One Note Republicans and Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce again falsely claim "tax cuts" will attract Millennial Labor to the state.

Wisconsin's labor shortage really took off during former Gov. Scott Walker's two terms, mainly because he thought a manufacturing renaissance was a good idea (before the Foxconn debacle), and because he ignored the rising tech and clean energy industries that other states gladly promoted. Pair that with the standard low minimum wage, ACT 10 vilification of teachers, the anti-union "right-to-work" law, and penalties for being unemployed, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. 

No one will know if out-of-state job seekers found any of this out? But with a record like this, there's not a lot to brag about.  

Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce Survey sings the blues: Because Republicans have abandoned the notion of solving any of the state's biggest social and infrastructure issues, they want us to go back to 2015 and put out another bunch of "work in Wisconsin" lies.

  

On WKOW's Capital City Sunday, host AJ Bayatpour brought the issue up again with WMC's Nick Novak. Wait for it...more tax cuts. Novak seemed to think if we "tell our story," that would be a good thing? 

WMC Communications & Marketing Vice President Nick Novak said, "We have to attract more people to Wisconsin. To do that, we need to tell our story. 

Does WMC want to tell this story...

Novak said the business lobby also called on lawmakers to pursue further cuts to the state income tax rate. But the legislature has already been cutting taxes.

Skeptics have argued that if tax cuts to date haven't addressed the workforce issues, the solution cannot be more tax cuts and additional marketing.

Novak said, "Unfortunately, while we were cutting taxes here in Wisconsin, other states were doing the same thing, or more. And if you're not doing more (tax cuts) than what other states are doing, you're falling behind."

Advertising BS, Scott Walker Style: This was a disaster, and it sounded like pure bullshit too:

Gov. Scott Walker’s announcement of a $6.8 million marketing and advertising campaign aimed at Midwestern millennials, returning military veterans and alumni of the state’s public and private colleges … promote the state’s industry mix, recreation, education, arts, health care.

Walker has had only one agenda; push a manufacturing renaissance and not an “industry mix.” Just as bad, he's defunded state parks and deregulated hunting (“recreation”), cut “education” especially the “arts,” and opposes a right to “health care.”

Walker's Wisconsin's Shrinking Middle Class: This is what happened in 2015:

WSJ: Despite a new report showing Wisconsin has the fastest-shrinking middle class in the U.S., the Gov. Scott Walker administration says the state is headed in the right direction.

March 24, 2015: Wisconsin ranks worst among the 50 states in terms of a shrinking middle class, with real median household incomes here falling 14.7 percent since 2000, according to a new report. The Pew Charitable Trust report showed Wisconsin with the largest decline in the percentage of families considered "middle class."

Labor Steering Clear of Republicans Punishing Invite: In their Bizarro World vision, the following makes perfect sense. Evers vetoed everything:

Republicans say it is geared toward addressing Wisconsin’s ongoing workforce shortage by
restricting access to state unemployment benefits and forcing more people back into the labor pool. 

1. One bill would change the maximum number of weeks a claimant could receive benefits based on the state’s unemployment rate. Claimants would have received 26 weeks if the state unemployment rate was greater than 9%, while the number of weekly benefits would be reduced to as few as 14 weeks if the rate was at 3.5% or lower.

2. A bill would require the state Department of Health Services to determine a person’s Medicaid eligibility every six months.

3. Another bill will remove an individual’s Medicaid eligibility if they knowingly fail to accept an offer for legal, paid employment or an increase in paid hours

4. Another beauty would require DWD to consider reports of an individual declining a job offer or failing to attend a scheduled interview when determining a claimant’s eligibility for benefits.

5. Yet another would require DHS to enforce a federal work requirement, including drug screenings, for able-bodied adults without dependents in order to take part in the state’s FoodShare program, which helps people with limited money buy food

Raise your hand if you think that would sound mighty tempting to out-of-state job seekers concerned about what would happen if things didn't work out. 

On the other hand, Democratic Gov. Evers has an alternative:

Evers has pushed for increased spending on training and recruitment, as well as efforts to reduce employment barriers some individuals face to address workforce challenges in the state.

