Forty-one percent of all Milwaukee workers are paid less than $15 per hour, according to a new report from a UW–Madison think tank.
In its “Facts from the Frontline” report, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) highlights the declining share of manufacturing employees making up the region’s workforce, as well as falling union membership and rising income inequality along racial lines, reports WisBusiness.
Between 1979 and 2019, the gap between real median household income for Black and white Milwaukee residents rose from 40% to 60%, the report shows. Over the same period, the percentage of the region’s workforce made up by manufacturing jobs plummeted from 40% to 12%.
And union membership among Milwaukee workers dropped from 24% to 12%, according to the report.
Using figures from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, report authors found 41% of the city’s 243,221 workers make less than $15 per hour. Those workers are much less likely to receive employer benefits such as health insurance. And they work 34 hours per week on average, compared to the standard 40 hours per week average for the other 59% of workers.
