By Jennifer Sereno
There’s something to be said for the power of positive thinking, and it appears that residents of northeastern Wisconsin are more willing than most of us to look on the bright side in the face of unexpected challenges.
Perhaps it’s a sense of optimism about the Green Bay Packers and their early season prospects — undefeated as of this writing. Or maybe the upbeat attitude is attributable to the hard work of the economic development professionals in the region. Whatever the reason, the sense of positive momentum in northeastern Wisconsin trumps the outlook of residents in areas where the economy has been stronger in recent months.
In case you missed it, the statewide unemployment numbers for the month of August released by the Department of Workforce Development didn’t bring much good news. For Wisconsin as a whole, the unemployment rate for the month rose to 4.9 percent on an unadjusted basis, up from 4.8 percent in July and 4.5 percent a year ago.
Although Wisconsin gained 26,300 jobs over the year, the change wasn’t enough to keep pace with the work force. In fact, Wisconsin’s employment is heading in the opposite direction of the rest of the U.S., which saw the jobless rate improve to 4.6 percent.
The employment situation for residents of communities including Appleton and Green Bay lost ground more rapidly than in the rest of the state. And these communities certainly have been affected by the year-over-year decline of 4,100 manufacturing jobs. Although these residents are faring slightly better than the state as a whole with unemployment rates of 4.7 percent and 4.8 percent respectively, the numbers represent a greater-than-average decline from last year, when the job picture appeared headed in a more positive direction.
Still, the residents of communities throughout this region are far more upbeat about how things are going in Wisconsin than most others in the state. Surprisingly, they also are more likely to harbor positive feelings about the state Legislature, with 61 percent giving legislators a positive review.
The numbers come from the latest Wood Communications Group Checkpoint Survey of 400 state residents, conducted July 24-29 with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. The margin of error is higher for subsets of the total sample.
According to the survey, 48 percent of the residents in northeastern Wisconsin polled feel the state is on the “right track,’’ compared with just 37 percent of residents statewide who feel the same way. In south central Wisconsin, centered around Dane County and its unemployment rate of just 3.6 percent, about 40 percent of residents polled agree that Wisconsin is on the right track.
Southeastern Wisconsin trails the state in both job performance numbers and residents’ sense of optimism that things will get better. Unemployment rates of 6.6 percent in Milwaukee County, 6.2 percent in Racine County and 5.5 percent in Kenosha County are certainly contributing to the concerns of 56 percent of residents in the region who say that things have gotten “pretty seriously off on the wrong track’’ in Wisconsin.
