High Road Strategy Center released its State of Working Wisconsin report for Labor Day this week. Clinical Associate Professor Laura Dresser, who is also the Associate Director of High Roads Strategy Center, is the lead author.
Key findings:
Wisconsin’s 2024 median wage – $25.01 per hour – reached a record high.
For the second year in a row, real wages (which take inflation into account) rose relatively quickly (up $1.40 per hour in the last two years).
Wisconsin’s jobs are growing half as fast as the national rate and 2025 growth has been weak.
Wisconsin has 2% more jobs than before the pandemic; the nation has added 5% to its job base over the same time. Wisconsin added just 1400 jobs each month in 2025.
Federal policies – pro-tariff, anti-immigrant, and anti-worker – are reshaping the economy, and Wisconsin workers will pay the price.
Tariffs increase prices, hostility toward immigrants hobbles labor market growth, and federal cuts to health care and other supports will hit Wisconsin’s low-wage workers particularly hard.
Wisconsin’s workers are losing the protection of unions at a rate that outstrips national and neighboring states.
In Wisconsin, union coverage collapsed from 14% to 7% from 2011-24. Over the same period, national unionization fell from 13% to 11%.
Immigrant workers make massive contributions to the Wisconsin economy.
Wisconsin’s 320,000 immigrants make up 7% of the state’s workforce, generate $23 billion in economic output, and contribute in every sector of our economy.
“The administration is forging a disturbing path,” said High Road Strategy Center Director Joel Rogers. “Busting unions, breaking our health care system, and delivering tax breaks to billionaires are a higher priority than actually running a government that works for working people.”