Studies have identified a caregiver shortfall in the U.S., and higher immigration has been empirically linked to alleviating this.
Adults 65 and over made up 18% of the U.S. population in 2024, up from 12% in 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Estimates suggest that this will rise to 23% in 2060. These increases mean an increased demand for caregiving.
Caregiving is often performed by immigrants. One study published in the American Journal of Health Economics finds that immigration increases nurse hours in nursing homes and leads to an improvement in the outcomes of residents. Another study by Tara Watson (Brookings), Kristin Butcher (Wellesley), and Kelsey Moran (MIT) estimated that a 10 percentage point rise in the share of the population that is foreign-born decreases the percentage of the elderly living in a care facility by 29%. This is due to a greater availability of home care.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
This fact brief was originally published by Econofact on October 27, 2025, and was authored by Gabriel Vinocur. Econofact is a member of the Gigafact network.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ sweeping plan to overhaul Wisconsin’s aging prison system, which includes closing a prison built in the 1800s, moved forward Tuesday with bipartisan support despite complaints from Republican lawmakers that their concerns weren’t being addressed.
The bipartisan state building commission unanimously approved spending $15 million to proceed with planning for the Evers proposal. Republicans objected, saying his plan was “doomed to failure,” but they voted for it in the hopes it could be changed later.
Evers voiced frustration with Republicans who said they weren’t part of development of the plan.
“We’ve got to get this damned thing done, that’s the bottom line,” he said.
Republicans have opposed parts of the plan that would reduce the overall capacity of the state prison system by 700 beds and increase the number of offenders who could be released on supervision. The GOP-led Legislature called for closing the troubled prison in Green Bay by 2029, but Evers vetoed that provision earlier this year, saying it couldn’t be done without getting behind his entire plan.
The building commission’s approval on Tuesday for spending the $15 million in planning money starts that process.
Republican members of the building commission complained that Evers was plowing ahead without considering other ideas or concerns from GOP lawmakers. Republican state Sen. Andre Jacqué objected to reducing the number of beds in the prison system that he said is currently “dangerously unsafe.”
He called it a plan “doomed to failure” and “not a serious proposal.”
“I feel like we’ve decided to plow ahead without the opportunity for compromise,” Jacqué said. “We’re merely asking that any ideas from our side of the aisle have the option of being considered.”
A GOP proposal to expand the scope of the plan was rejected after the commission, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, deadlocked.
Evers said any Republican who wanted to be involved in the process going forward could be. Republicans said ahead of the vote that they were not included in discussions that led to the current proposal.
“Those other options will be discussed,” Evers said.
Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy said that approval of the planning money was needed to keep the momentum going for closing the Green Bay prison, which Republicans support.
The entire plan, once fully enacted, would take six years to complete and cost an estimated $500 million. Building a new prison, as Republicans had called for, would cost about $1 billion. Evers is not seeking a third term next year, so it would be up to the next governor to either continue with his plan or go in a different direction.
The multitiered proposal starts with finally closing the troubled Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake juvenile correctional facilities in northern Wisconsin and building a new one near Madison at the site of a current minimum-security prison. The Lincoln Hills campus would then be converted into a medium security adult prison. The prison in Green Bay, built in 1898, would be closed.
The plan also proposes that the state’s oldest prison, which was built in Waupun in 1851, be converted from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security center focused on vocational training. The Stanley Correctional Center would be converted from a medium- to a maximum-security prison and the prison in Hobart would be expanded to add 200 minimum-security beds.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Affordable Care Act premiums, expected to skyrocket in 2026 unless enhanced subsidies are extended, have increased about 118% since coverage for individuals began in 2014.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., made the three-times claim Oct. 21, as the federal government shutdown continued.
To end the shutdown, Democrats want to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which made more people eligible. They expire Dec. 31.
Without enhanced subsidies, Wisconsinites could see 2026 premium increases of up to 800%, according to the state.
The average monthly premium for a benchmark Obamacare plan was $273 in 2014; it is expected to be at least $596 in 2026.
Premiums, initially so low that insurers lost money, jumped in 2017, stayed stable since 2018 but are expected to rise more than 18% in 2026, KFF Obamacare program director Cynthia Cox said.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Lake Pepin, the largest naturally occurring lake on the Mississippi River, is a beloved resource and important economic engine for the Wisconsin and Minnesota towns that border it.
In the summer, its calm, expansive waters are popular for sailing and water skiing — the latter of which was invented on the lake in 1922. In the winter, it’s an ice fishing hub.
But it’s got a big problem: Massive amounts of sediment are eroding from stream banks, bluffs and agricultural fields upstream and settling in the lake. Parts of it have become so shallow that boat travel is impossible, leaving some communities cut off. The upper one-third of the lake could be unusable for recreation by the end of this century.
A new yearlong project aims to understand how to curb an overlooked source of that sediment.
The Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, a nonprofit organization working to improve the health of the lake, has launched an investigation into how erosion can be controlled in ravines and gullies. Ravines act like fast-moving highways, delivering soil into the Mississippi River and then the lake, according to the alliance. The analysis will be led by Norman Senjem, who retired from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 2011 and has deep knowledge of the lake’s challenges with sedimentation.
Senjem plans to work with county conservationists and watershed groups in south-central Minnesota, which delivers large sediment loads to Lake Pepin, to identify the best ways to stop erosion from ravines.
Michael Anderson, executive director of the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, said with results from Senjem in hand, landowners will be able to take action to stop sediment from ravines on their properties.
“We’re obviously not the people who will be the excavators,” he said. “We’ll help put the pieces together and start to push the snowball down the hill to get momentum going.”
‘Hidden’ ravines deliver massive sediment loads to Lake Pepin
Lake Pepin, which stretches 21 miles between Bay City and Nelson on Wisconsin’s western border, has always acted as a sort of settling pond for sediment. Once river water enters the top of the lake, its slower-moving waters allow silts and other particles to drop to the bottom, and the water that exits the lake and flows farther down the river is cleaner.
But sediment erosion has increased tenfold since before European settlement of the area. Each year, a sediment load as big as a 32-story building spanning a full city block enters the lake, according to the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance. At this rate, the entire lake could be filled in less than 350 years.
A large majority of that sediment comes from the Minnesota River basin, which covers nearly 15,000 square miles, including many areas that are heavily farmed. There are thousands of ravines that cut through the slopes on the sides of the river, ushering sediment from the farmed landscape quickly downstream.
