The 2024 Year in Review is live!
High Road Strategy Center celebrates a year of high-impact policy and progress.
In 2024, we helped cities and states across the country advance high-road strategies that build more equitable and democratic communities. From safer streets to stronger worker protections, this report highlights the real progress our network made this year.
Featured
The State of Working Wisconsin
To celebrate Wisconsin's workforce, the High Road Strategy Center has released its annual State of Working Wisconsin 2024 report. Since 1996, this report offers clear insights into Wisconsin’s economy from the perspective of workers. This year’s edition analyzes recent data on wages, jobs, and unions, with a special focus on women in the workforce.
From Community Benefits, to Collective Bargaining, and Back
Community Benefits Agreements can yield strong results from public investments in private projects like stadiums. Milwaukee's first CBA established labor peace and enabled workers to form MASH. This report showcases how MASH has improved employment and job quality standards for service workers in Milwaukee's Deer District and beyond.
Covering the Bases
Cities across the country routinely make investments in stadiums, such as the Kansas City Royals, despite ample evidence that communities don’t secure promised economic returns. In this paper, we draw on national evidence and experience in Milwaukee to help inform the public discussion in Kansas City.
High Road Strategy Center in the News
How will ‘no tax on tips’ impact Wisconsin workers?
Laura Dresser, a labor economist and professor at UW-Madison, questions whether the tax cut addresses the most pressing challenges facing tipped workers. Instead, Dresser argues that tipped workers face more fundamental issues, including limited access to benefits and hour/wage instability.
July 9, 2025Mornings with Pat Kreitlow: The Titanic Did, In Fact Sink (Hour 1)
Shifting gears, they spotlight the dire situation of American childcare and elder care systems, with Laura Dresser emphasizing the need for public investment in these undervalued sectors. As they critique the inadequacies of federal incentives and Wisconsin's stagnant minimum wage, they call for systemic change to support society's most critical caregivers.
May 14, 2025What does Wisconsin’s minimum wage from 2009 mean today?
"It matters to say this is the standard that we are going to meet. This is what jobs should do," said Laura Dresser, the associate director of High Road Strategy Center at UW Madison. Her research focuses on low-wage work and workforce development systems.
February 13, 2025- More