Uneven Development - WEDC's Claimed Jobs Impact Leaves Many Areas of Wisconsin Behind

[Scuba]

Walker's Economic Disaster Corporation, sometimes knows as Wisconsin's Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) apparently does more than just lose track of millions of dollars of loans to corporate buddies. They're also sending all the dough to their favorite neighborhoods and just making shit up regarding the number of jobs created.


http://www.citizenactionwi.org/wedc_report

In the data reported by WEDC, there are very large disparities in the claimed jobs impact between different areas of the state, with impact concentrated in a handful of legislative districts. There is also a troubling correlation between claimed jobs impact and the partisan representation of Legislative districts. Districts where higher job impact numbers are reported by WEDC also are represented by Republicans. Additionally members of the Republican Assembly who are in leadership positions have a disproportionately high number of jobs claimed to be impacted by WEDC in their district compared to Democratic-led district and other Republican districts.

...

Republican Assembly districts have close to twice as many jobs projected as Democratic Assembly districts (86% more, or 389 more jobs projected on average).

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In the suburban and politically conservative counties of Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee, WEDC claims to have impacted 13,656 jobs. Conversely, Milwaukee County only has 5,771 jobs projected by WEDC, or under 30% of the total projected for the 4 county region. The per capita disparity in jobs projected by WEDC between Waukesha and Milwaukee counties is even more striking. There is 1 job allegedly impacted for every 166 Milwaukee County residents, while in Waukesha county 1 job is allegedly impacted for every 36 residents.

WEDC’s method of counting jobs seems not to be related to the size of the public investment, raising questions about their standards both for selecting projects and for claiming outcomes. In one instance an award of $85,000 is claimed to have impacted 109 jobs, in the case of ATACO Steel Products Corporation in Ozaukee County, while an award of $2,000,000 to Plexus Corp in Outagamie County is claimed to have produced zero jobs.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Nothing new here,move along.

This has been the pattern with every Rethug Gov in Wisconsin. You think it's bad now,wait the trickle down will start to show 2 to 3 years down the road. The area to watch will be along the Minnesota border towns. Especially along the Northwestern part of the state. North of Hwy 12 has always been a major poverty mess for 40 years or more. Only thing going is Fracking Sand Mines and that is turning into a environmental nightmare. But hey,these are on TeaBilly owned land.

So much for On Wisconsin!!!