“But they’re kind of hidden away,” on the edges of farm fields or wooded areas, Senjem said. “I’m going to try to shed some light on them.”
Built structures called water and sediment control basins can intercept sediment from ravines, Senjem said. But increased rainfall across the Midwest due to climate change is rendering the basins less effective. The expanded use of agricultural drainage tile in the Minnesota River basin, an underground pipe network meant to more easily drain farm fields, also contributes to water flowing faster down ravines.
Senjem expects to find that more work will be necessary to control the problem, such as building multiple control basins in a row to slow the sediment or adding so-called “buffer strips,” made of grass or permanent vegetation, to help catch more of it.
Over the next year, Senjem will study which options like these have been implemented across south-central Minnesota to limit sediment from ravines. Those might offer a road map to members of the Legacy Alliance as to which types are most effective. Since such projects can be costly, he’ll also include in his analysis what kinds of financial assistance are available to landowners to undertake them.
For landowners to want to take action to save a lake many miles away, there’s got to be local incentive, too, Senjem said — like if a restored ravine would protect a road or smooth out a farm field. He’ll prioritize potential solutions that do that as well.
The project is funded by a $15,000 grant from the Red Wing Area Fund, a community foundation on the north end of Lake Pepin.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin resumed scheduling abortions on Monday after a nearly monthlong pause due to federal Medicaid funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill that took effect at the beginning of October.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said it was able to resume scheduling abortions as of noon on Monday because it no longer fits the definition of a “prohibited entity” under the new federal law that took effect this month and can receive Medicaid funds.
The organization said it dropped its designation as an “essential community provider” as defined under the Affordable Care Act. Dropping the designation will not result in changes to the cost for abortions or other services or affect the organization’s funding, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin President and CEO Tanya Atkinson said.
“At this point, in all of our research and analysis, we really shouldn’t see much of an impact on patient access,” she said. “If relinquishing this does ultimately impact our bottom line, then we will have to understand what that path forward is.”
A national fight over abortion funding
Abortion funding has been under attack across the U.S., particularly for affiliates of Planned Parenthood, the biggest provider. The abortion landscape has shifted frequently since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that allowed states to ban abortion. Currently, 12 states do not allow it at any stage of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four more ban it after about six weeks’ gestation.
Planned Parenthood has warned that about half its clinics that provide abortion could be closed nationwide due to the ban in the new federal law on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for services other than abortion.
Wisconsin, where abortion is legal but the Republican-controlled Legislature has passed numerous laws limiting access, was the only state where Planned Parenthood paused all abortions because of the new federal law, Atkinson said.
Because of the complexities and varieties of state abortion laws, Planned Parenthood affiliates are responding to the new federal law in a variety of ways, Atkinson said. In Arizona, for example, Planned Parenthood stopped accepting Medicaid but continued to provide abortions.
The move in Wisconsin is “clearly aimed at sidestepping” the federal law, Wisconsin Right to Life said.
“Planned Parenthood’s abortion-first business model underscores why taxpayer funding should never support organizations that make abortion a priority,” said Heather Weininger, executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life. “Women in difficult circumstances deserve compassionate, life-affirming care — the kind of support the pro-life movement is committed to offering.”
Impact on Wisconsin abortion clinics
In Wisconsin, pausing abortions for the past 26 days meant that women who would normally go to clinics in the southeastern corner of the state instead had to look for other options, including traveling to Chicago, which is within a three-hour drive of the Planned Parenthood facilities.
Affiliated Medical Services and Care for All also provide abortions at clinics in Milwaukee.
Atkinson said it was “really, really difficult to say” how many women were affected by the pause in services. She did not have numbers on how many women who wanted to have an abortion since the pause went into effect had to seek services elsewhere.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin serves about 50,000 people, and about 60% of them are covered by Medicaid, the organization said.
Given those numbers, the priority was on finding a way to continue receiving Medicaid funding and dropping the “essential community provider” status, Atkinson said.
Wisconsin is part of a multistate federal lawsuit challenging the provision in the law. A federal appeals court in September said the government could halt the payments while a court challenge to the provision moves ahead.
Ramifications for Medicaid
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin cited a Sept. 29 court filing on behalf of U.S. Health and Human Services that said family planning organizations could continue billing Medicaid if they gave up either their tax-exempt status or the “essential community provider” designation.
By giving up that designation, it no longer fits the definition of “prohibited entity” under the federal law and can continue to receive federal Medicaid funds, the organization said. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is not giving up its tax-exempt status.
The “essential community provider” designation was originally given to organizations to help make it easier for them to be considered in-network for billing with private health insurers, Planned Parenthood said.
Atkinson called it a “nuanced provision” of the law and she does not anticipate that giving it up will affect Planned Parenthood’s ability to continue providing abortions and other services.
Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of services including cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. Federal Medicaid money was already not paying for abortion, but affiliates relied on Medicaid to stay afloat. Services other than abortion are expected to expand in light of the new law.
Planned Parenthood performed 3,727 abortions in Wisconsin between Oct. 1, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024, the group said.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to overhaul Wisconsin’s prisons is set for a crucial vote this week that could determine whether the state can meet a 2029 closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution and the long-awaited shutdown of Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth facilities.
The State Building Commission at a public meeting Tuesday is expected to vote on whether to release $15 million for advancing Evers’ plan, an amount the Legislature included in the 2025-27 biennial budget. Subcommittees will meet prior to the full commission Tuesday afternoon, which could signal how Republican members may vote on the money for Evers’ plan. Republican lawmakers were tight-lipped Monday morning about whether they have an alternative plan and whether they plan to roll it out Tuesday.
Evers in February announced what he called a “domino series” of projects that would include closing Green Bay Correctional Institution, converting Lincoln Hills into a facility for adults and turning Waupun’s prison into a “vocational village” that would offer job skill training to qualifying inmates. Evers describes the plan as the most realistic and cost-effective way to stabilize the state’s prison population.
The Green Bay prison has been roundly criticized as unsafe and outdated, Lincoln Hills has only in recent months come into compliance with a court-ordered plan to remedy problems dating back a decade, and Waupun has had lockdowns, inmate deaths and criminal charges against a former warden.
The $15 million would fund initial plans and a design report that would allow capital projects in Evers’ proposals to be funded in the 2025-27 budget, according to the governor’s office. It would also prevent delays of Evers’ plan while he is still in office. Evers is not seeking reelection next year, and Wisconsin will have a new governor in 2027.
