As scores of millennials ditch debt-ridden Chicago for greener pastures, Wisconsin is actively promoting its own opportunities for young workers, giving Midwestern progressives one more reason to resent Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Earlier this month, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation launched its $1 million “Think-Make-Happen in Wisconsin” advertising campaign, aimed at millennial workers in the Windy City. The campaign ads have been included in Chicago commuter trains and on platforms, on drink coasters in downtown Chicago bars and restaurants, and in health clubs. It also employs social media ads targeted at people between ages 21 and 34 who live in or around Chicago or are Wisconsin college alumni who have left Wisconsin.
While most of the ads highlight the shorter commutes in Wisconsin, other ads boast about Wisconsin’s lower housing prices and lower property taxes. Millennials can’t afford the inflated cost of living in urban centers like Chicago and are looking to plant their roots in a place that is easier on their wallets — and safer. The city had a whopping 758 homicides in 2016.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin is actively trying to change its reputation as a flyover state. Its business-friendly atmosphere continues to attract new companies. One example is Foxconn, a Taiwan electronics company, whose manufacturing plant will soon be employing close to 13,000 workers there. The blue-collar boom that President Trump promised is quickly becoming a reality in the Badger State.
“We just don’t have enough people,” said Kelly Lietz, vice president of WEDC marketing. “People don’t think of Wisconsin in the terms of all the opportunities it has to offer. People outside the state don’t know and don’t understand.”
Thankfully for them, millennials are eager to leave Chicago and Illinois in general.
Illinois has lost as many as 37,000 millennials each year from 2011 through 2014. In total, 148,000 millennials fled the state during that period of time. A 2016 Paul Simon Public Policy Institute study found that 57 percent of Illinois millennials want to leave the state. Young people have the flexibility to seek career paths outside of their home state, and they are jumping at the opportunity to leave this progressive “swamp.”
In an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune, Austin Berg of the Illinois Policy Institute noted, “There’s little reason to plant roots in a barren economy. Illinois is a national laggard in income growth and jobs growth. And the state’s massive debt is a yoke on the young who had no role in creating it.”
Millennials don’t want to be on the hook for the state’s unfunded pensions and excessive spending. They want to be in a place where they can move forward in life and settle down. Wisconsin is offering that chance for them.
Brendan Pringle (@BrendanPringle) is a freelance journalist in California. He is a National Journalism Center graduate and formerly served as a development officer for Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch.
