Fiscal Facts

As communities face economic upheaval from COVID-19, the Wisconsin Policy Forum offers new data to bolster Wisconsinites’ understanding of city and village finances throughout the state.

With the COVID-19 pandemic causing unemployment to increase sharply across Wisconsin’s economy, the arts and culture sector has been among the hardest hit.

While the city of Milwaukee invests millions of federal and local dollars each year into a broad array of housing programs and strategies, a review of three peer cities suggests that streamlined services, clearer leadership, increased strategic planning and coordination and expanded private sector engagement could further improve the city’s housing impacts.

In a gradual but far-reaching shift, the state government in recent years has accounted for a much larger share of public spending in Wisconsin than a quarter-century ago, increasing from 38.7% in 1993 to 47.6% in 2017, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

COVID-19 health concerns and restrictions have produced considerable turmoil in Wisconsin’s child care sector, which will play a critical role in efforts to fully re-open the state’s economy.

The gap between the increasing diversity of Wisconsin’s K-12 student population and the lack of diversity in its teacher workforce has widened in the last decade, with large gaps in urban school districts and the divide growing most quickly in the state’s least urbanized areas.

Higher fund reserves at the start of the pandemic and state and federal action should push any broad payroll tax increases for employers into early 2022

Wisconsin communities spent about $1.28 billion on law enforcement in 2018, up from $353 million in 1986, an increase of nearly 60% after accounting for inflation.

Even as state sales tax collections overall slipped 10% for May amid the COVID-19 crisis, internet sales have shot upward as consumers flocked online.

In 2018, women continued to earn less than men for full-time work both locally and nationally. According to Census data, the median annual earnings of women in Milwaukee County was about 85% of the median among men. By comparison, women’s median annual earnings were just 79% of men’s nationally.