After Ten years controlling Legislature, Vos-Republicans still have no plan to attract labor or families to Wisconsin, blaming powerless Dems!

This is about preserving an unhealthy number of festering Wisconsin problems in amber, by an unimaginative and incompetent gerrymandered Republican legislature, who are willing to treat untrue and anecdotal constituent feedback as "fact." It's on purpose of course:

We "heard from constituents...voiced concerns...the possibility that..." 

Republican Jeff Flake said this was a an obvious political copout:  

"We're changing what it means to be an elected official in a representative government...my colleagues will say they are simply representing their constituents when that really runs against what representative government is supposed to be … when they ought to tell their constituents, you're wrong. And that's a big problem when you have too many party people willing to indulge their constituents if their constituents truly believe that."

Republicans have No Plan to attract People/labor force to Wisconsin: Watching WKOW's Capitol City Sunday, I was startled by utter cluelessness of Dodgeville Rep. Todd Novak when it came to the states labor shortage, and the detailed list of issues posed in a question by host A.J. Bayatpour, who did way more research than this freeloading Republican politician. It begs the question; can we actually govern based on anecdotal comments that are factually wrong? 

Bayatpour question about unemployment bonus checks: "...you have different analysts from Oxford to Goldman Sachs say they're not seeing much change in states that ended the extra pay, so why was this a good use of the legislatures time and the taxpayer dollar?"

Rep. Todd Novak: "I invite anyone who doesn't think this half payment has any affect on employment to come to my district...I just talked to a restaurant yesterday paying $14 to $16 an hour and they still can't find people..."

Again, watch Bayatpour ask a detailed question Novak was unprepared for. Embarrassing and pathetic: 

Bayatpour: "How much of this could also be tying into what we've seen for years, it's been mentioned by groups like even WMC, that labor shortages have long been something people are worried about in Wisconsin. So how much could this be a part of the fundamental challenges we've seen and will continue to have to address such as keeping people in the state, but also attracting young talent both into Wisconsin and into some of the states smaller and midsized communities?"

Rep. Todd Novak: "Oh, I mean, that's part of it, um...I mean...you go to school and you have job opportunities...but I will tell you every business I talk to is struggling, mentions the half benefit is a big issue for them."

Novak has no real grasp of the decades long problem he and Scott Walker have refused to take seriously or solve. Instead, for convenience, why not blame the half benefit. This again puts off a real solution for another year until they can blame something else on Evers or Biden. 

There's this crazy Vos-Republican idea that low taxes will increase population growth or attract labor. What they don't get, and what they've always ignored is the real attraction; better schools, faster high speed internet, and a quality of life in a state not prone to natural disasters, that's the difference. And having lived in Wisconsin my entire life, higher taxes have always been an acceptable price to pay until Walker's austerity and freeloading agenda caught on. 

Population growth 80 year Low!!! Trump wrong time, wrong president, sets US up for failure.

This is that moment where we say to Republicans, "Just get away from our government, please back away, don't touch anything." But we can't.

The worker shortage is the beginnings of a problem Republicans are making so much worse every day. It's like everything they touch dies. Let's start counting the ways.

1. Worker Shortage Blind Spot: It's hard to know where to start...let's start with the shortage in Wisconsin, and Scott Walker's desperate realization that we need labor just after bashing them with union busting, right to work, and banning local raises in the minimum wage. Business-friendly, but worker friendly? Nope:

AP: Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker ... launched a nearly $7 million national marketing campaign to persuade millennials and military veterans to move to his state to help with a worker shortage ... targeting millennials who live in the Twin Cities and Detroit media markets.

How bad is it in Wisconsin? Let's just say it continues the tradition of Democrats having come in and clean up the GOP mess again: 

The hiring outlook (in Wisconsin) doesn’t take into account any companies moving into the state that plan to hire, including Foxconn (that) could employ up to 13,000 people in Wisconsin in the coming years. And 46 percent of employers across the country report having trouble finding workers. Retiring baby boomers and low unemployment are two factors making it difficult for companies to recruit.