But it’s unclear how the eight-member commission, which includes four Republicans, will vote on whether to release the $15 million for the governor’s plan. Sens. Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, and Andre Jacqué, R-New Franken, declined to comment while still reviewing the proposals. Reps. Rob Swearingen, R-Rhinelander, and Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia, did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch.
In addition to Evers, the commission includes Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska; Rep. Jill Billings, D-La Crosse; and citizen member Barb Worcester, who served as one of Evers’ initial deputy chiefs of staff.
Pfaff, who said he will support Evers’ request, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the $15 million will get approved with the necessary bipartisan support for it to pass. It’s not a final policy decision, Pfaff said.
“I think it’s important to know that the proposal that’s being brought forward is a design and planning stage, so it’s not the end-all or be-all,” Pfaff said.
At least one Republican, Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, has asked fellow party members on the commission to support Evers’ request. Howard represents a district near the Green Bay Correctional Institution.
“I believe that the release of the $15 million will be important in moving corrections planning forward in our state,” Steffen wrote in an Oct. 14 letter to the Republican commission members.
Corrections plans in the Legislature
The funding for Evers’ prison plan, which was included in the governor’s original budget proposal, totaled $325 million. During the budget process the Legislature approved just $15 million for corrections projects and a 2029 closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, criticized the governor for not including GOP lawmakers in the process and suggested the party would form its own plan.
“The idea of letting thousands of people out of jail early, tearing down prisons and not replacing the spots, I can’t imagine our caucus will go for it,” Vos told reporters in February.
A spokesperson for Vos did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch about whether the party started a process for forming its own plan. Evers in July partially vetoed the 2029 deadline for the Green Bay Correctional Institution and criticized Republicans for setting a date without providing a plan to close the prison.
While lawmakers on the State Building Commission have since been tight-lipped about which way they plan to vote, leaders in both Waupun and Allouez — on whose land Green Bay Correctional sits — haven’t been shy to express their support for the plan.
Waupun Mayor Rohn Bishop said he favors any plan that will keep Waupun Correctional Institution open. With three prisons within its jurisdiction, Waupun has been called Prison City in honor of its major employers.
“We take pride in the fact it’s here,” Bishop said of the 180-year-old prison.
Under the proposal, Waupun’s prison would turn from a traditional, maximum prison to what’s been called a vocational village that would offer job-skill training to those who qualify. The idea is modeled after similar programs in Michigan, Missouri and Louisiana.
“The first and most important thing is to keep the prison here for the economic reasons of the jobs, what it does for Waupun utilities, and how our wastewater sewage plant is built for the prison,” Bishop said. “If it were to close, that would shift to the ratepayers.”
In recent years, complaints about dire conditions within the cell halls have mounted, with inmates describing a crumbling infrastructure and infestations of birds and rodents. Under Evers’ proposal, Waupun’s prison would have to temporarily close while the facility undergoes renovations.
Meanwhile, under Evers’ plan, Green Bay’s prison is slated to close. In Allouez, where the prison stands, village President Jim Rafter said the closure can’t come soon enough.
“I’m more optimistic than ever that the plans will move forward this time,” Rafter said, pointing to the bipartisan support he has seen on the issue.
For Rafter, his eagerness to close the prison is partly economic: The prison currently stands on some of the most valuable real estate in Brown County, he said, and redeveloping it would be a financial boon for the village of Allouez.
But it also comes from safety concerns for both correctional officers and inmates.
“GBCI historically has been one of the most dangerous facilities across Wisconsin, built in the 1800s, and it has well outlived its usefulness,” Rafter said. “Its design doesn’t allow for safe passage of inmates from one area to the other. So safety is a huge concern.”
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When a major infrastructure project comes to town, it can become a herculean effort to locate information about the development and its potential environmental impacts.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources hosts an online permitting database. The website serves as a public repository of documents related to projects like large livestock farms, mines and even mock beaver dams.
But queue it up and face an onslaught of records.
If it takes a grown professional to decipher the documents, what would it take for a teenager to care?
A student club in Stillwater Area Public Schools, located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, is exploring methods to bring such esoteric data to life.
At a recent environmental forum in Hudson, Wisconsin, the youth showcased their work, including constructing a submersible robot that will assess water quality in area lakes.
Another project examined water quality in the St. Croix River watershed — spanning both Minnesota and Wisconsin — including the potential impacts of a proposed Burnett County hog farm.
That animal operation was the subject of a three-part Wisconsin Watch investigation, which found that the developers improperly designated some farmland for manure spreading without the property owners’ consent.
Wisconsin regulations require the owners of large farms to own or rent a sufficient land base on which to apply livestock manure, but Wisconsin Watch verified that at least 11 of 39 landowners listed in the farm’s plan were not contacted. Some hadn’t decided if they wanted manure on their land, while many objected outright.
Even after the developers proposed hauling excess manure to Minnesota, the Wisconsin DNR rejected their application.
The hog farm would have been constructed in the headwaters of the St. Croix River in the town of Trade Lake. Field runoff ultimately would have flowed downstream to Stillwater.
Livestock farming in the St. Croix River watershed introduces fecal waste equivalent to 3.25 million people, according to estimates produced by retired University of Iowa faculty member Chris Jones, who specializes in water quality monitoring.
Area drinking wells already exceed nitrate standards, and residents feared that manure from an additional 20,000-pig farm would be a toxic addition.
Michael Manore, founder and project lead of the “This is Stillwater” initiative, which partners with the student club, created the digital model of the watershed showcased at the forum. He said the visuals sharpened the scope of the hog farm’s possible impacts: widespread manure hauling, roadside spills and odor.
The school district’s Synergy Club, led by Julie Balfanz, encourages students to visualize data in novel ways, using tools like the computer game Minecraft.
“So many of these ideas came from the kids because this is what they’re into,” Balfanz said. “But they just don’t have adults that listen to their ideas and let them experiment.”
Manore and Balfanz hope their efforts inspire youth to respond to community challenges, including environmental sustainability and water quality.
In a digitized world, human attention is an increasingly valuable commodity, and Manore realized that more than a dozen state and federal agencies govern surface water and underground aquifers, producing an “insurmountable” puddle of data.
“So much of sustainability is checkmarks or checkboxes on a brochure,” he said. “I go out and stand in my environment and I sniff the air or I dig my feet into the ground or I swim in the water. I don’t have a clue what that checkmark box translates into the true raw health metrics of my community.”
