Weekly Fiscal Facts are provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. The Wisconsin Policy Forum logo can be downloaded here.
Metro Milwaukee maintains a competitive strength in the educational attainment of its workforce and its concentration of knowledge workers, especially scientists and engineers, which outpaces the nation and many peer metro areas.
But the region lags in other measures linked to innovation, such as startup investment, productivity, and employment and wage growth, according to findings of the Wisconsin’s Policy Forum’s newly updated Metro Milwaukee Innovation DataTool. The tool tracks the region’s performance over the last decade, and in relation to national peers, on 17 indicators tied to innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. The peer metros are: Austin, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, and Portland.
One long-term strength of metro Milwaukee is its concentration of scientists and engineers, particularly industrial and mechanical engineers. In 2022, metro Milwaukee had a higher concentration of scientists and engineers than all but two of our comparison metros. Meanwhile, in 2022, metro Milwaukee outperformed six of our 10 comparison metros in its concentration of employment in 19 occupations defined as part of the tech workforce.
Also, educational attainment in metro Milwaukee is slowly but steadily increasing. The share of the region’s adults (ages 25 and over) with bachelor’s or advanced degrees increased by 6.8 percentage points between 2012 and 2022, which outpaced six of the 10 comparison metro areas included in our DataTool. In 2022, 39.3% of metro Milwaukee adults had a bachelor’s or advanced degree, outpacing more than half of the comparison metros and the U.S. average. Metro Milwaukee also performs well in its concentration of knowledge workers, defined as those employed in any occupation that typically requires at least a bachelor’s degree.
One of metro Milwaukee’s longstanding weaknesses is venture capital investing, which typically supports startup companies with potential for growth. Venture capital investing is highly concentrated in a few coastal metros, but metro Milwaukee trails even most Midwestern peers and has for many years. On a per-capita basis, metro Milwaukee attracted considerably less in venture capital investment in 2022 than all but one of the peer metros. That was despite the region seeing its greatest investment total ($104 million) last year in data going back to 2014.
Until recently, metro Milwaukee was competitive with its peers in per-employee gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the value of all finished goods and services produced within an area. The region’s productivity has slid, however, and in 2021 it ranked last among the 11 comparison metros on this indicator.
After growing jobs from 2010 to 2019, metro Milwaukee lost nearly all of those gains in 2020. The region has since recovered somewhat, but total employment in 2022 remained below 2015 levels. Job recovery has been much stronger nationally, with total employment in the U.S. reaching a new peak in 2022. And while the median income of metro Milwaukee households remains competitive with its peers, it grew at the slowest pace among our 11 comparison metros between 2012 and 2022 and was lower than the national average in 2022.
This information is a service of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. Learn more at wispolicyforum.org.
