MacIver Institute
Press Release

Positive Poverty News Clearly Shows a Job and Economic Growth are the Keys to Ending Poverty, Not Government Programs

Market income poverty fell by 1.5 percent, and the official poverty rate also dropped.

By - May 25th, 2017 11:09 am

[Madison, Wisc…] Rates of poverty in Wisconsin are at historic lows, according to a new report. The significant decline in poverty, combined with a near-record low unemployment rate, is a clear demonstration that work leads a person out of poverty.

“This is confirmation of what fiscal conservatives have been saying all along – by far the best way to lift a person out of poverty is capitalism and a growing economy, not another new government program,” said MacIver Institute President Brett Healy.

The Wisconsin Poverty Report by the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison found that all three measurements of poverty used in the report “fell significantly in 2015 compared to 2014.” Market income poverty fell by 1.5 percent, and the official poverty rate also dropped.

Quoting directly from the report: “Our key finding is that as employment rose by 70,000 jobs in Wisconsin during the period of this report, there was a significant reduction in poverty, as measured by the Wisconsin Poverty Measure (WPM), to 9.7 percent, the lowest rate recorded in our nine years of writing this report.”

“Governor Walker and the Legislature should be commended for their historic reforms – Act 10, massive tax cuts, tort reform, simplification of the tax code, regulatory reform – that have led to a growing economy,” Healy said.

“I hope my friends on the far left will remember this lesson – if we truly want to help our fellow citizens in need, we need to rein in government, not expand it. We need to unleash the awesome power of capitalism to make long-lasting and meaningful change that actually helps people.”

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.

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16 thoughts on “Positive Poverty News Clearly Shows a Job and Economic Growth are the Keys to Ending Poverty, Not Government Programs”

  1. Michael Schwister says:

    Bwaa haaaa haaa ha. Another Grebe gasbag trying to tell us what and how to think ? And some people believe this line of bs.

  2. AG says:

    Michael Schwister, what specifically do you take issue with here?

  3. WashCoRepub says:

    Great seeing this positive economic growth, and how it’s lifting people up. Combine this with efforts like The Joseph Project, a passion of Senator Ron Johnson, and you can see which party cares about putting people to work and helping them make positive differences in their lives. Keep moving things forward, Wisconsin!

  4. Michael Schwister says:

    AG Where does Brett Healy get his paycheck? Who supports Maciver? Who supports the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute? Who was Scott Walkers campaign chair? Who supports the John Birch Society? Club for Growth? If you can’t connect some dots here, well, I can’t help you. Since when are paid grifters a reliable source for anything they represent. They don’t represent the truth, they invent studies to prove their point and have dismissed science at their convenience. I could go on forever but it is more enlightening to find out associations for ones self.

  5. Vincent Hanna says:

    In one of the Bradley Foundation stories Bruce Murphy said organizations don’t get any more blatantly partisan (and unreliable) than MacIver. Apparently some only raise eyebrows when the press releases come from left-wing groups. Right-wing groups? How dare someone questions a press release??!!

  6. Vincent Hanna says:

    WashCoRepub is commenting on his own press releases again.

  7. AG says:

    Michael Schwister, thanks… but I don’t think anyone believes a press release from the McIver Institute comes without an agenda. That wasn’t my question though. I asked what part of their press release you disagreed with.

  8. Vincent Hanna says:

    Yes Michael Schwister please explain how you could possibly object to anything in that press release considering the mounds of convincing evidence used to support the claim in the release’s title.

  9. AG says:

    K, I’m trying to understand, Vincent. It sounds as if you disagree that jobs are the best way to get people out of poverty?

  10. Michael Schwister says:

    AG “Governor Walker and the Legislature should be commended for their historic reforms – Act 10, massive tax cuts, tort reform, simplification of the tax code, regulatory reform – that have led to a growing economy,” Healy said.This is what I object to.
    Act 10 took the discretionary income from 250000 public workers crippling our economy.
    Taxes went down for the top wage earners, I haven’t noticed my tax go down very much.
    We manage to give tax dollars to private, for profit corporations and religious schools but we can’t fix our roads, support our schools, keep our state with high conservation or pollution standards. And what really irks me is the credit card budgets and the inevitable payment due. Can we agree to keep our public dollars for public use, period?

  11. AG says:

    Thanks Michael Schwister. I figured it was just that one paragraph you had an issue with, just wanted to confirm. I understand your point of view, even though I disagree with your stance on many of those issues.

  12. Michael Schwister says:

    AG Where I come from bs is still bs. I’m glad that I am so easy for people to figure out. Then you know that when someone lies to you repeatedly, you begin to ignore the diatribe. Without going further, I have not researched this study, whether it was conducted from a research aspect or an opinion aspect. I have no way of knowing whether or not it would exist if we unkoched our campuses and will not waste my time looking. This article is written by a paid propaganda arm of the Bradley Foundation. Nothing more, nothing less.

  13. Daddy2Girls says:

    This statement assumes but fails to show a causal connection between Walker’s “reforms” and any changes in the poverty status of Wisconsin citizens. One could just as well state that President Obama’s economic policies resulted in a lessening of poverty in Wisconsin. It is important to note that many people may read this and think Healy’s line crediting Governor Walker for this change comes directly from that report. It does not.

    Link to report: http://www.irp.wisc.edu/research/WisconsinPoverty/pdfs/WI-PovertyReport2017.pdf

  14. Eric J says:

    ” We need to unleash the awesome power of capitalism to make long-lasting and meaningful change that actually helps people.”

    -That line to me means that the current CEO of WeEnergies should not be getting a multi-million dollar bonus for heading a monopoly in our state. Likewise other CEO’s getting large $$ bonuses and cutting/ gutting staff.

  15. RMH says:

    I love when cults hand out new pamphlets telling the same old fairy tale

  16. James says:

    According to the Report, Milwaukee’s central city has a overall poverty rate of 36%, and a child poverty rate of 41.5%. At page 16:

    “[W]ithin Milwaukee County, overall poverty rates ranged from about 10.4 percent in one southern and one western subcounty area to 36.7 percent in the central city of Milwaukee in 2015, suggesting a significant segregation of the poor and the rich within that county. Furthermore, Milwaukee is surrounded by wealthy suburban counties to the north and west, where overall poverty rates are also notably below the state average (e.g., Waukesha County at 4.7 percent
    and Washington/Ozaukee counties at 4.5 percent).”

    “Child poverty within Milwaukee County varies even more from 41.5 percent in the central city to 4.8 percent
    in the northeast region of the county.”

    Thus, more effort needs to be made at the State level to increase family-wage jobs in Milwaukee.

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