Now Manore is pondering ways to dispense with screens altogether — or at least plant them in nature.
Could tech use DNR records to augment reality like an interactive game of Pokémon GO?
Manore sure hopes so.
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The average Wisconsin farmer is nearly 57 years old, and farmers are increasingly finding that their children don’t want to take over their operations.
Legislation introduced by Wisconsin lawmakers would create a state-run farmland link program to connect farmers who are interested in selling or renting out their land to beginning farmers.
Eight states, including Minnesota and Michigan, have land link programs run in whole or in part by government agencies.
While advocates say the need for this type of program is real, some feel the legislation needs to include funding to be successful.
Joy Kirkpatrick spends much of her time thinking about the future of Wisconsin’s farmland.
As a farm succession outreach specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, she helps farmers figure out what to do with their farms when they’re ready to retire.
A flood of farmers will soon face that question. The average Wisconsin farmer is nearly 57, and a growing share are 65 or older.
For generations, the answer was simple: Hand off the land and operations to their kids. But farmers are increasingly finding their grown children have other plans.
To fund their retirement, today’s farmers will often weigh whether to rent or sell their land to larger agricultural operations, real estate developers, energy companies or even private equity firms.
Meanwhile, a new generation of aspiring farmers is struggling to get started. Many didn’t grow up on farms and don’t have the land they need. In surveys, beginning farmers nationwide say their biggest challenge is finding affordable farmland.
Nationally, nearly 70% of all farmland is expected to change hands in the next 20 years, whether through inheritance or sale, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. What happens to that land will determine whether Wisconsin’s farmers can retire comfortably, and whether small farms have a place in the state’s future.
“If we want land to be available to new or beginning farmers, figuring out ways that the land can be affordable for them and still provide the income that the owner generation needs is key,” Kirkpatrick said.
Experts say meeting those two goals will require a combination of strategies including tax incentives, conservation easements and loan assistance. But a group of Wisconsin lawmakers is looking to make a dent in the problem with a simple step: a website to connect those with farmland for sale or rent to those looking to start new farms.
A group of Republican lawmakers introduced Assembly Bill 411 and its Senate counterpart, SB 412, this summer. The legislation would direct the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to create a “farmland link” program to assist farmers with transferring property. Central to that effort, the bill instructs DATCP to build and maintain a website where farm owners could post land for sale or rent, and beginning farmers could inquire about the opportunities they’re looking for, including the chance to be mentored by an experienced farmer before taking the reins.
The legislation’s lead author, Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, grew up on a dairy farm and now runs a roughly 50-head beef operation. He’s watched farmland prices rise, much like home prices.
“It’s much, much more challenging than it was even five to 10 years ago,” Moses said.
It’s not just a cost problem, Moses said. In the past, farmers looking to pass on their land would talk to their neighbors to see who was interested. Today, those communities are often less connected, so prospective farmers need other ways to find land, Moses said. That’s the purpose of a farmland link website.
“It kind of allows them to not have to go out and sift through all the other real estate listings,” Moses said.
Eight other states, including neighboring Minnesota and Michigan, have land link programs run in whole or in part by state or local governments. In Wisconsin, where the previous state-run program shut down around a decade ago, only regional nonprofitorganizations now offer the service.
While some Wisconsin farm advocates are optimistic the bill could chip away at a tough problem, others say it lacks the funding and specifics to make it work.
Pair finds farm of their dreams
Les Macare and Els Dobrick of Racing Heart Farm in Colfax found their 36 acres in the Farmland Clearinghouse listings, published by the Minnesota-based nonprofit Land Stewardship Project.
It was 2016, and the two lived in Minneapolis and rented farmland in Stillwater, where they grew vegetables for Minneapolis farmers markets and a CSA.
But they were getting tired of commuting 40 minutes every morning and evening.
“We knew either we were going to start looking for land, or not farm,” Macare said.
Les Macare (pictured) and partner Els Dobrick own Racing Heart Farm. The pair previously lived in Minneapolis and rented farmland in Stillwater, Minn., which required them to drive 40 minutes one-way. They found the farm that would become theirs online. After an in-person tour, they knew “it was absolutely the perfect thing for our farm business, and for us,” Macare said. (Courtesy of Racing Heart Farm)
From the listing, the former sheep and vegetable farm in Dunn County sounded like a dream. The owners, a pair of sisters and their young families, were looking to move somewhere less rural. When Macare and Dobrick visited, the rolling hills and rocky outcroppings reminded Macare of their home state of Connecticut.
“We got back in the car and we looked at each other like, can we make this happen? Because it was absolutely the perfect thing for our farm business, and for us,” Macare said.
Getting financing took more than nine months, but the sellers waited. That, Macare said, is one benefit of this kind of listing service: The buyers and sellers know the farm business and its particular challenges.
Many landowners who advertise through the Clearinghouse are motivated by more than money, said Karen Stettler, who oversees the listings for the Land Stewardship Project. Many have cultivated their land organically for years and want to see their farms continue the same way.
“People have a lot of connection to land and to what they’re doing on farms and so are very good stewards and caretakers of their land, and they’re wanting to make sure that the next generation also has that same sort of value and vision around stewardship,” Stettler said.
Today, Macare is grateful for the opportunity to raise their vegetables and sheep on their own land.
“The cost of land has just gotten really astronomical,” Macare said. “I feel so lucky that we bought when we did because I don’t know that 10 years later I would be able to even consider spending what I think the value of this land is now based on seeing prices around us change.”
How would the program work?
If the proposed legislation passes, Wisconsin will offer a similar service to the one Macare used, but the one-page bill offers little detail on how it would work.
That might be a good thing, said Dan Bauer, program supervisor for the Wisconsin Farm Center at DATCP. His office would oversee the program if the Legislature passes the bill and it’s signed into law.
The broad nature of the bill could allow his team to create what they think will be most effective, Bauer said.
He first heard about the bill around the time it was introduced in August, when his department was asked to estimate its cost. They budgeted $66,800 in one-time costs for building the website and $100,300 a year for a full-time staff person to help design and promote it, as well as to provide “shoulder-to-shoulder, on-the-ground, wraparound farmland access services” to site users. They added another $5,000 for initial education, outreach and marketing efforts.
Wisconsin has two nonprofit-run farmland link programs that primarily serve farmers who use organic or “sustainable” practices. The proposed state-run program would serve all kinds of farms and farmers, said Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, lead author of the bill. (Courtesy of Racing Heart Farm)
For the plan to work, Bauer said, staff will need to reach out to farmers who are preparing to transition out of farming and encourage them to advertise their land. Farmers will also need expert help before, during and after any land transfer.
