The National Juvenile Justice Network is presenting a webinar titled “Finding Opportunities for Reform During Difficult Fiscal Times” on Thursday, September 23 at 12:30 p.m. CDT. The webinar is based on the recent publication The Real Costs and Benefits of Change: Finding Opportunities for Reform During Difficult Fiscal Times and covers...
New Poverty Numbers from the Census Bureau
Today the U.S. Census Bureau updated its Current Population Survey (CPS) dataset with new information on poverty, income, and health insurance. As was widely expected, there’s been a large jump in the number of Americans living in poverty. The Wisconsin Council on Children and Families has done some rapid-response number crunching since...
Wisconsin Budget Project Releases New Analysis of Government Employment Levels
Wisconsin continues its decade-long trend of having fewer state and local employees than the national average, according to a new analysis by the Wisconsin Budget Project. Recently released data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Wisconsin has 4.4 percent fewer state and local government employees per capita in 2009 than the national...
Senate Vote Tuesday on First Effort to Undermine Health Care Reform
The federal health care reform law contains a variety of different measures to raise funding to offset the costs of expanding access to health care. One of those measures, which is now under attack, is expected to increase tax revenue by $17.1 billion over the next ten years by improving the ability of the IRS to keep track of business...
The Unique History of Four-Year-Old Kindergarten in Wisconsin
As universal public 4-year-old kindergarten (4K) continues to expand across the state, many are not aware that 4K has a history going back over 160 years. The first kindergarten in the United States was founded in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1856, shortly after the first “kindergarten” was opened in Germany in 1837 by Friedrich Fröebel.
National Grandparents Day, Sept. 12
This Sunday, Sept. 12, is National Grandparents Day, an appropriate time to consider the crucial and growing role grandparents are playing in caring for America’s kids, and the economic challenges they face in providing that care. • 4.5 million children lived in their grandparents’ home in 2009, according to the U.S. Census Buresu.• In...
Children Don’t Have to Wait: Sebelius Renews Connecting Kids to Coverage Challenge
A new study released today by the Urban Institute Health Policy Center estimates that there were 7.3 million uninsured children in the U.S. on an average day in 2008, and five million of them (65%) were eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) but were not enrolled in either plan. The study was published...
New Section of Wisconsin Budget Project Website Devoted to Stimulus
The Wisconsin Budget Project website has a brand-new page devoted solely to Recovery Act issues. The information on this new page ranges from two-paragraph blog posts to in-depth papers. Whether you’re looking for updates about direct benefits in Wisconsin or details about additional FMAP dollars flowing to the state, this is a good...
Wisconsin Budget Project Releases New Analysis of Education Spending & Staffing
A new analysis by the Wisconsin Budget Project finds that Wisconsin is no longer much ahead of the curve on school spending and staffing. Once a national leader in educational innovation and performance, Wisconsin’s investment in K-12 education has slipped significantly relative to other states over the past decade, and it now ranks...
LFB Clarifies Effect of ARRA Funds on the Medicaid Deficit, But Newer Estimates Coming Soon
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) issued new figures last week relating to the effect of the extended federal fiscal relief for Medicaid on Wisconsin’s Medicaid (and BadgerCare Plus) deficit. The LFB memo clarifies a number of important fiscal issues, but it will be superseded in a couple of weeks by new DHS estimates of the deficit. ...
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