2.  Throw in a Population Shortage: The timing couldn't have been worse:

The U.S. Census Bureau released its population change estimates for the year ending in July 2018 ... the national rate of population growth is at its lowest since 1937 ... declines in the number of births, gains in the number of deaths, and that the nation’s under age 18 population has declined since the 2010 census ... geographic mobility within the U.S. is at a historic low ... nearly a fifth of all states displayed absolute population losses over the past two years ... The delayed impact of the Great Recession ... the aging American population is the broader cause, a factor that the nation will have to cope with for years and decades to come.

3. Build the Wall/Stop Immigration-The final Straw: Just by coincidence Trump Republicans want to shut down the border. Seriously, you couldn't devise a worse economic plan. And voters want Republicans in charge of the economy when they just naturally go off in the wrong direction?

This leaves immigration as an ever-more-important contributor to national population growth. Because of the recent decline in natural increase, immigration now contributes nearly as much to population growth, and is projected to be the primary contributor to national population growth after 2030 as natural increase continues to decline. Thus immigration—its size and its attributes—will be an important contributor to the nation’s future population that is growing slowly and aging quickly.

4. Mobility Ends, Boomers pass bill off to next Generation: Putting everything off, like infrastructure, energy and health care, the next generation is going to struggle to pay for anything. Especially with tax hikes? Republican attempts to bring back the 1950's? Just the opposite: 

Geographical mobility hits a postwar low: If there is one demographic indicator that might be expected to pick up in a rebounding economy, it should be geographic mobility within the U.S. Yet the latest data for 2017-2018 released by the Census Bureau shows that the percentage of Americans changing residence is at a post-World War II low of 10.1 percent—continuing a slowdown observed last year (See Figure 3). This is less than half the rate the nation experienced in the highly mobile 1950s and substantially lower than in the 1990s.

Trump won't care, and the next Decade will Pay for the "built the Wall" mentality: The takeaway is this;

Policymakers must place increased attention on caring for a larger and more dependent aging population, and dealing with the realities of a slower-growing labor force. In particular, it requires a more serious discussion of U.S. immigration policy because of the future contributions that immigrants will make to growing America’s society and economy.

Walker walking backwards with Drug Testing during Labor Shortage, and Business is moving forward.

The recent court decision stopping work requirements for Medicaid recipients made it perfectly clear why: Medicaid wasn't designed to be a jobs program, it's a healthcare program. 

As I've mentioned before, the inhumane idea of withholding their health care to force people to work is beyond cruel, it's unthinkable, Dickensian. Yet it's being treated as another brilliant idea by Republicans dead set on blaming someone for something, anything, including the sin of unemployment.  

Now add to that, drug testing for health care and even food stamps, which is weaponizing the politics of resentment:

DWD: Pre-Employment Drug Testing Program Helps Workers Move from Dependence to Independence by Secretary Ray Allen: We have nearly 100,000 jobs available on Wisconsin's JobCenterofWisconsin.com website, and approximately 89,000 individuals in Wisconsin are unemployed. That’s right, we have more available jobs than we do people to fill them.

Not exactly. It makes more sense that during this worker shortage, businesses won't be so quick to walk away from a drug using job seeker, especially experienced potential employees. 

Something else. Wouldn't the state be giving "health care" to treat drug users anyway? 

Check out this great point by point easy to understand assessment of the jobs picture now and in the future by Manpower Group's Becky Frankiewicz. At about 2:30 into the clip, drug testing comes up, and Frankiewicz reveals that companies have changed their minds about using drug testing as a disqualifier. 

In other words, Scott Walker is going in the opposite direction of businesses. Which makes his policy strictly ideological and a waste of taxpayer money and time. But that's how it has been for 8 years: 

1. 46 percent of businesses are finding it difficult to find skilled workers, up from 14 percent right after the Great Recession.

2. 61 percent say communication skills, written and verbal are most important now.

3. Finally and long overdue, half of the companies are training workers, up 34 percent over the last 4 years. They have to build their own talent. Walker would have the state finance part of that instead.

4. Relaxing education standards. Because jobs and skills are changing so quickly, it's much more about what you can do, than about what you did in the past.

5. Borrowing the talent, meaning hiring free lancers and independent contractors.

6. Relaxing drug testing and criminal background history.

7. The workforce of tomorrow is actually the workforce of today. Yikes.