- Taking a closer look, is the fiscal state of the state
as rosy as the Governor describes
or as bleak as the Democrats believe?
For answers, we turn to labor economist and Associate Director
for UW-Madison's Center on Wisconsin Strategy
Laura Dresser. Thanks a lot for being here.
- Thanks for having me.
- So who is right?
Is the state of the economy
strong in Wisconsin at this time?
- Well, I think the mixed picture is a result of the --
both the fact that we are well into an economic recovery
nationally and in the state and that has been good news
in this state for workers.
So we are seeing better unemployment rates
and more jobs.
But we aren't to levels of 2000 family income.
Wages are still stagnant.
So the picture is decidedly mixed and that is why I think
people can find a story that supports their position.
- So they can cherrypick different statistics.
- Right, right.
- But on the unemployment rate, it's low and certainly that
is a measure of, as you say, this kind of improving economy.
- Absolutely.
The low unemployment rate is good news.
The fact is that we haven't -- you know, if one of Governor
Walker's measures would be the 250,000 job benchmark that he
set for himself, we still haven't quite met that, right?
We don't have as many jobs as I think anybody would have
expected us to have right now.
It is true that the labor market is tighter and that workers can
find more hours, better jobs.
That employers have to spend
a little more time finding workers.
All of that is true.
It's also true it's the not the tightest labor market we've
ever seen and it isn't the highest--it isn't pulling people
out of their -- what they chose to do when they moved out of the
labor market and that's where the weakness is.
- Now, the governor says that wages are on the rise.
Democrats aren't saying that.
Where are wages?
- Wages are coming up nationally.
The tight labor market, the end of the recession for workers
has finally kicked in some wage growth.
That wage growth is a little slower here.
So it isn't particularly strong dynamic wage growth.
It isn't making up for the losses that we faced really
across this new century.
But it is the right direction.
Again, another one of those things
where it's decidedly mixed.
But yeah, there's some wage growth.
It's a little less than I think
a lot of people would like to see.
And then, of course,
certain workers have just been completely left out.
- So what about poverty rates?
- Yeah.
So we see that poverty is up a little, not dramatically,
but a little bit, so we see more people in poverty.
We see a lot of people struggling in low-wage jobs.
The jobs at the bottom of the labor market deliver very poor
wages, very unsteady hours, very low benefits.
And that package is very hard on families.
And that is a story of work
that's found all across the state.
Even when you have low unemployment rate,
you still have an abundance of these very low-wage jobs.
And so you see poverty, you see workers
struggling to make ends meet.
- Meanwhile the governor talks about the work force.
He says the challenge is not creating jobs, but finding
people to fill them.
Why is that?
- Well, that's partly true again.
There is a challenge in specific sectors with decent wages.
There's a challenge to fill jobs.
And in the very low-wage part of the labor market there's a
challenge to fill jobs.
People can't make ends meet.
So they can't figure out how to stay
in those very low-wage jobs.
And employers and workers both face a lot of turnover there.
There are some high-end jobs where employers are having a
hard time filling jobs and having to be more aggressive
about recruitment or attraction or wages.
But I would say that there is a big middle
where there's just much less dynamism,
wage action and interest from employers.
- Is it because Wisconsin citizens or job seekers
are kind of under-educated and therefore unemployable?
- I would say no.
You know, this is a long-term context, and to pretend that
you instantly move from worrying about jobs to worrying only
about education suggests, you know, kind of one light switch
or the other light switch is correct.
But I think what's going on in the labor market is it's
slightly tighter and we're generating more -- employers
need to work a little harder.
But it's also the case that we have a strong base of employment
and skills in this work force.
We have, you know, roughly three manufacturing workers -- workers
have jobs compared to four -- you know, three workers for
every four we had 15 years ago.
So there's a lot of manufacturing skills in this
labor market that just aren't finding homes.
I think the labor market--
or the work force has a strong set of skills,
but not always that match exactly what employers need.
So there is some need to do more matching there.
But there's also just some serious questions of job quality
and what's going on at the bottom of the labor market
as well.
- Is there a trend of out-migration of people who
might fill some of these 80,000 jobs that the governor talks
about being on the job center website?
- Well, I think it's important to kind of be precise about what
jobs we're talking about on the job center website or anywhere,
what are the open jobs.
We have some open jobs that are very high-wage and specific
skills.
And it's important as a matter of public policy to make sure
that we meet that employer demand and that we find -- that
we help the universities, the public schools, the technical
colleges meet -- prepare workers to fill those high-wage,
high-skill demands, wherever those openings are.
And we have some systems to do that.
But also a lot of the jobs that are posted and open are jobs at
relatively low wages that do not pay workers enough to cover the
cost of even getting to the job and holding that job in a stable
way.
And so that's a real problem that is solved not through
training workers more, but figuring out other solutions,
including raising the quality of the jobs.
- All right. We leave it there.
Laura Dresser, thanks a lot. - Thanks for having me.