State can't quite keep up with the neighbors: Progress made but report sees room to improve

BYLINE: Paul Gores, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mar. 6--An annual report on Wisconsin's competitiveness paints a picture of a state in which for just about every bit of good statistical news, there is another statistic to undermine it.

Consider these examples from the 2007 report, "Measuring Success: Benchmarks for a Competitive Wisconsin:"

--While venture capital in the state rose to about $27 per worker in the state by the end of 2005 from $13.55 only two years earlier, Wisconsin still trailed Minnesota with almost $84 per worker and Illinois with more than $50.

--Even though job growth increased for the second consecutive year in 2005, personal income per capita was $33,251 in Wisconsin -- lower than the U.S. average of $34,495 and less than in Minnesota and Illinois.

--Although Wisconsin churns out students with high college entrance exam scores, they apparently leave when they graduate from college. Only 25% of the state's population has at least a bachelor's degree, less than the U.S. average of 27.7%. In Minnesota, 34% of the population is college-educated.

Among benchmarks that help measure the state's ability to compete economically with its neighboring states and nationally, Wisconsin moved in a positive direction on seven, which was two fewer than in the previous annual report, and trended negative on nine others. Seventeen of the measures were deemed neutral since the last study by the non-profit group Competitive Wisconsin Inc.

"Typically it seems like things are moving one way or another, but this is a year where I think things sort of balanced out," Dale Knapp, research director for the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, which produced the report, said in an interview Monday.

Tom O'Neill, a Marshall & Ilsley Corp. executive who is president of Competitive Wisconsin, found some reasons for optimism. He said in a statement accompanying the report that new venture capital and angel investment tax credits in Wisconsin "are some of the best tools Wisconsin has to create new jobs and retain our best and brightest graduates."

The report, in which the most recent statistics were from 2005, said that Wisconsin exports grew for the fourth straight year. It also showed that new private businesses increased 2.4% in 2005 after a one-year slowdown.

Competitive Wisconsin, which is a consortium of state leaders in business, agriculture, education and labor -- has been issuing the report card annually since 1998.

Copyright (c) 2007, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.