Who is poor in Wisconsin?

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According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 10.8 percent of Wisconsin residents, on average, were poor in 2007 (see Table 1). The state's poverty rate has been relatively stable since 2002 (see the FAQ "Who is Poor," Table 2). Sources of many other Wisconsin statistics are listed in the "Wisconsin" section of the FAQ on "Finding online demographic and socioeconomic data for states, counties, cities, and other smaller units of government in midwestern states." The Annie E. Casey Foundation provides access to interactive tables and rankings, by state and county, using 2000 census data; its Web site also offers access to the raw data for all Wisconsin counties.

Table 1 gives model-based estimates of poverty and median income figures from the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau's Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) for Wisconsin counties. The Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison publishes a biennial report, The State of Working Wisconsin, that is a statistical portrait of work and well-being in the state, which includes poverty statistics. The most recent publication in this series is 2008. Another recent COWS report focuses on the city of Milwaukee, which has higher rates of concentrated poverty than any other part of the state, and is Moving Outward: The Shifting Landscape of Poverty in Milwaukee. Using 1999 Census data, COWS mapped Wisconsin poverty rates by census tract (see map below) and for Milwaukee County (see detail). (In 1999, poverty in Wisconsin was 10.7 percent.)

Welfare reform in Wisconsin, known as Wisconsin Works (W-2), is the subject of intensive and ongoing research by IRP affiliates. One multidisciplinary study examined the well-being of women leaving welfare in Wisconsin; another examined families on welfare in Dane County. Results of a three-wave survey of Milwaukee families and W-2 have been published. Currently available reports for all these studies may be found on the IRP Web site under Welfare Reform: Wisconsin Studies. The Child Support Demonstration Evaluation is a multiyear experimental evaluation of the child support policies that were a unique aspect of the Wisconsin reforms.

The Midwest Welfare Peer Assistance Network (WELPAN) is a network of senior welfare officials from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin which met regularly between 1996 and 2006 to discuss how to make welfare reform work. IRP coordinated WELPAN’s meetings, which were funded by the Joyce Foundation. The group continues to exchange ideas on a private electronic mailing list hosted by IRP.

IRP has many publications that focus on poverty in Wisconsin and programs to address it; among them, the following publications provide a good introduction:

Smeeding, T. M. and Isaacs, J. B. The First Wisconsin Poverty Report. 2009, 23 pp.

Hotz, V. J. and Scholz, J. K. Can Administrative Data on Child Support Be Used to Improve the EITC? Evidence from Wisconsin. 2005, 28 pp. DP 1310-05.

Wu, C. F., Cancian, M., Meyer, D. R., and Wallace, G. How Do Welfare Sanctions Work? 2004, 35 pp. DP 1282-04.

Corbett, T. Understanding Wisconsin Works (W-2). 1996. Focus 18(1): 53-54.