Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development

The following Labor Day message by DWD Secretary Linda Stewart was prepared for publication in  Wisconsin newspapers between now and Monday, Sept. 7. Reprint permission is hereby granted.

Labor Day 1998

By Linda Stewart
Secretary, Wisconsin Workforce Development Department

There's so much to celebrate on Labor Day this year. Just for starters:

• Wisconsin's labor force this year passed the 3,000,000-mark for the first time in history, meaning more of us than ever before in the state have reason to treat this as a special observance.

• Wisconsin's monthly jobless rate is averaging just 3.0 per cent, the lowest on record for any January-July and with April recording the lowest state unemployment rate ever.

• There's a very important group of people this Labor Day we can welcome into Wisconsin's workforce, many for the first time ever. They also are telling us they are feeling themselves included after years on the sidelines.

On this Labor Day we mark the first-year anniversary of Wisconsin's welfare reform efforts -- Wisconsin Works and also known as W-2 -- and thus have a special reason to focus on those for whom W-2 is really paying off.

They are the ones enrolled in W-2 who now have a growing sense of connection with Wisconsin's workforce, and a growing sense of satisfaction that comes from individual work-based achievement.

They also know -- or are learning -- that W-2 is giving them further reason to hope that they and their families will continue to share in the fruits of Wisconsin's economy for years to come -- and doing it standing on their own the same as most in the workforce do.

That's because they're finding work -- often without any further cash subsidies from W-2. And they're not just working at minimum wage levels, either. The average starting hourly wage for those in W-2, for example, now is $6.77.

They know what those already in the workforce know -- with good effort, growing experience and training, earnings usually rise.

They have other reasons to be optimistic about the future. With Wisconsin's jobless rate at historic lows, employers are hiring not only people who are ready to work but also those who lack training and experience but who make sure employers know they want to work.

Wisconsin employers, who we estimate could hire 110,000 more workers right now, also are benefiting from W-2. At a time when our low unemployment rates complicate their ability to find job applicants, W-2 is providing them with a new workforce to tap.

For too long, it has been a workforce hidden by myths. W-2 has challenged those myths, and the resulting arrival of this group of job seekers could not have been better timed.

Taxpayers can take satisfaction this Labor Day, too. Not only has a failed program -- AFDC -- been replaced by a very successful one, but we're spending $40 million a month less in cash assistance under W-2 now than under the AFDC program that existed when Governor Tommy Thompson took office in 1987.

We're now a state with over 3 million people in the labor force and fewer than 12,000 receiving cash assistance under W-2! That's also just a third of the number who got cash assistance under AFDC just before W-2 began a year ago.

The promises of W-2 have been kept for these people of promise.

No government program can solve everyone's problems, of course, and one impact those joining the workforce are finding is that they face new problems even as they see some of their old problems fading.

W-2 designers have tried hard to anticipate and provide resources to make sure old problems don't linger and that the new problems get quickly addressed, as well. W-2 agencies and staffs throughout the state are working hard to make sure that resources are made available when needed, and only for the time they really are needed.

For W-2 administrators, the challenge as Wisconsin begins the second year of this program is to help the more difficult-to-serve population, which now constitutes a larger share of those being served by W-2 because of the successes of the program in the first year.

There's also the challenge of making sure those who are eligible for, and need, food stamps, Medicaid, child care, and other critical support, receive that assistance promptly.

But those are challenges for us to return to the day after Labor Day. On Labor Day this year, let's focus on those who have taken advantage of the opportunities that W-2 and a strong economy have given them -- opportunities to build their confidence and self-esteem, increase their earning power, and serve as a great role model for their children.

W-2 participants clearly have made the right decision -- right for Wisconsin's taxpayers, right for Wisconsin employers, and right for themselves and their families.

 

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