The Wisconsin Council on Children and Families has issued a comprehensive summary of how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will affect Wisconsin. The document examines 60 parts of the bill, and in many instances indicates how much funding Wisconsin can expect. It focuses primarily on the portions of the stimulus package that relate to state and local aid or providing assistance to struggling families.
The Center for American Progress estimates that the bill will bring more than $9 billion into Wisconsin, with much of that for new and expanded tax credits or beefed up safety net programs for people hurt by the recession. Some of the major provisions affecting Wisconsin include:

• Creating a new Making Work Pay tax credit of $400 for nearly all workers, which is expected to yield about $2.4 billion for more than 2 million Wisconsin taxpayers.
• Increasing Unemployment Insurance benefits for Wisconsin jobseekers by an estimated $679 million this year.
• A temporary 14% increase in Food Share benefits for more than 490,000 Wisconsin residents.
• Increasing the Child Tax Credit for the low-income families of an estimated 279,000 Wisconsin children.
• An additional $157 million for home weatherization in our state.
• Increasing Pell grants by $500 over the next two years, benefiting more than 91,000 Wisconsin students.
• About $34 million for child care, which should help the state from lowering the income eligibility standard.

The two major sources of state and local aid are the following:

• About $1.2 billion for Medicaid and BadgerCare Plus.
• A total of $878 million for a Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which is intended primarily to help K-12 and higher education.