the UW-system will have millennials in deep debt, and gutting middle-class incomes to serve those in a higher tax bracket with more breaks.
Businesses in Wisconsin have left and as the Kauffman report shows, start-up businesses are slowing down.
The Journal Sentinel reports:
“For the second year in a row, Wisconsin has earned a bottom-of-the-barrel ranking for startup business activity, according to a report released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Thursday morning.
While startup activity in the U.S. overall rose in 2016 for the second year in a row, Wisconsin came in either last or second-last in the three categories the well-known foundation evaluated for its report.
Contributing to the dismal results, Milwaukee/Waukesha/West Allis, the state’s largest metro area, didn’t budge from the position it held in last year’s report: Second-last for start-up activity, above only Pittsburgh.
“Entrepreneurship is finally recovering, with new business creation reaching close to the peak preceding the drop from the Great Recession,” said Victor W. Hwang, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation.
But not in Wisconsin.
There are factors that may hurt Wisconsin’s ability to perform better. Wisconsin has a population that is a little older than that of most states; fewer immigrants, a group that forms more startups; and more capital-intensive industries such as manufacturing and agriculture, said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.
But the state and its largest city have had consistently poor showings in other Kauffman reports and in studies by other organizations, like the Economic Innovation Group.
The ugly truth, when you piece it all together, is that Wisconsin lags in an area widely believed to be a key factor in economic growth: entrepreneurship and innovation.
The most recent Kauffman findings are a call to action, Still said.
“We really need to look at some of the fundamental policies that set the tone in Wisconsin and ask ourselves, ‘Are they tied to an economy that is bygone?'” Stillsaid.
State policymakers have pursued additional cuts to the University of Wisconsin system, drained startup tax credits and tried to pass stiffer non-compete legislation to further limit the supply of entrepreneurs, said Joe Kirgues, a co-founder of gener8tor, which runs training programs for startups.”
For more, visit, Journal Sentinel.
