COWS in the News

“While it moves wages for 3 in 10 Wisconsin workers, it moves wages up for half of Hispanic workers and half of Black workers in the state, and 37% of women,” says Laura Dresser, associate …

Kids Forward Chief Executive Officer and COWS Senior Fellow Michele Mackey is interviewed about the group’s emphasis on racial equity, and how there is no rural-urban divide and the governor’s proposed budget. Kids Forward is …

Laura Dresser says the current state minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is simply not enough, and has been the same for more than a decade. “It just gets less and less meaningful, and less …

A new report from COWS, a UW-Madison-based think tank, found that raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025 would raise the earnings of 30 percent of Wisconsin’s workers. It would also increase earnings …

In an interview, UniverCity director Gavin Luter said the program undertakes about 60 projects per year across the state. The proposed state budget funding would allow the capacity to increase to about 100 per year.

Laura Dresser, who specializes in labor economics at UW-Madison, said these disparities come because most workers of color in Wisconsin work low-income jobs.  Obviously, an economic recession could only worsen their situation. https://badgerherald.com/opinion/2021/03/18/as-covid-19-crisis-increases-wealth-gap-wi-and-uw-must-cooperate-on-social-welfare-reform/

“You can see that even though it’s a universal policy … it raises the wages and brings towards the middle, workers who are disproportionately at the bottom — and that’s Black and brown workers and that’s women …

The 10th Anniversary Report provides an overview of ECC’s first decade of achievements and a prescription for what is required to put the United States on a high road toward a sustainable, just and democratic …

“We’re focusing on what economic change means for working people,” Laura Dresser said. Work changed dramatically for everybody during the pandemic, she said. Some lost their jobs and still have no job, some face potential …

“Those of us who are carefully ensconced in our homes are not able to see the desperation in the communities of people who have lost work and cannot figure out how to get food on …