Skip to content

Thursday, Sep. 25, 2025

Do some rankings put Wisconsin among the bottom 10 states in job creation and entrepreneurship?

Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch
yes

Wisconsin was among the bottom 10 states in job and business creation in some 2025 rankings, but higher in others.

For starting a business, National Business Capital, a financier, ranked Wisconsin 42nd, citing high taxes and low available funding. Small-business publication Simplify LLC, whose analysis included new business and job creation rates, ranked Wisconsin 43rd. Wisconsin was ranked 35th by WalletHub and 34th by U.S. News & World Report.

More generally, CNBC ranked Wisconsin 21st for business. Wisconsin scored higher in infrastructure and cost of doing business, lower in quality of life and legal and regulatory burdens. Wisconsin also ranked 21st in a poll of CEOs and business owners on best states for business.

Critics say rankings have limited value or are misleading.

From January 2018 to January 2025, Wisconsin added 63,300 jobs, ranking 40th in job creation, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network.

See all fact briefs

Wisconsin Watch, the news arm of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, increases the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin, while training current and future investigative journalists. Its work fosters an informed citizenry and strengthens democracy.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Does Wisconsin have any mountains?

Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2025

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.