Wisconsin Economy A National Laggard

So says Jon Peacock, Director of the non-partisan Wisconsin Budget Project:

WI Is the Only State with a Decline Since the Start of the Current Fiscal Year

As we have noted before, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia tracks economic indicators for each state on a monthly basis and prepares a map comparing the states’ economic trends over the last three months. Their latest analysis was released today, and once again Wisconsin ranks near the bottom in the 3-month improvement, ranking fourth lowest.

I downloaded the Philly Fed data, which they call the “Coincident Index," and I analyzed the trends over various timeframes. If you look at the change in that index since the end of 2010, Wisconsin has the second lowest improvement. Measured since the end of the last fiscal year (June 2011), Wisconsin is the only state that went backwards (or essentially made no improvement). If one focuses on the change in the index over just the last month (from January to February), Wisconsin looks a little better; our improvement was 17th lowest and about one half the national average.