Another year, another last-place ranking for Wisconsin on the business startup front.

For the third year running, Wisconsin has placed 50th among the 50 states in startup activity as measured by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, one of the country’s leading entrepreneurship advocacy and research organizations.

Not only was Wisconsin last; the gap between Wisconsin and the next-lowest states widened significantly from 2016 and 2015. While other states are clustered with relatively small differences from one state to the next, Wisconsin stands as an outlier – on the low end.

“It just feels like such a broken record,” said Joe Kirgues, co-founder of gener8tor, a company with offices in Milwaukee and Madison that runs a respected training program for startups. “We’ve played this song so many times in terms of we’ve been dead last and dead last and dead last.”

Among large metropolitan areas, Milwaukee ranked second-to-last, ahead of Pittsburgh, for the third straight year.

To some, that’s a call to action. But others argue that a dearth of startups doesn’t necessarily mean anything in terms of the health of the overall economy.

“The implication is there’s something good about startups, but there’s no evidence of that,” said Daniel Isenberg, professor of entrepreneurship practice at Babson Executive Education in Massachusetts and architect of the Scale Up Milwaukee initiative to help existing companies with growth potential.

While a high level of startups is widely perceived as positive, no correlation has been shown between startups and employment, prosperity or economic competitiveness, Isenberg said.

“That’s a fundamental, fundamental issue,” he said.

Other researchers say startups are vital. A 2010 report from the Kauffman Foundation, for example, said that without startups, there would be no net job growth in the U.S.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s office, meanwhile, said the latest Kauffman report is not a comprehensive analysis. It fails to include such data as wages, employment, industry and the long-term success of startups in each state, Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said by email.

“Federal data shows that Wisconsin has one of the highest levels of business survivorship in the nation – we’re ranked in the top 10 for both six-year and 10-year survivorship rate,” Evenson said.

Evenson also pointed to data from investment research firm PitchBook showing that angel and venture investors placed a record $261 million with Wisconsin startups last year. The valuation of those startups more than doubled from 2015 to 2016, indicating their growing strength and attractiveness to investors, Evenson said.

While early-stage investment has risen, however, other data point out the tiny sliver of overall U.S. venture capital that Wisconsin receives.

Last year, Wisconsin captured a little less than two-tenths of 1% of such investment, according to data from the MoneyTree report by accounting firm PwC and CB Insights.

Minnesota, with an economy only 8% larger, received four times as much venture capital, the MoneyTree data show.

And while the relationship of startups to job growth may be debatable, Wisconsin hasn’t been a standout in increasing employment.

Over the past three years – roughly the same period in which Wisconsin annually has placed last on the Kauffman startup index – employment here has grown by 3.5%. That ranked 34th among the states.

Wisconsin’s wage growth, though, was relatively strong. Over the three years, average weekly wages rose 11.6% – 19th among the states.

The figures come from an analysis of data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for the third quarter of 2013 and the third quarter of 2016. The census, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the most comprehensive and reliable source of jobs data.

Kirgues disagrees that Wisconsin’s strong business survival rate is cause for celebration. He compares it to wanting Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to take the fewest passes in the National Football League so he can have the highest completion rate.

“At some point, I think we have to decide to have a strategy that we’re going to a take a little bit more risk in hopes of pursuit of more rewards,” Kirgues said.

Zach Brandon, president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, agrees. The chamber this week released a new legislative agenda that, among other things, calls for creation of a statewide council to study ways to grow entrepreneurship in Wisconsin.

“With the new report from Kauffman, Wisconsin as last place is officially a trend,” said Brandon, a former deputy secretary of the state Department of Commerce under former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. “We can no longer sort of argue that it’s a blip.”

Kirgues believes the prevalence of noncompete clauses in employee contracts squelches entrepreneurship here.

California and other states, he said, have moved to prohibit such clauses, which can prevent people from starting a new company immediately after leaving their employer.

States without strong noncompete laws “tend to see the free movement of labor much like we encourage the free movement of capital,” Kirgues said.

“By contrast, in states like Wisconsin the non-compete laws essentially lock up those individuals who gain the most insight into how an industry might perform better by prohibiting (them) from using those skills to build a new company in that industry.”