Wisconsin Poverty Report

UW report says safety net kept state families from poverty, By Todd Finkelmeyer, April 27, 2012, Capital Times: “Wisconsin is doing a good job of providing a safety net for the state’s most vulnerable people, according to the fourth annual Wisconsin Poverty Report released this week. The study, conducted by UW-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, is designed to measure poverty rates more accurately than the official federal numbers that are compiled using only pretax cash income figures. In addition to these cash resources, the institute’s Wisconsin Poverty Measure also takes into account the effects of government safety net initiatives such as tax credits (including the state and federal earned income tax credit), food stamps, BadgerCare and subsidized child care. In 2010, the most recent year for which figures are available, Wisconsin’s official overall poverty rate as measured at the federal level was at 13 percent, while the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) pinned that figure at 10.3 percent. And the gap is even wider when looking at children — with official numbers indicating an 18.6 percent child poverty rate in the state compared to a Wisconsin Poverty Measure of 10.8 percent…”