Executive summary

Wisconsin has long benefited from low poverty rates and relatively high labor force participation relative to the national average. But the state’s safety net faces important challenges.

There has been no little sustained progress in reducing child poverty since roughly the turn of the century. Further, economic mobility remains a problem. The evidence shows the limitations of safety net programs and policies that redistribute income without sufficient regard for work incentives, program integrity or long-term upward mobility.

The next governor and Legislature should strengthen Wisconsin’s safety net by focusing it more clearly on work, family stability and upward mobility.

Key findings:

• After substantial declines throughout the 1990s, Wisconsin has made little progress on child poverty in recent years. Child poverty rates in Wisconsin have generally hovered between 10 and 15 percent since 2000.
• Upward mobility remains a problem despite Wisconsin’s relatively low poverty rate. Research from Opportunity Insights suggests that children born into low-income families in more recent cohorts have experienced lower income growth as adults than similar children born earlier, including in both urban and rural Wisconsin counties.
• These problems remain despite the fact safety net spending and participation have grown substantially.
• Work remains the most reliable path out of poverty. In 2024, only 2.1 percent of Wisconsinites who worked full time year-round were poor, compared with 18.6 percent of those with no work. Reforms to Wisconsin’s safety net should focus on promoting work.

Recommendations:

• Wisconsin should effectively implement new federal work requirements for FoodShare and BadgerCare.
• The next governor should set a clear vision for reducing barriers to work and family formation, including the elimination of benefit cliffs and marriage penalties that can discourage employment, earnings growth and marriage.
• The state should back federal efforts to give states flexibility to coordinate safety net programs, address benefit cliffs and test reforms that promote long-term self-sufficiency.
• Wisconsin should move toward a more integrated “One Door to Employment” model. Better coordination across FoodShare, BadgerCare, Wisconsin Works and employment training programs would focus the safety net more directly on work and upward mobility.
• Wisconsin should maintain strong program integrity measures to ensure low FoodShare error rates.
• Wisconsin should teach the success sequence in schools. State leaders should incentivize instruction on the importance of graduating from high school, working full time and having children within marriage, a sequence strongly associated with lower poverty rates.

Wisconsin does not need a safety net agenda built around simply expanding benefits. It needs one that helps low-income residents meet immediate needs while also supporting work, family stability and long-term economic independence.

Read full report here