The left is jumping up and down proclaming that Minnesota’s economy is lighting up the charts.
And it is – in the same sense that I’ve got the best chance of being the best pitcher in my division (if the other teams started Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Andrea Bocelli).
Most of the recent bragging around Minnesota’s economy centers on a single fact: that Minnesota’s unemployment rate (4.5%) is below that of Wisconsin’s (5.7%). But Minnesota’s unemployment rate has been lower than Wisconsin’s since February 1997.
Wisconsin’s economy has always been focused more heavily on manufacturing – and manufacturing has been on a slow decline for decades. Minnesota’s economy focuses on financial services and healthcare (insurance and devices), both of which are hot tickets these days, and parts of which have been getting lavish government subsidies. Of course they’re doing well.
The two states’ relative positions not only predate Walker, they’re the same as when Wisconsin was dominated by idiot liberals.
As to the purported “job growth” (with emphasis added):
It’s worth noting that Minnesota’s job growth during the past year has merely kept pace with the job growth in the rest of the country…Iowa (4.4%), South Dakota (3.8%), Nebraska (3.5%), and North Dakota (2.7%, the nation’s lowest) all enjoy lower unemployment rates than Minnesota. We may be beating Wisconsin, but we are losing badly to those states with which we compete for new residents and businesses.
And I’d be very interested in seeing how the states compare if you leave out manufacturing in Wisconsin.
And the claim that the Twin Cities have the lowest unemployment rate of any major metro area in the country?” Perhaps – but the smaller metropoli around us, Fargo and Des Moines and the like, are smoking the Twin Cities:
The “nation’s lowest” claim only comes by comparing MSP to the biggest American cities. If you are a sprinter, you’ll be happy to edge ahead of the fattest guy in the race, but you need to notice that all the other runners have already crossed the finish line.
Rather than comparing Minnesota’s economic performance to the relevant benchmarks, it seems we are determined to find someone, somewhere we can brag over. Yes, we are doing better than Detroit, but does that really mean we are doing well?
And don’t look now, but downtown Detroit is a lot more vibrant than downtown Saint Paul on a non-hockey night.
Read the whole thing.
Shorter: The DFL has a much better “elevator speech” than the GOP.
Cut through the crap. You can play games with stats, necessary-but-insufficient-conditions, and confuse correlation with causality, but people who work for a living know when times is good and when times is hard. And brother, let me tell you, times is hard.
I’d love to know how many thousands of Minnesotans are holding down jobs in NoDak in the oil fields. I’ve heard anecdotally from a dozen people who come home to southern Minnesota one weekend a month from there, and now here are radio ads for companies hiring for the oil fields.
‘Times are hard’ for the MN GOP messaging machine.
If only, like the DFL, they had the unquestioning support of the local media. Maybe if Gary Keilor did a two hour commercial for the GOP every week . . .
Shorter: The DFL has a much better “elevator speech” than the GOP.
The elevator isn’t going up.
Minnesota’s ’slammin economy’ would read the same if the GOP were in power. Regardless, I’ll be voting for Johnson and Abeler today.
I’ll go out on a limb and predict both Honour and McFadden winning (buying) the Primary today.
“both Honour and McFadden winning (buying) the Primary today.”
At least Honour is spending his own money, unlike Democrat candidates that get theirs largely from wealthy libidiot donors from outside the state. Time to face facts E I; Democrats are the real party of big money!
Pingback: Slump | Shot in the Dark
“Minnesota’s ’slammin economy’ would read the same if the GOP were in power.”
Democrats in power have had NO effect on the Minnesota economy? If we had Walker and Wisconsin had Dayton, the result would be the same? Then what was all that horse manure about Dayton’s policies being better than Walker’s? Why vote Democrat at all?
Missed it by this much Joe. The GOP would get credit for the MN economy if they held the legislature and the governors office.
I am for common-sense measures to improve the economy! Also, I am for common-sense measures that protect American lives while fighting terrorism!
Pingback: Priorities | Shot in the Dark
Emery, I remember a time when the GOP did hold St. Paul, and the economy was humming at the time, but cannot remember the Strib and others giving them credit. Let’s be realistic here; there are some who are so blindly partisan, they cannot admit there is a nose on their face.