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Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute
- Florida could teach Wisconsin how to demand a more open-minded academia
- Wisconsin still holds $800 million in people’s unclaimed cash despite a top ranking in returning funds
- More Wisconsin circuit courts use text reminders to move justice along: a ‘godsend’
- How to strengthen the climb from the safety net
- The silence breaks: Accountability at last for those who make Milwaukee life unlivable
- Data centers could be a godsend — if communities let them
- Economic freedom is worth defending — even when political parties forget it
- Wisconsin is missing its Medicaid accountability moment
Browsing: Work
Senate committee passes two licensing reform bills
Public members discuss how they view their role on boards
Decisions from licensing boards are oftentimes arbitrary and unfair
Bill allows for optional registration for in-state insurance adjusters
‘Sunrise review’ would inform legislators about impact of proposed occupational licenses
Wisconsin should join states that have enacted sunrise laws as an alternative to new licenses that fence out workers and don’t protect the public
Policies linked to work are critical to lifting people out of poverty
Gov. Evers vetoes bill that would’ve helped aspiring certified nursing aides and eased shortage in Wisconsin
An employer handbook
Creating a license for public insurance adjusters is not necessary in Wisconsin
Even failed and troubled ones like the Job Corps training centers are nearly impossible to shut down
The Hop, a $128 million streetcar that travels a 2.1-mile loop in downtown Milwaukee, is a classic boondoggle made possible by federal grants (i.e., taxpayer money). Meanwhile, the Joseph Project, a Milwaukee transportation enterprise that rejects government funding, is helping central city residents secure good-paying manufacturing jobs in neighboring counties. With a small fleet of church vans (most of them donated), the Joseph Project creates taxpayers instead of fleecing them.
Video shows how The Hop fleeces taxpayers while the Joseph Project creates them.
Nationally and across the states, policy-makers from both parties are supporting less burdensome licensure rules
Outside of UW-Madison, the argument that the colleges have huge multiplier effect on communities and the state is nonsensical
Lack of minority high school and college grads and wide prosperity gaps will only exacerbate the region’s growing employee shortage, business leaders fear
Fewer barriers mean barbers and stylists are now free to own and grow their businesses beyond shops and salons
Two studies look at Wisconsin’s complex community corrections system and why many on supervision are failing.
The high cost of increasing the minimum wage in Wisconsin to $15
What is occupational licensing? How does it affect labor markets, wages, prices and interstate migration? Morris Kleiner, professor and AFL-CIO chair in Labor Policy at the University of Minnesota and author of “At What Cost? State and National Estimates of the Economic Cost of Occupational Licensing,” discusses his research at the Badger Institute’s Policy Symposium.
Badger Institute analysis: Current restrictions undermine lawmakers’ intent, create obstacles to employment.

