Advocacy

Advocacy & Policy

New reports show more Wisconsin households are more economically insecure following the COVID-19 pandemic. One such report released by the United Way suggests 34% of all Wisconsin Households income is too low to afford basic essentials such as housing, childcare, food, transportation, health care, access to technology and taxes (ALICE, 2023).

The Wisconsin Opportunity Act is a long overdue comprehensive approach to make Wisconsin a better place to live for everyone. WISCAP’s member Community Action Agencies distributed over $725 million in pandemic aid to Wisconsin households and we saw firsthand how effective certain strategies were at reducing economic insecurity, hunger and childhood poverty.

The Wisconsin Opportunity Act is a summary of things that had huge impact on people and high return on investment for Wisconsin taxpayers.

For the first time in decades, pandemic relief programs helped temporarily reduce rates of poverty by 64% in 2020 and 67% in 2021 (CBPP, 2023). This was the greatest decline in economic insecurity since the federal Economic Opportunity Act was enacted in 1964. Further declines in childhood poverty were also observed, leading to an all-time low national childhood poverty rate of 5.2%.

Despite the profound evidence documenting the economic impact of programs such as the earned income tax credit, child tax credit and supplemental SNAP program, the Wisconsin Opportunity Act is the first significant bill to come out of the Wisconsin Legislature to continue these gains.

Economic stability impacts an entire community by making housing more affordable and insuring more people have access to living wage employment and benefits. Conversely people experiencing economic instability are more likely to have poor health, experience chronic health problems and face premature death. Often people with disabilities, injuries, or conditions like arthritis experience the most economic insecurity because their conditions limit their ability to earn a living wage and pay for basic necessities. (CDC and The Network for Public Health Law, Economic Stability)

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