“A website by itself is not going to deliver the desired outcomes as a stand-alone,” Bauer said. “To really design and launch a program that the state would be happy with, I think it has to be a combination of the website and then also that on-the-ground coaching and advising and mentorship.”
The bill doesn’t include any appropriations, so if it passes, Bauer said the department “would have to explore its options” to cover the $172,100 total.
While Wisconsin’s two nonprofit-run farmland link programs primarily serve farmers who use organic or “sustainable” practices, the state-run program would serve all kinds of farms and farmers, Moses said.
Bauer and an agency spokesperson said they knew the Farm Center previously administered a similar program, but they did not know how it worked, when it operated or why it closed. Ryan LeCloux, a Legislative Reference Bureau analyst, said the prior program began in 1993 as part of DATCP’s Farmers Assistance Program and existed until at least 2015, before it was removed from the agency’s website.
In any case, Bauer said, his team would likely create the new program from scratch. “Even if we had really good information on how the last program was operated, I’m not even sure how relevant it would be when you consider just how much technology has advanced in the last 10, 15, 20 years.”
Need is real, advocates say
Before the bill was introduced, representatives of a handful of organizations that support farmers and aspiring farmers were already discussing such a possibility. A working group convened by the Farmland Access Hub began meeting last year after members identified the idea as a top priority.
“The big elephant in the room is that Wisconsin doesn’t have a (state-run) Farm Link program,” said Mia Ljung, a member of that working group and a community development educator for Outagamie and Winnebago counties through UW-Madison Extension.
“Not to say that it’s going to be a quick fix, but if you don’t have a Farm Link program in your state, it’s going to be much harder to make those connections between current land holders, land owners and land seekers.”
Els Dobrick (pictured) and partner Les Macare grow vegetables and raise sheep at their 36-acre farm in Colfax, Wis. (Courtesy of Racing Heart Farm)
Les Macare (pictured) said it took nine months to secure financing for Racing Heart Farm in Colfax, Wis. (Courtesy of Racing Heart Farm)
The group has been studying how such programs work in other states. That research is especially important as legislators consider the bill, Ljung said, calling the proposed budget “very slim.”
“If the initiative will be supported by enough infrastructure, funding and outreach, I am supportive because there’s a big need,” Ljung said.
The state’s biggest farm lobby has officially backed the bill. Jason Mugnaini, executive director of government relations at the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, said supporting Wisconsin’s current and future farmers will take a variety of strategies, from creating conservation easements to helping farm families get health insurance.
Creating a land link program would be a key step, Mugnaini said. “It’s a challenge for those young folks, so finding access to land is one of the easiest ways that they can start farming full time,” Mugnaini said.
Still, the proponents agree it will take much more to get land into the hands of a new generation of small farmers.
“It’s a good tool in the toolbox, but it’s just one part of a very difficult and challenging discussion that has to be had, not only just in Wisconsin, but throughout the United States: Who are the next generation of farmers going to be? Where are they going to find the ability to continue farming, and how are we going to continue to feed the United States of America?” Mugnaini said.
Among the other challenges to address are the reasons farmers may be reluctant to list their land. Many farmers invest nearly everything they have into their farms. This means that some don’t pay enough in Social Security taxes to qualify for payments, or the payments they receive are minimal.
Farmers often need their land to pay their bills after they retire, said Kirkpatrick, the farm succession outreach specialist.
Proponents say a state-run farmland link program can help farmers who want to sell or rent their land connect with farmers eager to start operations of their own. However, the proposed legislation doesn’t include funding for the program, which some worry will affect its success. (Courtesy of Racing Heart Farm)
Fearing a hefty capital gains tax bill, many farmers opt not to sell during their lifetimes. But the idea of renting to someone just getting started in a tough business may sound risky, and beginning farmers may not be able to pay as much as bigger players can.
“If the owner generation is dependent on the sale or some sort of income coming from farmland or other assets for their late years, they’re going to be making decisions that they perceive as less risky to them,” Kirkpatrick said, explaining that many will choose to rent to an established farm operation that’s looking to expand.
Beginning farmers need affordable land, Kirkpatrick said, “and we also need to make sure that that owner generation is able to live and age gracefully.”
A land link program won’t change the economics of the market, but Kirkpatrick thinks such a website, combined with proactive succession planning, could help farmers achieve their own goals for their land.
“I think there are a lot of farm owners that would love to see their farm used in a similar way of, you know, raising a family on it … And to be honest, it would be great for rural communities to still have those farms,” Kirkpatrick said. “If this linking program helps them realize that that’s possible, that’s great.”
“I think that we need to really think about what that generation of owners need and how we can help them plan in a way that feels right for them, and also give opportunities to others,” Kirkpatrick said.
Critics call bill ‘incomplete’
Meanwhile, several other farm lobby groups in the state have taken a neutral stance on the bill. That includes state associations of producers of cattle, corn, pork and vegetables, as well as Wisconsin Farm Credit Services and the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, a nonprofit that researches and promotes sustainable farming practices.
“This bill is incomplete as written and requires funding to be successful,” read the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute’s comments on the legislation. “However, we encourage the idea and want to explore this option further.”
Chuck Anderas, the institute’s policy director, said he’s worried that the bill doesn’t include any appropriations.
“That doesn’t mean that there’s no plans ever to include funding for it, but it needs to be funded enough to be successful,” Anderas said. “Otherwise, it could just be like a website that doesn’t really get used all that much.”
That could discourage farmers and land seekers who come to the site hoping for help, Anderas said.
“We’d rather see it not happen than happen in a way that sets it up to fail.”
Neither the Senate nor Assembly versions of the bill have any Democratic co-sponsors. Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska, serves on the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Revenue, which is currently reviewing the bill.
Pfaff said creating a farmland link program is “an excellent idea” but the bill is “incomplete.”
“Let’s hope that we can get some more meat on the bones here and be serious about the piece of legislation, and hopefully we can get it passed before the legislative session comes to an end.”
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Currently, Republicans have 53 seats. As of Oct. 23, they hadnot persuaded enough Democrats to support ending debate and vote on a House-passed bill that would end the shutdown with temporary funding.
