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For six years one group has been crunching numbers comparing Minnesota to the rest of the nation.

Minnesota is slipping in nearly all 12 categories including income, poverty, home ownership, education funding and student teacher ratios.

They say the worst trend is the amount of Minnesotans without a job.

Hortencia Renteria is a single mother out of work for nine months.

Now that she's trying to find a job again, she says it's tough.

"Sometimes I want to give up and just stay home. But I can't do that. I have to find something,” she says.

Public think tank Minnesota 2020 says the outlook for people like Renteria is much more bleak than it was six years ago.

"We’re getting fewer jobs created. More people are unemployed and our opportunities are shrinking,” says Minnesota 2020 Board Chair, Matt Entenza.

The group says Olmsted County is doing reasonably well, but counties like Mower and Freeborn are struggling.

That puts the state at only 44th in the nation for employment growth and 32nd for unemployment.

They say the state needs programs to help small businesses like the ones in Mower and Freeborn Counties.

55% of people in Freeborn and Mower Counties are unemployed.

They're people Bob Haas helps at the Workforce Development Center.

"We’re made up of mainly small businesses so they're providing most of the layoffs,” he says.

In our area, job agencies say state aid would be useful to help small businesses train workers for open positions, since many keep jobs vacant waiting for a qualified applicant.

"They’re gonna see that it's hard and that if you don't have enough skills, it's gonna be harder,” says Renteria.

"Like a business, if you don't invest in it, you don't do well,” says Entenza.

And then the job hunts don't go well either.

Job experts say some Minnesota positions are being lost to Iowa and Wisconsin.
 
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