Year: 2024

The workers who’ve fared the best in recent years were the state’s lowest earners, whose wage growth has outpaced Wisconsin’s highest earners, according to a recent report from the High Road Strategy Center, a worker-focused economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The economy and inflation have been top issues in this presidential election year. But a new report suggests that Wisconsin workers are doing relatively well and even exceeding expectations, despite inflation.

The report released by the High Road Strategy Center at UW-Madison, found rising wages and declining unemployment in Wisconsin.

“The labor market is strong in the sense that we’ve produced a lot of jobs —25,000 jobs over the past year—more today than in the past,” says Laura Dresser, associate director of the center.

In the child care sector specifically, unions are an anomaly, said Laura Dresser, a labor economist and associate director of the UW-Madison think tank High Road Strategy Center.

“Child care unions are really rare in Wisconsin … and unions are rare in child care nationally as well,” Dresser said.

A study by the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found the state’s job market hit record levels in the second quarter and the inflation-adjusted median hourly wage has increased by 97 cents.

Laura Dresser, associate director of the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin Madison and the report’s co-author, said the increase in the median wage is just making up for the period inflation ran ahead of earnings in 2022.

On today’s show, host Allen Ruff speaks with UW-Madison labor economist and High Road Strategy Center associate director Laura Dresser. Dresser speaks with Ruff about geographic disparities, union impacts, and gender disparities.

Wages for the lowest-paid workers in Wisconsin have risen faster than pay for higher earners in recent years, but workers still face challenges.

That’s according to the new “State of Working Wisconsin” report from the High Road Strategy Center, an economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The report is released annually around Labor Day to provide insights into how workers are doing in the economy.

The State of Working Wisconsin 2024 report, released ahead of Labor Day, notes this change marks a “reversal of trends” from the past 40 years or so. The income gap between lower- and higher-wage workers has been closing in the recovery period following the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns and continues through this year, the report shows.

On the other side of the Great Lakes, the annual State of Working Wisconsin report presented by the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison articulates both successes and shortcomings for workers. While there’s promising news about increased job numbers and rising wages, especially for low-wage workers, the report points out persistent challenges, such as inadequate access to childcare and initiation of union rights, as still major hurdles for many workers.

Wisconsin’s workers saw record-matching wage growth last year and sustained low unemployment through 2024, according to an annual labor report from a think tank at UW-Madison, though many inequalities within the labor market remain.

The Working Wisconsin report examines the economy from the vantage point of how it affects workers. It is issued annually by the center, a nonprofit that researches and promotes solutions to social problems that focus on “shared growth and opportunity, environmental sustainability, and resilient democratic institutions as necessary and achievable complements in human development.”