The shutdown began when funding ended with the start of the fiscal year, Oct. 1. One potential effect: The Trump administration announced that funding might not be available in November for the 42 million people receiving SNAP food stamps. Wisconsin said it would run out of SNAP funding after Oct. 31.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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The number of seasonal workers hired by Wisconsin farmers through the H-2A program has increased six-fold over the past decade.
Although the surge began before President Donald Trump returned to office, farmers now consider the program even more critical during Trump’s crackdown on immigrants without legal status.
The Trump administration has introduced adjustments to program rules, including cuts to minimum wages and a pending $250 per-visa fee.
Mexican nationals made up over 90% of the H-2A workforce last year, but South Africans make up a growing share of workers as well.
The program does not offer visa holders a pathway to legal permanent residency in the United States.
By the time Monty Lilford received a call from the American consulate in Cape Town in February, he had only days to get from his home in South Africa’s Western Cape to Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. If all went according to plan, the 35-year-old mechanic would spend the next nine months as a do-it-all farmhand, joining the thousands of seasonal agricultural workers seeking better wages in Wisconsin through the H-2A visa program.
Lilford could not afford a last-minute flight halfway across the world. There’s a market for lending to H-2A workers crunched for time, he said — one dominated by “people doing scams to get your banking details.”
Lilford turned to his father-in-law for help. “I begged him,” he said. “I needed to go.”
The temporary visa program offers Lilford a chance to build a middle-class life back home, albeit one that requires spending much of the year sharing a modest ranch house with seven fellow farmworkers near Fountain City. His visa does not offer him a pathway to legal permanent residency in the United States, and he will be barred from the program if he overstays.
Mike Bushman, Lilford’s employer and the owner of B&B Agri Sales in Buffalo County, considers the program the only legal and reliable source of labor for his farm. While he could hire workers who lack legal status, Bushman is wary of the legal risks.
“You work your whole life to put something together and then take the risk of losing it all,” he said.
The H-2A program comes with higher up-front costs, he explained, but he considers it essential to keep his farm afloat amid a labor shortage.
Bushman is not alone. The number of seasonal workers hired by Wisconsin farmers through the H-2A program has increased six-fold over the past decade, according to 2024 state Department of Workforce Development data. The surge began long before President Donald Trump returned to office in January. Amid the White House’s ongoing immigration crackdown, however, some farmers now consider the program an even more critical alternative to workers without legal status.
The program is far from a flawless solution to the agricultural sector’s labor crisis.
For farmers, the H-2A application process is often an expensive, slow-moving headache – one they must relive year after year.
Workers, meanwhile, frequently report wage theft and other mistreatment, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division routinely uncovers violations of H-2A rules on Wisconsin farms. With inspectors stretched thin, patterns of abuse and fraud can go unpunished for years. Workers who walk away from a dishonest employer or dangerous workplace risk losing their visa.
The Trump administration has introduced a litany of adjustments to the program’s rules in recent months, including cuts to minimum wages and a yet-to-be-implemented $250 fee per visa. With some details still hazy, farmers and workers are awaiting clarity on what lies ahead.
Application process is ‘constant battle’
Farmers argue the program is rife with inefficiencies. Program staff are often difficult, if not impossible, to reach, the application process relies almost entirely on physical mail, and farmers regularly spend thousands of dollars on attorneys to help navigate the labyrinth of paperwork. Keeping an application moving on schedule is a “constant battle,” Bushman said.
The application requires approval from multiple federal and state agencies, often resulting in delays during handoffs from one agency to another. Those hurdles and screening interview backlogs at American consulates and embassies can leave workers stuck in their home countries past the planned start of their contract.
“Last year, the workers came almost three days late,” said Adam Lauer, co-owner of a pickling cucumber farm in Waushara County. “At three days late, you’re throwing a lot of pickles away.”
B&B Agri Sales owner Mike Bushman in his office in Buffalo County, Wis., on Oct. 6, 2025. (Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin Watch)
Bushman said such delays were responsible for Lilford’s last-minute rush to secure a plane ticket – a systemic flaw loan sharks exploit by charging desperate workers extortionate interest rates, he added.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration took steps to address some delays, allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to begin reviewing workers’ applications while the Department of Labor considers applications from employers. That could buy more time for workers to schedule screening interviews at consulates and embassies, said Tom Bortnyk, senior vice president and general counsel for Virginia-based másLabor, which provides H-2A recruitment and application services for farmers nationwide, including in Wisconsin.
Other hurdles are tougher to fix. Federal regulators can be slow to send crucial paperwork, said Ethan Olson, a labor contractor who works with Lauer. That can leave farmers without documentation required – at least in theory – to prove they comply with H-2A rules. “You’re at the government’s mercy,” he said.
The Department of Labor did not respond to a request for comment during an ongoing government shutdown.
Remaking the workforce
Wisconsin’s H-2A workforce is smaller than those of its neighbors, in part because the seasonal visa program is largely off-limits to the year-round dairy industry, which plays an outsized role in state agriculture. Michigan farmers hired roughly 15,000 H-2A workers in 2024, compared to fewer than 3,000 in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s H-2A workers spent the summer picking celery near Janesville, driving farm equipment in Fond du Lac County and tending pheasants outside of Marshfield. Lilford spent an October afternoon bundling equipment in Bushman’s fabrication shop while another farmhand moved feed corn into storage.
In years past, at least some of those jobs went to workers without legal status. “We went down to Florida to recruit,” said Lauer. Between 2021 and 2022 – the most recent years for which Department of Labor survey data are available — roughly 42% of crop workers surveyed lacked work authorization.
Lauer noted practical reasons to switch to an H-2A workforce. “We were so short on people,” he said. “Multiple years, 20 to 30 people short.” By the time his farm needed workers in mid-summer, many undocumented farmworkers had already found jobs elsewhere.
Hiring undocumented workers also comes with legal risks. If caught, employers face fines of up to $3,000 per worker. Amid a nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown, Lauer said, “I wouldn’t take that chance.”
Elsewhere in Wisconsin, some farmers turned to the program as local alternatives slipped away.
Before 2019, Dan Hanauer largely hired in and around Shawano for seasonal jobs on his Christmas tree farm. Some local workers were out of high school; others arrived through a county jail employment program.
By law, employers must offer seasonal jobs to “qualified, eligible U.S. workers,” including past employees, before hiring H-2A workers. In the past six months, prosecutors in Mississippi and Washington state have scrutinized employers who allegedly prioritized H-2A workers over U.S. workers.
