Last week, at the WMC conference, amid thundering applause, Governor Walker ran a victory lap for "reaching our goal of creating 10,000 new businesses in only two and a half years!"
According to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), however, (which Walker has repeatedly said is the "gold standard" source), when Governor Walker took office there were 149,112 private businesses in Wisconsin and in the most recent count, there were 153,136 or only 4,024 more businesses since Walker took office.
Over the last year, Wisconsin ranks 34th in the country in new business creation-- hardly something to have him running victory laps.
On what is Walker basing his claim? He is using numbers from the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions that say there were 364,369 "business entities" when Walker took office and there are now 375,959 entities. The problem with using such a count is that "business entities" includes over 35,000 nonprofits or "nonstock corporations" that are obviously not "businesses" and many singular businesses that register multiple times under numerous types "business entity" designations. In addition, when Walker took office there were 23,787 foreign business entities and now there are 26,924-- meaning three thousand of the new business he is counting are business entities where the substance of their activity in the state is often unclear.
Meanwhile, the QCEW count is-- as Walker has pointed out almost daily-- an actual hard-count census of nearly all the businesses in the state with actual employees. It is clearly the most precise measurement for keeping track of job and business creation under Walker.
So, Governor Walker, according the "gold standard" measure you insisted we use, you're nowhere near your goal of 10,000 new businesses.
