25% Of People In Milwaukee Area Don’t Earn Enough To Stay Out Of Poverty

A new report says 25 percent of workers in the Milwaukee area don’t earn enough to keep a family out of poverty.

The level is even higher within the city limits itself.

The report by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) looked back to 1979, when 20 percent of workers were paid at or below the poverty level.

Now Laura Dresser, COWS associate director and the author of the report titled “Raise the Floor Milwaukee,” says that number is up to 25 percent.

Dresser: “One in four workers earning a level that can’t keep a family out of poverty. I would say that’s a pretty significant shift.”

All wage numbers were adjusted for inflation. Dresser says a full-time worker needs to make at least $11.20 an hour to stay above the poverty line. Dresser says unionized manufacturing jobs are on the decline while service-sector jobs in retail, food service, or home health care are on the rise.

The new report compared data from 1979, which includes Milwaukee County and its three neighbors. It also broke down data just for the city itself.

Dresser says economic reports often focus on median wages and jobs for college graduates, not on low-wage jobs.

Dresser: “But when you’ve got one in four of your workers in the metro Milwaukee region and more than one in three in the city of Milwaukee earning very low wages, then you’ve got an economic development issue.”

Dresser says Milwaukee’s high level of low-wage earners should concern the whole state, because it contributes to societal issues like incarceration and segregated neighborhoods.