For many residents of Wisconsin, the recession has dealt a double blow. They have lost both their jobs and their health insurance. A new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF)examines the impacts of the recession on families across the state, based on measures such as unemployment,...
As of today, it’s official: The program that provides federal benefits to long-term unemployed workers has expired. There’s hope for the program to be revived, but until then, long-term unemployed workers are getting no further help making ends meet.Read more about what this means for out-of-work Wisconsinites at the Wisconsin Budget...
Regressive Tax Swap Idea Dies a Speedy Death; Why Don’t I Feel Happy? At a public forum last week, Rick Chandler, a member of the Governor-elect’s transition team, floated the idea of increasing the sales tax by at least two cents – as part of a plan to pay for significant reductions in income and property taxes. The idea was declared...
Senator Harry Reid has announced that he will again bring the DREAM Act up for a vote in the US Senate after Thanksgiving. The Act, authored by Senators Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and Richard Durban (D-IL), provides a pathway to legal status for undocumented youth who entered the U.S. as children, graduated from U.S. high schools, and attend...
With Thanksgiving two days away, the mind naturally turns to food. So here at the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families we are contemplating important food-related public policy issues, such as whether it’s better to put the stuffing in the bird or roast it alongside. Also: will the new legislature have the courage to address the...
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed legislation Friday that would extend the basic federal welfare program, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), through Sept. 30, 2011. The one-year extension is a stop-gap measure, in lieu of a 5-year reauthorization. The House is expected to concur in the bill during the lame duck...
In a decision released this week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that a defendant, who provided a 17-year-old girl with Oxycodone, causing her death, was rightfully convicted of first-degree reckless homicide by delivery of a controlled substance and contributing to the delinquency of a child. The defendant argued that it was legally...
New estimates were released today on the size of the budget deficit Wisconsin faces over the next biennium. The good news is that the figures are somewhat lower than other recent estimates. The bad news, and there's always bad news, is too long to list here. Check out the newest post on the Wisconsin Budget Project blog instead for more...
The Great Recession has caused a sharp drop in employer-sponsored insurance and a significant increase in public coverage, especially in Wisconsin. According to a report issued on November 16 by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the percentage of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) fell in 2009 – for the 9th year in a...
Voters in Wisconsin yesterday were in a decidedly conservative mood when it came to choosing their governor, senator, attorney general, and other elected representatives. That created a difficult political environment for school funding referendums on the ballot, but in fact voters approved tax increases in slightly more than half the...
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