MADISON – Today’s Assembly session featured eight Republican authored bills targeted at the State’s Unemployment Insurance benefits while Wisconsin’s unemployment rate fell to 2.5% in March 2023.
Democrats in the Assembly say the bills ignore the realities of the workforce challenges facing Wisconsin, which are being driven by changing demographics and people leaving the state, not by unemployed individuals sitting on the sidelines. Wisconsin’s unemployment rate continues to be lower than the national average and at the same time Wisconsin’s labor force participation rate continues to be higher than the national average. Republicans will not address the issues that would significantly improve Wisconsinites quality of life and connect workers to jobs such as access to affordable child care, housing, and transit options.
Representative Snodgrass (D-57, Appleton) released the following statement:
“Legislators on both sides of the aisle are hearing from both businesses and workers that the top three reasons they are struggling to find workers or return to work are childcare, affordable housing near their place of business, and lack of transit options. Instead of insinuating that Wisconsinites are lazy couch surfers refusing to work, we need to come together to find real solutions on the barriers to work. Working parents throughout my district are calling for additional child care options and childcare providers are pleading for the continuation of Child Care Counts funding in the 2023-2025 budget in order to keep their doors open. When 1 in 3 zip codes in Wisconsin do not have adequate childcare for their families and the current childcare crisis is draining 1.9 billion dollars from the state economy annually, it is both ignorant, reckless and anti-business not to address the issue.”