Wisconsin Job Watch is a monthly publication that tracks Wisconsin's jobs deficit.

 

Wisconsin added 12,000 jobs in the month of February, and estimates of the number of jobs added in January were revised upward by 9,000, adding to a total of 19,000 new jobs, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wisconsin’s job deficit now stands at 156,300, a remarkable change from the last estimate of 245,000. Two changes account for this. First, in the month of January, the reporting agency that estimates the number of jobs created each month revised over four years of data and small changes over 48 months added up to the substantial change in the jobs deficit. Second, the agency revised downward the growth in population over this time period. In short, the new estimates show more jobs and fewer people, meaning a smaller jobs deficit.

 

Wisconsin Jobs Deficit: 156,300

• 71,900 jobs lost since the start of the recession.
• 84,400 jobs needed to accomodate population growth.

Pathways to Competitiveness: Some Guidelines for Successful Workforce Investment in Wisconsin highlights the best of recently proposed investments in the state's workforce and offers ideas on how to maximize them to promote economic competitiveness — namely, by building on Wisconsin's nationally acclaimed efforts to forge a more functional labor market through career pathways and industry partnerships. Specifically, we offer our recommendations on key workforce investments in the biennial budget proposal and "Fast Forward" legislation that can advance business and family prosperity in Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin Job Watch is a monthly publication that tracks Wisconsin's jobs deficit.

 

Wisconsin added 1,300 jobs and saw no change in the unemployment rate in December 2012, a fitting end to a second year of labor market stagnation in the state. Wisconsin's jobs deficit now stands at more than 240,000. The deficit accounts for two factors. First, the state has 152,900 fewer jobs than it did five years ago when the recession began. During that time period, however, the working-age population in Wisconsin has been growing. Indeed, over those five years the state should have added over 90,000 jobs just to keep up with population growth. Combined, these make up to a jobs deficit of 243,127.

 

Wisconsin's Jobs Deficit: 243,127

• 152,900 jobs lost since the start of the recession
• 90,277 jobs needed to accommodate population growth

 

This Wisconsin Job Watch also offers a slightly more detailed review of jobs activity over the last two years, a period that saw Wisconsin fall out of step with the national economic recovery. Across the nation, and even in the Midwest, the last two years have produced steady job growth. Wisconsin has been unique in its economic malaise, as the figure below shows.

 

 

Read the latest Wisconsin Job Watch here, with data updated through December 2012. You can also access the Wisconsin Job Watch archive to view previous updates.

This report presents recommendations on potential high impact philanthropic
investments to advance deep building energy efficiency improvements at scale within
the healthcare sector. It is one of five reports being developed for a coalition of six
philanthropies that are collaborating to see what they - and others - might do to rapidly
increase and scale the energy efficiency retrofit market for buildings in the United States.

 

These philanthropies are the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Energy Foundation,
Kresge Foundation, Living Cities, MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation.
The other sectors for which market development strategies are being developed include:
commercial office, commercial retail, single-family residential, and multifamily residential.

 

In the summer of 2012, expert panels of 10-12 individuals were convened for each of
these sub-segments. These panels developed recommendations on priority approaches
and research needs for each sector. The recommendations in this and the other
segment reports build upon these initial ideas.

The process used to develop these recommendations included background research on
energy efficiency strategies for the healthcare sector and interviews with 33 participants
in the sector, representing healthcare systems, NGOs, trade associations, service
providers and utilities. The interviews solicited feedback on the recommendations from
the expert panel as well as other ideas the interviewees had on how to advance this
market.

The income disparity between Wisconsin’s richest and poorest families continues to widen, according to Pulling Apart 2012, a new report by COWS and the Wisconsin Budget Project. This analysis of Wisconsin Department of Revenue data finds that Wisconsin’s richest residents have experienced dramatic increases in inflation-adjusted income since the mid-1990s, while middle- and lower-income Wisconsinites saw their incomes stagnate or decrease.

