MILWAUKEE (WSAU) A public policy group is finalizing a plan that seeks to cut Wisconsin's poverty rate in half.
The Community Advocates' institute in Milwaukee is calling for sweeping national reforms that include a higher minimum wage, temporary jobs for the unemployed, a new tax credit for the poor-and-disabled, and more generous tax credits for low-income workers. It would cost almost $3-billion in Wisconsin alone. And the proposal's chief architect, institute director David Riemer challenges critics to come up with something better.
Riemer, a former state budget director and Milwaukee mayoral aide, said he and economic analyst Conor Williams came up with the package in response to Milwaukee having one of the nation's 10 highest poverty rates. Riemer said it could take years for Congress to even consider his group's proposals -- and he can see them being adopted in stages. But one thing he says he wants people to realize is that government programs reduce poverty -- and those who say otherwise are wrong.
Riemer cited U-W Madison figures which showed that Wisconsin's 2009 poverty rate of 11-and-a-half percent would be 23-percent without programs like food stamps, Social Security, S-S-I, and the Earned Income Credit.
