Browsing: Jobs

What do Wisconsinites want in 2025? Just the chance to buy a modest house and heat it affordably. A safe place away from gunshots and a job that pays the bills. And a really good school where kids feel safe and hopeful.

Wisconsin’s economy is thriving under free market reforms, many aided by Badger Institute research and advocacy.

By the best estimate, the Act 10 reforms saved Wisconsin taxpayers between $18 billion and $31 billion since 2012.

Waiving the work requirement led to an increase of 780 adults receiving FoodShare on average per county per month from 2012-2023 in Wisconsin.

If everything works out as under-promised, Microsoft will make the biggest single technology investment ever in the state of Wisconsin — a transformative infusion of billions of dollars to develop more than 1,500 acres in Racine County.

Wisconsin will need to build 200,000 housing units by 2030 to accommodate all the people who want to live and work here. Sheboygan County is a microcosm of the problem — but on the forefront of a possible solution.

Tourism generated over $25 billion in economic activity and supported 178,000 jobs statewide, according to figures collected by The Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

Free-market reforms are driving prosperity and fostering human flourishing in the Dairy State. This unmistakable trend is evident in state economic indicators from recent decades, a hopeful story that can instill pride in all Wisconsinites.

When Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s business chamber, last month put out the results of its semiannual survey of CEOs’ sentiments, the outlook was grim: 22% rated the Wisconsin economy as “strong.” Only 10% said the same of the national economy, with 28% calling it “weak.” That’s a gloomier number than the WMC found in summer 2020, amid lockdowns.

And it came to pass that the whole world should be taxed (or charged a fee) — unfortunately When it…

It’s common to describe capitalism as “dog-eat-dog,” but entrepreneurs win by being more appealing to others, serving them better. That surely is something we all can celebrate, especially during the ramen-for-dinner pre-profit stage, when entrepreneurs could use some encouragement.

It’s common knowledge that Wisconsin has way too many poor kids with terrible dental care and not enough dentists to treat them.

It is imperative for disadvantaged children, veterans, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations that dental therapists be allowed to train and practice in Wisconsin.

Using his partial veto power, Gov. Tony Evers removed the Legislature’s first steps on tax reform for Wisconsin, canceling a simplification of Wisconsin’s income tax rates and a reduction in the rates covering much of the middle class and most of the state’s businesses.

Among the bills Republicans are considering in the Legislature is one eliminating the last remnants of Wisconsin’s personal property tax. The bill, AB2, sponsored by Rep. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown), would end property taxes on everything but real estate.The move is one the Badger Institute long has advocated.

Thousands of Wisconsin renters caught a break when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed a moratorium on evictions in September 2020, ostensibly to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. But Wisconsin landlords like Mike Cerns had already paid the price. Cerns estimates he lost between $60,000 and $80,000 in unpaid rental income and the cost of repairing property damage from bad tenants he could not evict. “The federal government essentially stole my property during the eviction moratorium and the courts were an accessory to the theft,” he says.

Burdensome licensing requirements hurt Wisconsin workers and make the state a less attractive place to live.  Overly onerous licensure regulation does little to promote health or safety and instead costs Wisconsinites jobs, income and the ability to care for their families. While just a start, we believe AB 203, 204 and 205 will begin to help address some of these issues.

Amid a sustained outcry from frustrated occupational license seekers and a statewide worker shortage, Wisconsin lawmakers are advancing a universal recognition licensure bill and nearly a dozen more narrowly targeted reforms that would finally help remedy longtime bureaucratic dysfunction and over-regulation.

Wisconsin’s top marginal income tax rate—the rate that matters most to the state’s economic competitiveness—remains among the highest in the country. Moving to a flat tax would substantially improve Wisconsin’s tax competitiveness. Separately, repealing the personal property tax would reduce compliance burdens for taxpayers and administrative burdens for the state. As policymakers work on the next biennial budget, each of these policy changes deserves thoughtful consideration.

Wisconsin can — and we think has to — do a lot more to compete with our neighbors. That’s where competition has to take place and with much of the rest of America. Or, watch our children and our neighbors move to states with more jobs and better wages, more opportunity and more prosperity. And those who are left behind at all levels are going to have fewer jobs, less opportunity, and more of the tax burden. People who are left behind are going to bear more of the tax burden. So, to us, the choice would seem clear.