 

Between 1996 and 2010, the bottom 40 percent of Wisconsin earners experienced an average decrease of $2,407 in their adjusted gross income, measured in 2012 dollars. The top fifth of income tax filers saw an increase in earnings of more than $17,000 over this period.

Within cities, residents face stark disparities in their access to fresh, healthy produce, with low-income communities often the most affected by this limited access. Inequitable access to food perpetuates poor health outcomes among low-income populations and undermines efforts to improve public health and promote community. The increase in diet-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers have put us on a path to change modern history: many children born today will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. In addition to nutritional and health impacts, the flow of food dollars out of some regions represents a significant loss for local economies. Our small farmers have been pushed to the limit of their livelihood.

 

This policy brief by COWS' Mayors Innovation Project looks at bright spots of innovation, where local policies promote and increase residents’ access to healthy food. While there is no single solution to address the problem of unequal access to affordable, healthy food, there are a range policy strategies that can help develop local food capacities, enhance public health, and improve urban economies.

Greener Reality takes stock of the green economy, looking at what works (and doesn’t) in related skill and credentialing initiatives and placing them in a broader context of human capital development, community resilience, and climate change. Defining equity, sustainability, and greater democratization as critical elements of a truly greener future, the paper considers the practical and political challenges to achieving these in the United States.

 

This report builds on our earlier work in Greener Pathways and Greener Skills. Below is a quick guide to its contents. If you would like a printed copy of Greener Reality, please email us.

 

 

Reality: A Brief Tour

Greener Reality pulls aside the curtains of hype and derision to show a very real, very possible, very promising greener economy, hindered in its development (and job-creation capacity) by political myopia and economic malaise. It is not a defense of green jobs, but a frank assessment of the human capital required to build a greener and more generous America.

 

If you only have time for a glimpse, read the Executive Summary.

 

For an overview of the politics of green (it’s the economy, brothers and sisters) and a wee primer on climate change, economic inequality, and accountable democracy, see the Introduction.

 

After a somewhat dispiriting excursion through those realities, we outline the possibility of A Greener Economy and the skills required to build it across all sectors—energy, food, water, and beyond.

 

To learn what’s working in the field, go right to The Cases, which explore greener jobs training experiments across five sectors: Construction, Manufacturing, Health, Power, and Water.

 

These are part of a chapter on Greening Human Capital, which describes the challenging political moment and the very real difficulties of workforce innovation in a period of epic economic decline. Here we offer a suite of lessons learned, together with a longer-term greener skills agenda and policy framework.

 

Finally, the Conclusion is a meditation on education and training for sustainability, equity, and democracy—the kind of world we’d like our children to inhabit.

The ninth edition of COWS' biennial report, The State of Working Wisconsin 2012 uses the best and most recent data available to refine our understanding of exactly how working people in Wisconsin are doing. This year's Labor Day report finds too many workers in Wisconsin waiting for an economic recovery strong enough to produce jobs, higher family income, and a growing sense of security.

 

Download the executive summary or the full report. If you would like a printed copy of the report, please email us.

 

For the first time this year, COWS is also including an online supplement to the print version. The supplement provides more maps, more data, and interactive graphs on key economic and social indicators at the state and county level. The online supplement will be updated as new data becomes available and will provide access to figures and graphs on the Wisconsin economy as they come out.

 

We are also offering a technical note that compares the CES and QCEW, two key sources of data on employment that have caused some recent controversy.

 

To view previous State of Working Wisconsin reports, click here.

COWS developed Vital Signs, a regional economic review for the Incourage Community Foundation. This economic analysis summarizes the most recent data to help focus discussions and decision-making on economic opportunity in the south Wood County Area. From schools to employers, wages to social supports, and employment to homelessness, COWS offers data that builds a picture of where south Wood County is, and where it needs to improve.

This report details the discrepancy between Wisconsin's current job numbers and those Wisconsin would have achieved had it mirrored national trends.