Skip to Main Content LA FOLLETTE HOME UW Home UW Directory My UW

Robert M. La Follette
School of Public Affairs
1225 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706

Telephone: 608.262.3581
Fax: 608.265.3233

Last updated:
August 18, 2011

Public Service and Outreach: New Legislators Policy Briefing 2007

New legislators hear from professors about policy challenges, research findings

Newly elected legislators heard about public education funding, Wisconsins personal income gap, and research on economic support and family policy from La Follette School faculty members at an orientation organized by the Wisconsin Joint Legislative Council in January.

One of those legislators was Gordon Hintz, a 2001 La Follette School alum. He won an Assembly seat in November to represent the Oshkosh area where he grew up.



Donald Nichols finds that Wisconsin lacks jobs in the most highly paid occupations and that compensation for those jobs is less than the average for the nation. Presentation slides

Professor emeritus Donald Nichols talked about Wisconsins economy and how the states average personal income has lagged behind the nations average.

Since the recessions in the early 1980s and Japans emergence as a competitor in manufacturing heavy machinery, Wisconsins income has fallen 5 percent below the national average, and it has never fully recovered, Nichols says. In recent years the gap has averaged 3 percent.

After analyzing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Earning Statistics, Nichols identifies two sources for this income gap. One: Wisconsin residents in the most highly paid occupations earn less than their national counterparts, he says. Also, Wisconsin employs less than its share of people in those highly paid occupations.

For the nation as a whole, the 10 percent of the workforce employed in the most highly paid occupations are paid on average $81,432, Nichols says. Workers in these same occupations in Wisconsin earn on average $71,732. In addition, only 7.44 percent of Wisconsins workforce is employed in these highly paid occupations, rather than the 10 percent that is employed in the nation as a whole.

Nichols finds a similar gap when he compares Wisconsin to Minnesota and Illinois. He attributes this to the absence of a megacity in Wisconsin that offers high-paying jobs in management, business and finance. Wisconsin also lacks positions in sales, and in office and administrative support, jobs that pay more in Minnesota than in Wisconsin.

When Milwaukee, Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul employees are subtracted from their respective states, no gaps remain, Nichols says. Outside of its biggest city, Wisconsins income is doing fine. He adds that Milwaukee should not be blamed for underperformance; work by other analysts suggests that Milwaukee, which is not as large as Chicago or Minneapolis-St. Paul, is doing fine in comparison to similar cities.

Nichols noted that Wisconsin's income gap is softened substantially when adjustments are made for differences in the costs of living. While statewide data on living costs are not collected, the Council for Community and Economic Research reports that the cost of living in Chicago is 30 percent higher than in Milwaukee and the cost in Minneapolis is 10 percent higher.

"The main factor in cost of living differentials is housing," Nichols says. "Housing costs vary enormously, even from suburb to suburb in the same metropolitan area, so it is hard to apply generalizations to individuals. But the reported difference is so large it is likely to survive any fine-tuning. In particular the difference appears to be large enough to offset the variation in reported income and certainly large enough to offset any difference in tax burden, which takes about 1.5 percent more of Wisconsin's income than it does in the nation as a whole."

Increased family complexity creates policy challenges

La Follette School faculty member Maria Cancian, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty, described the collaborations between the state and the university to carry out policy research. She outlined family trends and noted several policy challenges facing Wisconsin.

For example, half of all children will spend at least part of their childhood living apart from one or both parents, Cancian says. This is due to an increase in divorce and to more children being born to unmarried parents. These trends are long term and apparent across many countries with very different social policies, she says. Responding to these trends creates challenges for economic support and family policy.



Maria Cancian describes collaborations between state agencies and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Presentation slides

Families in which children share one but not both parents create another policy challenge. Of Wisconsin families with child support orders, one in three includes a parent who has had children with multiple parents. For those receiving Wisconsin Works (W-2) economic support, two in three families include a parent who has had children with multiple partners.

The collaboration between the state and the university is invaluable, Cancian says. State agencies and their employees provide data, real-world experience and access to innovative programs while the university and its researchers study the effects of these policies and train policy practitioners.

One such collaboration, , the UW IRP evaluation of Wisconsin's innovative approach to child support, found that when mothers get to keep child support, fathers pay more, and paternity is established more quickly, Cancian says.

This type of collaborative research leads to real policy change at the federal level and makes for healthier families, she says. A new federal law permits states to let families with two or more children keep $200 a month in child support.

Schools need resources to meet performance standards

La Follette professor Andrew Reschovsky outlined issues related to the funding of public schools in Wisconsin.

He started his presentation by pointing out that although on average the academic performance of Wisconsins students is above the national average, large numbers of students are currently performing at below proficient levels on the states standardized tests. Reschovsky said that one indicator that our education system needs to be improved is the fact that the gap between the test scores of white and African American students is larger in Wisconsin than in almost all other states.



Andrew Reschovsky suggests to legislators that the state's school aid formula should be reworked. Presentation slides

Since 1993, the state has limited the annual increase in revenue available to school districts. Reschovsky suggests that the existence of the state-imposed revenue caps means that many school districts are cutting programs and increasing class sizes. He adds that a number of small districts, like Florence, are on the verge of collapse.

In addition, todays educational standards are not high enough to prepare students for success in the global economy of 2015 and thereafter, he says.

While the school aid formula is designed to achieve equality of access and spending across school districts, it does not assure that districts have sufficient resources to meet the states student performance standards, Reschovsky said.

How much a district needs to spend varies with demographics -- how many students are poor, disabled, limited in their English proficiency, etc. -- and with district characteristics, including whether a district has many or few students, or is in an urban or rural area, Reschovsky says.

He suggests that to improve the quality of the education available to all students, policymakers should consider a new formula that sets a foundation equal to the amount of money each district needs to meet the states education performance standards and provide state aid to close the gap between that foundation level and the amount of money the school district can raise from property taxes at a specified property tax rate. Fiscal discipline (and lower property tax rates) would come from requiring local taxpayers to fund all spending above the foundation level.

Reschovsky concluded by emphasizing that the distribution of state aid is only part of the answer to improving the quality of education in the state. The state must also hold districts accountable for meeting its student performance standards.

Andrew Reschovsky answers a question from new Assembly member Jason Fields, right, foreground, who represents a Milwaukee district.