Browsing: Work

Wisconsin labor and employment policy can, in some instances, tilt in the favor of insiders, impose costs on outsiders, and adversely affect the state’s economic performance.

As of September 2026, the average weekly earnings of all people employed in Wisconsin’s manufacturing sector was $1,343.

Wisconsin should replace its current graduated individual income tax with a single-rate structure and set that rate as low as fiscal conditions responsibly allow.

Since data centers are capital intensive, Wisconsin — a state that manufactures capital goods — is benefiting immensely.

Much remains to make Wisconsin reach its full economic potential, including matching its strong inputs with stronger outputs.

Promoting employment, rather than simply awarding benefits, should be the central goal of Wisconsin’s safety net program design.

Wisconsin’s next governor and Legislature should strengthen the state’s safety net by focusing it more clearly on work, family stability and upward mobility.

The ratio of working-age Wisconsin residents to retirement-age ones has reached its lowest level since 1930.

Economic freedom is a fundamental animating idea of the republic that people should be free to work, build, hire, save, invest, trade and make their own economic choices without unnecessary interference from government.

The solution to problems left by grocery store closures in Milwaukee may include a civil-society option such as a food co-op, observers say.

Union membership in Wisconsin has continued to decline in the past two years.

Wisconsin’ recent failures of accountability share a common feature: Power has increasingly shifted away from the Legislature and toward governors, agencies, courts and other institutions that operate further from direct democratic control.

Full-time employment for Wisconsin young adults fell between 2023 and 2024, the most recent year for which data are available.

The comparison to Milwaukee’s past Socialist mayors highlights how proposals by current Democratic Socialists are much more radical, even if they’re rhetorically similar.

Students learn less and earn less when they have less incentive to actually study in order to get top grades.

There is new evidence that some students hurt themselves economically by going to college — a fact Republicans are using to limit student loans.

The law, passed in 2023, decrees that venues rented for private events at which the people holding the party bring their own alcohol can host only six such events a year, and only one a month — unless they prohibit bring-your-own drinks and instead get a liquor license like a tavern. Those are subject to strict quotas. Town board can simply refuse.

A decline in cargo moving across the Great Lakes via United States-flagged “lakers” has led to widely felt impacts in port towns, including at a major Superior coal terminal now slated to shutter its operations by this upcoming summer.

While undergraduate enrollment in most University of Wisconsin System schools trends downward, there has been a dramatic increase in students choosing the state’s technical colleges since the pandemic.

Job postings in Wisconsin, which had been falling since a 2022 peak following pandemic disruptions, have steadied over the past 10 months, data from the Indeed Hiring Lab show.