A new Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis of the State of the States rankings places Wisconsin eighth overall among the 50 states. On WTMJ’s Point Taken, Steve Scaffidi and Kristin Brey discuss how the report compares states across 31 measures—from the economy and education to health and public safety—and questioned what Wisconsin can learn from neighboring states such as Minnesota, which ranked first overall.
Wisconsin Policy Forum communications director Mark Sommerhauser explained that Wisconsin continues to perform well in areas such as labor force participation, income equality, poverty rates and voter turnout. However, he cautioned that many of those long-standing strengths have begun to erode, with Wisconsin now trending in the wrong direction on more indicators than it is improving. Sommerhauser emphasized that while the state still ranks highly overall, maintaining those advantages will require policymakers to pay attention to the warning signs.
Sommerhauser also highlighted several areas of concern identified in the report, including slowing labor force participation, increasing rates of fatal shootings, lower birth weights among newborns and declining volunteerism. While Wisconsin is often still outperforming the national average in those categories, the gap has narrowed over time.
