Since 2010, five states in the Upper Midwest have been the subject of a political experiment. Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin have generally handed control of state government over to the Republican Party in their effort to recover from the Great Recession. Minnesota has been on the other side of that experiment, largely relying on Democratic Leadership. In this report, we examine how these divergent political paths have impacted the construction industries in each state. We find:

• Construction worker wages and compensation in Minnesota are higher than in neighboring states. On average, Minnesota construction workers make 35% more than construction workers in South Dakota even after adjusting for differences in the cost of living. If Wisconsin construction workers were compensated the same as their peers in Minnesota, they would have taken home nearly $1.3 billion more in 2022.
• Health and retirement benefits for construction workers are superior in the North Star State. A historically high 93% of construction workers in Minnesota had health insurance coverage in 2022. Minnesota construction workers are 25% more likely than their peers in North Dakota to have a retirement pension.
• Minnesota is a safer state for construction work. Annual construction worker fatality rates in South Dakota are two times higher than those in Minnesota.
• The construction industry in Minnesota is more productive. Compared to Iowa, the construction industry’s Gross Domestic Product per worker is 30% greater in Minnesota. Iowa’s construction industry would have produced nearly $2.3 billion more in 2023 if it matched Minnesota’s GDP growth since 2010.
• The recovery of the construction industry from the Great Recession has been better in Minnesota. Since 2010, Minnesota’s wage and salary employment has risen 51%. If North Dakota matched this increase, it would have 6,900 more high-quality construction jobs today.
• Sitting underneath Minnesota’s stronger position is the resilience of organized labor within the state’s construction industry. Nearly 30% of Minnesota’s construction workers are in unions, roughly 10 times more than the share in South Dakota. Minnesota is the only state in the Upper Midwest where construction industry union density has increased since 2010.
• Partisan differences likely play a role in Minnesota’s superior outcomes. While this analysis is not capable of definitively showing that Democratic leadership in Minnesota caused its relative success, there is evidence to support this theory. Minnesota’s avoidance of “right-to-work” laws, its embrace of prevailing wage provisions, and its strong state infrastructure investments have bolstered the construction industry and the workers who power it.

Minnesota appears poised to build on this progress and strength. Recently enacted labor protections and historic infrastructure funding from the Walz-Flanagan administration are likely to further spur the construction industry’s growth. Thanks to increased federal infrastructure investments from the Biden-Harris administration, Minnesota’s Republican neighbors may also see similar success in the coming years.