From the MJS Business Section 4/9/08.
“Wisconsin’s rich keep getting richer much faster than poor and middle-income households, according to reports released today.
And while the gap between the rich and poor isn’t as wide in Wisconsin as in the country overall, the disparity is growing, according to the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families, both based in Madison.
Households with the highest incomes in Wisconsin increased their wealth by 36% between the late 1980s and the mid 2000s, compared with a 7% growth in income for the poorest households and 14% for middle-income households, the report says.
Based on a state-by-state analysis released today by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Wisconsin report updates earlier studies that use inflation-adjusted census data and compare households in the highest, lowest and middle fifths of income.
The Wisconsin report shows the Badger State with the 11th most equal distribution of income nationwide, with the average income of the richest fifth ($120,440) six times higher than the lowest fifth ($20,073).”[...]
Now, the Center of Wisconsin Studies is a leftard “think tank” located, naturally, in Madistan. You can see their site here.
If you want to see the people behind the reports, they all have a mini-bio for you to look at. It’s about what you’d expect.
Nevertheless, the above-quoted part of the article lays out the facts and it is what it is. Now, in bullet point form, let’s see how COWS wants to deal with the “problem”.
From the same article.
The report prescribes several policy strategies to help even out Wisconsin’s economic growth.
Among them:
• Raising the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation.
Ummmmm…no. Minimum wage is not designed to be a living wage. It’s a way for business, big and small, to hire people and see if they work out. If they do, the wages will go up as the new employee gives the company a reason NOT to get rid of that employee. Raising the minimum wage will guarantee that a person who wants to work but has no experience will not get hired.
• Improving workers’ skills and education.
No brainer….we need a think tank for that? Note to MPS students…learn to read and write and do simple arithmetic. It will help you in the long run, really.
• Expanding subsidized childcare and health care for low-income workers.
How about not having babies while still in high school? I could see this if the individual was married. Maybe.
• Updating unemployment insurance.
I’m not sure what this means. Does this mean that people who are employed should have their taxes raised to support the inept and lazy? I’m guessing that’s what this means.
• Making taxes more progressive.
Naturally, being a bunch of libtards in Madistan, this had to be put in as a policy recommendation. How will increasing taxes on the upper 20% benefit the lower 20%? At some point, people who do earn will say “see ya” and head for states where acheivement is not punished.
Kudos to the MJS reporter for getting some other viewpoints.
“Van Mobley, an assistant professor of history and economics at Concordia University Wisconsin, said he wished the report had dug deeper into why disparity is growing. To the degree that globalization plays a role, Mobley said, the policy recommendations might have the effect of “spitting in the breeze.”
Laura Dresser, research director for the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that other developed countries have not shown similar increases in inequality despite globalization.
“It’s the framework within which the U.S. has approached globalization,” Dresser said, suggesting that policies on such areas as taxes, trade, unions and training might have made a difference.
Gee, ya think?