Hanauer argues he was forced to switch. His local workforce, he said, was dwindling and prone to missing shifts.
“The job description says you miss three days and you’re gone,” he added.
Workers with H-2A visas cut fir boughs on a plot rented by Hanauer’s Tree Farms near Shawano, Wis., on Oct. 8, 2025. (Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin Watch)
On a recent weekday morning, several H-2A workers cut boughs from the bases of fir trees to be sold as Christmas wreaths — a new product for his business made possible by a more reliable team of seasonal workers from Mexico, Hanauer said.
Most of the roughly 20 H-2A workers who spoke to Wisconsin Watch — all employed by either Bushman, Lauer or Hanauer — were from Mexico.
Upon returning to Mexico, “I take a week off to rest, and then it’s back to work,” said Israel Cruz, a construction worker who spent much of the summer picking cucumbers on Lauer’s farm in Waushara County.
Mexican nationals made up over 90% of the H-2A workforce last year, often traveling by van to and from farms in rural communities like Shawano. This year, a handful of Hanauer’s workers flew to Appleton instead.
South Africans make up the second-largest nationality in the H-2A workforce, as they have for much of the past two decades. They outnumbered Jamaican workers, the next-largest cohort, more than 3-to-1 last year.
Lilford, like the other members of Bushman’s crew, is an Afrikaner – a descendant of early Dutch, French and German settlers. Data on the nationalities of visa recipients does not specify ethnicity, but labor contractors who recruit in South Africa say most H-2A workers from the country are white.
Labor costs and pay cuts
To theoretically avoid undercutting U.S. farmworker wages, the Department of Labor sets a minimum wage for H-2A workers. This year, Wisconsin H-2A employers must pay at least $18.15 an hour, up from $14.40 in 2020. The program also requires employers to pay for housing and transportation and to reimburse travel to and from workers’ home countries, none of which is required when hiring local farmworkers.
The Department of Labor announced cuts to the program’s minimum wage in early October, responding to farmers’ complaints about rising labor costs.
In a preamble to the new rule, the agency argued that the cost of participating in the H-2A program has become “increasingly burdensome” — surpassing the cost of hiring U.S. workers if they were available. The agency also noted that a decline in the number of undocumented agricultural workers will “deprive growers of a relatively cheaper labor supply,” pushing more farmers to the H-2A program.
Roy Fernando Gonzalez Ramirez, an H-2A worker from Mexico, breaks for lunch during a shift at Hanauer’s Tree Farms near Shawano, Wis., on Oct. 8, 2025. (Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin Watch)
The new rules reverse a 2023 Biden administration decision requiring farmers to pay H-2A workers based on the specific duties they perform. Some roles, like veterinary medicine and truck driving, required higher wages than standard field work, and farmers were obligated to pay according to the highest-earning role employees performed, even if it was not their primary role.
Instead, the Department of Labor’s new rule divides H-2A workers into two “skill levels” based on the experience and training required for their job. It does not guarantee that workers who have spent previous seasons in roles deemed “entry-level” will be paid at the higher end of the scale.
The department will also now allow employers to deduct a portion of workers’ hourly wages to reflect housing costs, which the agency argues will even the playing field for domestic farmworkers.
Wisconsin workers classified as less-skilled could receive as little as $12 per hour next year under the new standards — a reduction of 34% from the current H-2A minimum wage.
“In the countries where they’re recruiting, people are desperate enough to take a job for less than the prevailing wage,” said Jose Oliva, campaign director with HEAL Food Alliance, a national group that organizes and advocates for food supply chain workers.
New H-2A minimum wages are higher in every state neighboring Wisconsin. In Michigan and Illinois, H-2A workers will be paid at least the state minimum wages, exceeding the federal program minimum.
Program wages have always varied from state to state, said Bortnyk of másLabor. The latest changes, however, create a “meaningful enough difference” to fuel steeper recruiting competition for Wisconsin farmers.
For Bushman, that competition is reason enough not to cut wages. The lower minimum “won’t save us anything,” he said, because retaining experienced crew members makes more business sense than training new hires.
Among other protections, those rules previously guaranteed that workers could invite guests like legal aid providers and clergy into employer-provided housing. In Wisconsin, H-2A workers retain that right through the state’s migrant labor law.
Wisconsin farmers are well aware of the opportunities for exploitation.
Lauer recalled discovering that a recruiter in Mexico had charged job seekers hundreds of dollars to apply for openings on his farm — a violation of program rules.
“It all happened in Mexico, so we never saw the money,” he added. Lauer says his business cut ties with the recruiter after consular officials in Mexico alerted him of the recruiter’s practices.
Dan Hanauer, right, with workers at Hanauer’s Tree Farms near Shawano, Wis., on Oct. 8, 2025. (Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin Watch)
None of the workers who spoke with Wisconsin Watch shared firsthand accounts of violations or mistreatment at their current workplaces. However, the Department of Labor has fined 23 Wisconsin H-2A employers for program violations in the past decade.
Auditors cited one labor contractor, Adams County-based J&P Harvest, for more than 650 violations of H-2A program rules between 2019 and 2023. The department approved J&P Harvest’s most recent application in March of this year. The company, which lists a Florida phone number in its contact information, did not respond to a request for comment.
In some cases, the Department of Labor can temporarily ban, or “debar,” farmers and contractors from participating in the program. J&P Harvest does not appear on the agency’s current list of debarred businesses, but Jan Enterprises, a flower-growing business near Green Bay, is currently banned from participating in the program for allegedly hiring H-2A workers in place of an American applicant. A related greenhouse is also on the department’s debarment list.
Inspectors have recorded H-2A violations by more than half of the 42 Wisconsin agricultural employers audited since 2015, not all of which employ H-2A workers.
“There are other places where you’ll work 10 hours and they’ll pay you for nine,” said Salvador Gonzalez Mosqueda, a veteran member of Hanauer’s crew, recalling warnings about dishonest employers from fellow seasonal workers during an earlier stint in Kentucky.
Some citations were for technical reasons. Lauer Farms, for instance, says it was fined in 2019 for missing date information on pay stubs.
Trump’s law brings new fees
The Trump administration’s signature “big beautiful” bill-turned law adds another potential hurdle for workers and employers: a new $250 fee for all nonimmigrant visas, including H-2A.
If federal rulemakers decide workers must pay the fee before entering the country, employers would likely be required to reimburse them. But Oliva warned that enforcement could be weak. “$250 is not chump change” for already vulnerable workers, he added.
