A recent report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy (CROWE) found that companies with plants in the border counties of Wisconsin and in Wisconsin as a whole are benefitting from the Manufacturing and Agricultural tax Credit (MAC), introduced in 2013.

The MAC reduces the Wisconsin income tax burden on qualifying manufacturing production by as much as 7.5 percentage points. Though not a direct effect, the report found that for every 100 manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin’s border counties in 2012, there were about 117 in 2025. Across the state line, there were 100 jobs in 2012 for every 96 in 2025. Had Wisconsin’s border counties followed their neighbors’ path, they would have had roughly 11,900 fewer manufacturing jobs in 2025, the report said.

Between 2012 to 2025, manufacturing employment grew 21% more in Wisconsin than it did in Illinois. That’s nearly four times as much as other industries such as health care, retail and restaurants, which grew 5.5% during the same period.

Specifically, manufacturing employment in Wisconsin’s Illinois border counties rose 29.8% from 2012 to 2025, while employment in the neighboring Illinois counties fell 11.5%.

“The advantage did not disappear after a few good years,” said CROWE research economist Junjie Guo and professor Ananth Seshadri. “More than a decade later, Wisconsin’s border counties still show substantially stronger manufacturing employment than their neighbors across the state line.”

From a real estate perspective, manufacturing property became more concentrated in Wisconsin’s border counties. The 19 Wisconsin border counties included in the study increased their share of the state’s manufacturing real estate value from 14.5% in 2012 to 17.5% in 2024. Most of the growth came from existing Wisconsin companies outperforming Illinois companies in the real estate race.

Read more at the BizTimes.