WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:24.480 The 00:24.480 --> 00:32.080 monthly US jobs report out today shows encouraging news for the economy, adding 162,000 jobs, 00:32.080 --> 00:36.560 keeping the unemployment rate steady at 4.1 percent. 00:36.560 --> 00:42.660 In Wisconsin, the state of working Wisconsin is mixed, according to a report by the same 00:42.660 --> 00:47.040 name from the High Road Strategy Center at UW-Madison. 00:47.040 --> 00:51.280 Laura Dresser is an economist and associate director at the center, and Laura, thanks a 00:51.280 --> 00:52.280 lot for being here. 00:52.280 --> 00:53.280 I'm delighted to be here. 00:53.280 --> 00:58.440 So how do our job numbers stack up and how have they trended since your last Labor Day 00:58.440 --> 00:59.440 report? 00:59.440 --> 01:00.440 Yeah. 01:00.440 --> 01:03.880 It's been a really rocky time for the economy as a great report today from the national 01:03.880 --> 01:04.880 level. 01:04.880 --> 01:10.640 But on net, the national labor market has barely grown since January of 2025. 01:10.640 --> 01:16.280 And Wisconsin, as of the data that came out last month, Wisconsin's total job base had 01:16.280 --> 01:21.680 actually fallen and was slightly below where it had been in January of 2025. 01:21.680 --> 01:27.640 So your report shows median wages have grown steadily, so part of the mix that we're talking 01:27.640 --> 01:31.540 about now sitting at just over $26 an hour. 01:31.540 --> 01:34.040 But what stands out in that stat? 01:34.040 --> 01:39.400 That's interesting, because the median, it's great to see that going up, because it's going 01:39.400 --> 01:41.640 up faster than inflation. 01:41.640 --> 01:47.440 It's been steadily going up faster than inflation for most of the last 10 years, except for 2022 01:47.440 --> 01:50.040 when inflation was really high. 01:50.040 --> 01:52.120 So that's a great stat on that sense. 01:52.120 --> 01:57.080 But there's a lot of disparities hidden underneath the median. 01:57.080 --> 02:01.120 And so we look in the report to see what's going on. 02:01.120 --> 02:05.560 And some of the gaps between, for example, the lowest wage workers and the highest wage 02:05.560 --> 02:09.920 workers continue to shrink a little bit because of the tightness of this labor market and 02:09.920 --> 02:16.400 the way that lower wage workers have moved forward in wages faster than higher wage workers. 02:16.400 --> 02:18.680 And there's also some kind of demographic gaps. 02:18.680 --> 02:19.680 Yeah. 02:19.680 --> 02:20.680 Sure. 02:20.680 --> 02:21.960 There's a big gender gap in wages. 02:21.960 --> 02:26.960 People are familiar with that, though, over the last 40 years, which we document in this, 02:26.960 --> 02:29.520 men's wages have only risen a little. 02:29.520 --> 02:32.720 Women's wages have come quite substantially up. 02:32.720 --> 02:39.960 So the gender gap has closed over the last 40 years, and even over the last little bit. 02:39.960 --> 02:47.040 But other gaps are large and have grown, especially racial gaps, black, white disparity, 02:47.040 --> 02:50.680 black, Hispanic, white disparity has grown quite substantially. 02:50.680 --> 02:55.680 As to what a lot of people are hyper-focused on, that being inflation, you say there's 02:55.680 --> 03:00.920 concern that inflation could wipe out wage gains of 2026, how so? 03:00.920 --> 03:01.920 Yeah. 03:01.920 --> 03:05.560 That's even true in the national report from today. 03:05.560 --> 03:10.320 Inflation, the rate of inflation is higher than the rate of wage growth. 03:10.320 --> 03:12.720 This is what happened in 2022. 03:12.720 --> 03:17.520 Those wages went up in nominal terms, but the cost of living just wiped that right 03:17.520 --> 03:18.520 out. 03:18.520 --> 03:20.840 That looks like what we're heading into for 2026. 03:20.840 --> 03:27.240 So while we got a high in 2025, and that's great news, 2026 looks much less likely that 03:27.240 --> 03:32.560 that will be a strong gain and possible that it will be a loss because of the high inflation. 03:32.560 --> 03:37.680 As to affordability, you report that one in three households in Wisconsin cannot afford 03:37.680 --> 03:39.680 basic things. 03:39.680 --> 03:44.640 You described this as nothing new, but is it about the cost of living, per se, or is 03:44.640 --> 03:46.080 it about the wage? 03:46.080 --> 03:47.080 Yeah. 03:47.080 --> 03:50.400 I think it's really important to see both of those things in balance. 03:50.400 --> 03:56.480 I think when we are focused on the cost of living, like we see the prices go up especially 03:56.480 --> 04:03.080 recently of energy, gas, utilities, that makes folks focus on the cost of living. 04:03.080 --> 04:09.360 But in the background, the suppression of wages, the long term kind of under the rates 04:09.360 --> 04:16.160 of economic growth, wage stagnation that this nation has had, even this last five years 04:16.160 --> 04:22.400 of growth, have not gotten us back to kind of moving ahead as the economy moves ahead. 04:22.400 --> 04:29.880 And if it was, the questions of affordability would be wiped out by having a better job. 04:29.880 --> 04:34.880 Another prong that you looked at in your report was the role of immigration in Wisconsin. 04:34.880 --> 04:37.240 How does that factor into the Wisconsin economy? 04:37.240 --> 04:42.120 Yeah, it's important to remember that immigrants make enormous contributions to the Wisconsin 04:42.120 --> 04:43.120 economy. 04:43.120 --> 04:45.240 23 billion annually estimated by some. 04:45.240 --> 04:48.800 Seven percent of the Wisconsin workforce is immigrants. 04:48.800 --> 04:55.040 And what we document this year is research nationally that shows that when the massive 04:55.080 --> 05:02.080 deportation raids began, it obviously decreases employment of the immigrant workers who are 05:02.080 --> 05:04.160 deported, obviously. 05:04.160 --> 05:09.120 But that spills over as well to a significant decrease in the employment of immigrant workers 05:09.120 --> 05:14.840 who are worried or are having to cover family responsibilities for other folks. 05:14.840 --> 05:17.520 Just the fear in the community represses there. 05:17.520 --> 05:23.720 But the evidence also shows that with these raids comes a decline in employment for white 05:23.760 --> 05:25.120 men as well. 05:25.120 --> 05:30.440 And so what we have is a kind of structure that's, I think, in theory supposed to be 05:30.440 --> 05:32.920 better for the economy in some ways. 05:32.920 --> 05:38.880 But it's these massive raids, the evidence is that they're actually shrinking the economy. 05:38.880 --> 05:40.520 Laura Dresser, will you be there? 05:40.520 --> 05:41.520 Thanks so much. 05:41.520 --> 05:42.520 Thanks for having me. 05:42.520 --> 05:48.320 As to the rise in cost of energy, many people want to see an even bigger turn to renewable 05:48.320 --> 05:49.320 sources. 05:49.320 --> 05:54.840 Solar panel fields and wind turbines have been cropping up next to and on top of Wisconsin 05:54.840 --> 05:57.800 farms for a couple of decades now. 05:57.800 --> 06:01.760 But as reporter Stephen Potter explains, not everyone is on board.