Wisconsin Economy Publications

This report highlights how raising the low-wage floor will improve quality of life for the 100,000 workers in poverty-wage jobs in the city, and for a roughly equal number of poverty-wage workers in the suburban counties around city. Long term decline was made more brutal by the Great Recession, leaving workers at the mercy of a dramatic shift from manufacturing into services, declining unionization, and falling job quality. Evidence of the economic crisis abounds, yet Milwaukee’s problems — including racial disparity and residential segregation, child poverty, crime and incarceration, catastrophic drop-out rates, especially for African Americans and Hispanics — are not inevitable. They result from increasing economic isolation of the central city and increasingly isolation even of the middle of the labor market from meaningful effects of growth.

Full Report              Executive Summary

This report summarizes the accomplishments of and lessons learned from the Wisconsin Industry Partnerships (IP) initiative (2008–2012), a project directing state investment of more than six million dollars in concert with dozens of participating employers in order to increase the skills of over 6000 workers in the state. Wisconsin’s IP experience is especially relevant today as leaders turn their attention to building the skills of the state’s workforce.

This report highlights the best of recently proposed investments in the state’s workforce and offers ideas on how to maximize them to promote economic competitiveness — namely, by building on Wisconsin’s nationally acclaimed efforts to forge a more functional labor market through career pathways and industry partnerships. Specifically, we offer our recommendations on key workforce investments in the biennial budget proposal and “Fast Forward” legislation that can advance business and family prosperity in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin has the regrettable distinction of ranking among the worst states in the nation in terms of racial equality. Various aspects of the disparity – from education to jobs and income to incarceration – have been documented consistently for more than a decade. This report pulls together a range of data from public sources to make the racial disparities in the state clear. Brutal inequities in the state span measures of poverty, unemployment, educational attainment, and incarceration.

The reinvigoration of manufacturing presents Milwaukee with a real opportunity. And the manufacturing opportunity could provide an answer to some of the city’s most ruinous problems, especially the economic isolation of the central city population. Manufacturing Better Opportunity & A Stronger Economy provides key data on manufacturing in Milwaukee and the problems which the central city community confronts. Additionally, it discusses the work that the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership/BIG STEP has done and will continue doing in order to build a stronger bridge from community to manufacturers throughout the region.

Workforce Central is a strategic effort to address the growing workforce and economic challenges facing the community. Key components of their strategy focuses on developing adaptive leadership skills, shifting attitudes, and engaging leaders to work across boundaries.

This independent, local evaluation of its workforce development efforts is commissioned by Incourage Community Foundation’s Workforce Central initiative. This evaluation uses quantitative and qualitative indicators to assess progress towards achieving Workforce Central’s goals and “Ultimate Outcome.”

Wisconsin Jobs and Low-Income Working Families looks at the one in four working families in Wisconsin who struggle to get by as well as the tens of thousands of workers whose jobs provide low wages and few benefits. The report was produced by COWS as part of the Working Poor Families Project.

According to a new report by COWS and the Wisconsin Budget Project, the income disparity between Wisconsin’s richest and poorest families continues to widen. This analysis of Wisconsin Department of Revenue data finds that Wisconsin’s richest residents have experienced dramatic increases in inflation-adjusted income since the mid-1990s, while middle- and lower-income Wisconsinites saw their incomes stagnate or decrease.

Between 1996 and 2010, the bottom 40 percent of Wisconsin earners experienced an average decrease of $2,407 in their adjusted gross income, measured in 2012 dollars. The top fifth of income tax filers saw an increase in earnings of more than $17,000 over this period.

The ninth edition of COWS’ biennial report, The State of Working Wisconsin 2012uses the best and most recent data available to refine our understanding of exactly how working people in Wisconsin are doing. This year’s Labor Day report finds too many workers in Wisconsin waiting for an economic recovery strong enough to produce jobs, higher family income, and a growing sense of security.

For the first time this year, COWS is also including an online supplement to the print version. The supplement provides more maps, more data, and interactive graphs on key economic and social indicators at the state and county level. The online supplement will be updated as new data becomes available and will provide access to figures and graphs on the Wisconsin economy as they come out.

Documents include Full Report, Executive Summary and a technical note that compares the CES and QCEW, two key sources of data on employment that have caused some recent controversy.