Walker’s Wisconsin: Poverty across Wisconsin reaches highest level in 30 years
Poverty in Wisconsin hit its highest level in 30 years during the five-year period ending in 2014, even as the nation’s economy was recovering from the Great Recession, according to a trend analysis of U.S. Census data just released by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
The number of Wisconsin residents living in poverty averaged 13% across that post-recession time frame — the highest since 1984, according to the analysis by UW-Madison’s Applied Population Laboratory. In mid-1984, the nation’s stubborn unemployment rate stabilized following a double-dip recession.
The analysis dovetails with an unrelated study that identified pockets of the country faring worse as the economic recovery gains some traction, released Thursday by a national nonprofit research group in Washington, D.C.
That study, by the Economic Innovation Group, found the gap between the richest and poorest American communities widening, and ranked Milwaukee the seventh most distressed city in America, with 52% of the population considered economically distressed.
Poverty increased more dramatically across Wisconsin than in many other states, though 46 of the 50 states saw a significant increase in total population living in poverty between the 5-year periods ending in 2009 and 2014, according to the UW-Madison analysis.
A five-year estimate is considered more reliable and precise than a year-to-year data comparison. Five-year estimates also are the only census data available at the county and neighborhood level; one-year estimates are available for the state as a whole and the city of Milwaukee.
Using the five-year measure, poverty went up in both urban and rural parts of Wisconsin. It went up at every level of educational achievement, and across the employment spectrum.
Perhaps most significant, the poverty gap between blacks and whites grew here as the average gap was flat across the nation. The state’s child poverty rate also went up significantly, fueling concerns about the future for many of the state’s youngest residents.
“There is some good evidence that living in poverty and experiencing issues like food and housing insecurity can cause changes in the brain that can lead to behavioral issues and low performance in school, as well as chronic disease later in life,” said Malia Jones, an assistant scientist and social epidemiologist at UW-Madison’s Applied Population Laboratory.
It’s no coincidence that two-thirds of students who cannot read above a fourth-grade level end up either in prison or on welfare, several literacy studies have shown.
Question on data
A UW-Milwaukee associate professor of economics contacted by the Journal Sentinel questioned the accuracy of the analysis because he believes the 2014 poverty rate used by UW-Madison researchers was incorrect, and skewed the results higher.
“The 2014 rate is 10.9% (not nearly 14%), so I am not sure what to make of anything in this report, frankly,” said associate professor Scott Adams, who also is chair of UWM’s economics department.
The years leading up to a recession and recession recovery naturally look different, Adams said. “But the subsequent poverty after the recession in the early 1980s was much worse” than Walker’s Wisconsin: Poverty across Wisconsin reaches highest level in 30 years | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog: