Building a forum on public policy in central Wisconsin
Become a PartnerThe analysis prepares impulse responses in initial unemployment claims following the COVID-19 pandemic by county. In addition, relative job losses are aggreagated by county and mapped.
An economic outlook for the Central Wisconsin region, focusing on a variety of economic indicators relevant to our local community and beyond. This presentation will help you gain an understanding of local, state and national trends and how these conditions will influence the region’s economic performance.
UW System enrollment and enrollment at all physical UW-Colleges has declined over the period from 2010-2017 but remains above 2006 levels. The results are not so consistent across Universities with some having experienced growth during the same period. Overall, there is a weak degree of positive correlation between the unemployment rate and enrollment in the UW System during the period 1976-2018; however, there is a large degree of heterogeneity among correlation coefficients across the Universities. Last, the number of high school graduates produced in May and the UW System enrollment in the fall initially move in opposite directions but having fewer potential students quickly turns into lower UW System enrollment.
While employment grew over the period, growth rates by major occupation vary significantly with some having contracted. In general, mean and median hourly wages grew over the period. Through shift-share analysis, this analysis decomposes total growth and focuses on the regional effects. While typically performing mid-pack, this is where the nuances are teased from the data. Not one major occupation yielded positve regional effects in both employment growth and median hourly wage growth over the period.
This project is a broad regional overview that focuses on the youth in Greater Central Wisconsin. The analysis focuses on the region defined by Adams, Forest, Juneau, Langlade, Lincoln, Marathon, Oneida, Portage, Vilas, and Wood counties in Wisconsin. The objective of the project is to better understand the youth in the region between the ages 16 and 24, particularly those neither in school nor in the labor force. Sometimes referred to as disconnected youth and more appropriately referred to as opportunity youth, these individuals from a national perspective tend to be minority or Hispanic and come from low to middleincome households. Providing education and skills training opportunities to these individuals more often than not comes at a lower cost than the future social service costs. These opportunity youth make for excellent targets of regional investment and offer above normal rates of return.