UW-Madison researchers find modest drop in Wisconsin poverty rates

Boosted by a growth in jobs, poverty in Wisconsin dropped from 10.8% in 2014 to 9.7% in 2015 according to the Wisconsin Poverty Measure.

It is the lowest poverty rate recorded since the WPM was introduced nine years ago by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Institute of Research on Poverty.

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Tuesday's release of the Wisconsin Poverty Report showed that the drop in the poverty rate was aided by 70,000 additional jobs gained in the state between January 2014 and November 2015.

"Things are going well in the state so far," said Timothy Smeeding, an economist at the LaFollette School of Public Affairs. "The labor market is leading the way. Social safety net programs are still helping and we're making progress."

Unlike the federal government's official poverty measure — which is based on pretax cash income — the WPM accounts for family income and government benefits.

The official poverty rate in the state was 12.1% in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

The WPM child poverty rate declined to 10.0%, while elderly poverty dropped to 7.8%.

There were regional variations. Milwaukee County's WPM was 16.3% while Waukesha County had a 4.7% rate and Washington and Ozaukee counties had a 4.5% rate.

Poverty also varied within Milwaukee County, the report said, from around 10.4% in "one southern and western sub county area" to 36.7% in Milwaukee's central city.

The report's authors concluded: "Our key finding is that jobs and earnings are modestly rising in Wisconsin, and they are helping to reduce overall poverty. They are helping families with children even more than the rest of the populace."