Browsing: Work

A federal judge’s injunction is blocking the closing down Job Corps centers — including two in Wisconsin — that have an expensive and dismal record ostensibly training the young and disadvantaged for work.

More than half of the employees in the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and more than 40% in the Department of Administration still work remotely, five years after COVID sent them home.

Of the nearly 30,000 Wisconsin state employees, 11,501 of them, about 40%, work in Dane County, home of the state capital in Madison, though considerably fewer of them live there.

Telework, or working at home, continues for Wisconsin to be the most common commuting alternative to driving themselves in their own car, data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics show.

One year after the passage of a Badger Institute-backed law allowing dental therapy in Wisconsin, the first practitioners are now licensed, and aspiring students will soon be able to pursue a degree at one of the state’s technical colleges.

Working-age adults from the age of 19 through 64 from southeastern and central counties of Wisconsin participate in the labor force at the highest rates in the state, while the northern counties participate at the lowest rates, analysis of 2023 Census Bureau data shows.

Wisconsinites are increasingly interracial, challenging a deeply embedded and divisive system that relies on racial categories to apportion billions of dollars in government programs and subsidies in the name of equity.

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.

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.

According to a new report, Milwaukee County is a place where economic mobility fell sharply for kids born between 1978 and 1992.

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.

Union membership as a percent of the workforce has been falling nationally for a long time — from about 1 in 4 private-sector workers in 1973 to less than 7% in 2023. The trend has been similar in Wisconsin.

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.

The trend in average weekly earnings of all Wisconsin private-sector employees as measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly survey of employers.

Wisconsin’s labor force participation rate — the share of the state’s civilian, noninstitutionalized population 16 and older who are either employed or looking for work — has long been a distinctive feature, consistently surpassing the national average.

“This is a long-awaited, great day for potentially hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites, including a lot of poor kids, who suffer from toothaches and cavities and poor health,” said Badger Institute President Mike Nichols.

Wisconsinites who bake food at home for sale in their communities could find their incomes dramatically curtailed under legislation recently introduced in the Wisconsin Legislature.