News

Too Many Candles: Milwaukee Gun Violence

Gun-related violence in Milwaukee spiked in 2015. This documentary examines the response by law enforcement and elected officials to the rise in violent crime, and explores programs providing hope for a city working to empower communities to reverse systemic forces of poverty, incarceration and crime.

Milwaukee-area Latino population skyrockets

The population of Latinos in metropolitan Milwaukee increased 213% between 1990 and 2014, the overwhelming majority of whom were born in the United States, according to a new study released Thursday. The study, “Latino Milwaukee: A Statistical Portrait,” provides a comprehensive statistical look at metropolitan Milwaukee’s Latino community, from population growth and language use, to employment, income, education and business ownership. The study was conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development.

Study: Milwaukee Area’s Latino Population Has Tripled

The Milwaukee metro area’s Latino population more than tripled between the years 1990 and 2014, according to a study funded by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. The community’s growth accounted for the vast majority of the region’s population grown since 1990 and increases in the area’s school district enrollment, according to the study. The study also found Milwaukee has one of the largest cultural generation gaps of any large U.S. city. More than 85 percent of the region’s residents who are over the age of 65 are white while 51 percent of children younger than 5 are non-white.

Latino population accounts for all of area’s net growth, study finds

The Latino population is responsible for all of the Milwaukee metro area’s net growth in both population and employment during the last 25 years, a study has found. The Greater Milwaukee Foundation released the results of a study examining the four-county Milwaukee metropolitan area’s Latino population Thursday morning. The study, called “Latino Milwaukee: A Statistical Portrait” was commissioned by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and completed by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development.

An unlikely alliance to connect Milwaukee job-seekers to employers

Christopher Lane’s employment prospects were bleak. In 2015, the 45-year-old former felon lost a Milwaukee city government job when he was arrested on a charge that later was dropped. With a 20-year prison term for armed robbery on his record, Lane found his opportunities limited to temp work and side jobs. Then a chance encounter rekindled his hope.

Wisconsin heads to the polls a state divided

Wisconsin heads to the polls Tuesday as a state divided. It’s a swing state that’s gone blue in every election since 1988, but the government is under full Republican control. Governor Scott Walker ran a flash-in-the-pan presidential campaign, but only after surviving a brutal recall fight. The state also borders two metropolitan areas — Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago — so economically powerful they’re distorting Wisconsin’s key indicators.

Latino Milwaukee: A Statistical Portrait

This study provides the first comprehensive statistical portrait of metropolitan Milwaukee’s Latino community. Using the best and most recent available data, from a wide variety of sources, this study examines key areas such as population growth, immigration, residential segregation, income, poverty, and employment,

Deunionization in Wisconsin and Metro Milwaukee: A Statistical Overview

The past four years have been tumultuous ones for organized labor in Wisconsin. In 2011, the passage of Act 10 all but eliminated collective bargaining rights for public workers in the state. In 2015, Wisconsin became the nation’s 25th “right to work” (RTW) state. It was widely expected that these anti-union laws would deal crippling blows to organized labor in Wisconsin, and a recently released report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that union membership in the state has, indeed, fallen precipitously.

‘Back in time 60 years’: America’s most segregated city

Segregation. The word conjures images of the Deep South, a Jim Crow past of snarling police dogs and whites-only toilets. In fact, it is a national problem that has long outlasted the era of openly racist law. It persists, five decades after the U.S. government passed the anti-discrimination Fair Housing Act. It persists under the country’s first black president. It persists in a place barely farther south than Toronto.

Segregation: Milwaukee’s tale of two cities

For Milwaukee, it’s a tale of black and white, a city so marred by segregation; it affects every part of life

“You’ve got 40% of the population is poor, you’ve got very high rates of joblessness, in some of those neighborhoods well over 50%, of the working age population not working and on top of that you have the high concentration of high segregation.” University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Professor and Director for UWM’s Center for Economic Development Marc Levine said.