MADISON, WI (WTAQ) – Milwaukee continues to be one of the nation’s most impoverished big cities, but it’s not the only place in Wisconsin that’s feeling the pinch.
A new analysis of Census data from UW-Madison shows that poverty rates grew significantly in 31 of the state’s 72 counties during a five-year period ending in 2014, just as we were coming out of the Great Recession.
The report says poverty in general is the highest in the state since 1984, and analysts blame it on racial disparities and the inability of the poor to get ahead.
An estimated 738,000 Wisconsinites, or 13 percent of the population, lived in poverty at some point from 2010 through ’14 — up from 605,000 the previous five years.
The new report says 239,000 children lived in poverty, or 18.5 percent of the state’s kids — an increase of almost 4 percent from the latter half of the last decade.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