It remains unclear whether employers will be eligible for reimbursement from the federal government once their workers return home.
“We’ll just eat another $30,000,” said Lauer, who often hires 120 or more H-2A workers over the course of the year – Wisconsin’s largest crew. While that expense alone won’t bankrupt him, Lauer considers the rising overall costs of participation unsustainable.
“They’ll eventually push us out of business,” he said.
Workers keep returning
Most H-2A workers who spoke with Wisconsin Watch worked on the same farms last season.
Gonzalez, the veteran member of Hanauer’s team, said that he has returned to Shawano for the past six years, turning down offers from other farms. At Lauer Farms, roughly 90% of last year’s crew returned for the most recent harvest season.
Some workers say they would prefer to settle in the U.S. rather than traveling back and forth from their home countries.
“Things in Mexico are very hard,” said Jesus Hernandez Robles, another member of Hanauer’s crew. Hanauer says he has researched sponsoring seasonal employees for green cards, but without a full-time job to offer, that option is out of reach.
But Robles considers the H-2A program preferable to entering the country without a visa.
“You can enter and leave, spend time with your family,” he said. “If you come here illegally, you have to work for a few years to pay off a coyote.”
South African workers may have a clearer path to legal residency through the Trump administration’s new refugee program for Afrikaners.
None of the members of Bushman’s crew who spoke to Wisconsin Watch had applied for refugee status as of early October. Anyone who did secure refugee status, Bushman said, “won’t be working in agriculture. There are just better opportunities.”
International workers continue to show interest in H-2A jobs, Bushman added. But when the federal government entered a shutdown earlier this month, the Department of Labor furloughed staff responsible for reviewing H-2A applications. If the shutdown continues into December and January — the busiest season for applications — Wisconsin farmers could be left high and dry next spring.
South Africans make up growing share of H-2A workers
A fast-growing share of H-2A workers come from South Africa, and they have made up the second-largest cohort within the program for much of the past two decades. That shift predates the Trump administration’s recent decision to prioritize Afrikaners — an ethnic group comprising the majority of South Africa’s white population — for refugee status.
The White House opened the door for Afrikaners to enter the U.S. as refugees in February, citing a recently enacted South African law enabling the state to seize land without compensation in limited circumstances. The law was the latest step in a long-running push to redistribute land from the country’s white minority, which owns much of South Africa’s farmland, to its Black majority. In his initial executive order, President Trump decried the law as “racially discriminatory” and accused the South African government of “fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”
The Trump administration now plans to lower the refugee admissions limit by more than 90% relative to 2024, though it cannot set a new limit without consulting with Congress – a step delayed by the ongoing federal shutdown. The administration has signaled that Afrikaners will receive preference for admissions. The first group of white South African refugees arrived in the U.S. in May.
The H-2A program provides nonimmigrant visas, so South African H-2A workers would need to apply for refugee status through a separate process.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Communism and socialism oppose capitalism but are different ideologies, despite the terms sometimes being used interchangeably.
Communism: Replacing private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and control of means of production and natural resources. Wealth divided equally, or according to need. One-party government oversees economy.
Socialism: Public, rather than private, control of property and natural resources, but allowing private property ownership. Socialism can seek to restrain capitalism through democracy or authoritarian control.
On Oct. 2, Wisconsin state Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, called Milwaukee state Rep. Ryan Clancy a communist. Clancy, like New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, identifies as a democraticsocialist.
Clancy’s positions include a right to legal counsel for people facing eviction, shifting funds from law enforcement to community services and eliminating property tax funding of schools.
Mamdani advocates for freezing rent, government-owned grocery stores and free child care.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The clock is ticking before Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will be delayed for approximately 42 million Americans in November due to the federal government shutdown.
That leaves just nine days until Wisconsin — a key battleground state with two competitive House races in the 2026 midterms — runs out of funding for its food assistance program, Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday. Already, November benefits will certainly be delayed, Evers said.
“President Trump and Republicans in Congress must work across the aisle and end this shutdown now so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have access to basic necessities like food and groceries that they need to survive,” Evers said in a statement.
The governor is one of several Wisconsin Democrats who added SNAP delays to the long list of shutdown impacts they blame on Republicans.
“I want the government to reopen and to lower health care costs and to undo some of the devastating things that were done in Trump’s signature legislation, the ‘Big, Ugly bill,’” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin told NOTUS. “It’s in the Republicans’ hands to do that.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation on Tuesday to use unappropriated Treasury funds for payment of SNAP benefits during the shutdown. It is unclear if his bill will gain traction in the Senate.
“We need to start forcing Democrats to make some tough votes during this shutdown,” he said in an X post.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson declined to comment on SNAP’s funding lapsing.
Nearly 700,000 people rely on FoodShare, Wisconsin’s SNAP program for families and seniors that is entirely funded by federal dollars. Wisconsin’s program already took a hit from Trump’s budget law, which will raise the state’s portion of administrative costs for running FoodShare by at least $43.5 million annually.
Wisconsin is among a slew of states sounding the alarm on SNAP funding, with Texas officials setting Oct. 27 as the last day before benefits will be disrupted. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state’s food assistance program may be disrupted if the government does not reopen by Thursday, and Pennsylvania’s Department of Health Services announced that benefits will not be paid starting last week.
Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison area, lamented risks to FoodShare in a statement to NOTUS.
“This funding risk could be resolved tomorrow if Republicans would return to Washington to vote with Democrats on a bill to fund the government and protect access to affordable health care for millions of Americans,” he said.
November benefits will be delayed in Wisconsin “even if the shutdown ends tomorrow,” according to the announcement from Evers’ office.
It is not yet certain that delays in benefits will occur, and any disruptions would be a deliberate “policy choice,” said Gina Plata-Nino, the interim director for SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture could use a similar tactic as Trump did when he directed the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget on Oct. 15 to issue on-time paychecks to active duty members of the military using leftover appropriated funds, Plata-Nino told NOTUS.
The Trump administration transferred $300 million to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children to prevent benefits disruptions earlier this month. The Department of Agriculture will release more than $3 billion in aid to farmers during the shutdown.
“It is in their hands to issue a letter to the states and say, ‘We have $6 billion in contingency funding. We’re going to go ahead and utilize that, and we’re looking for sources of funding like we did for WIC, but then also how we’ve done to farmers when there’s been issues,” Plata-Nino said.
Plata-Nino said states and Electronic Benefit Transfer processors — companies that process EBT transactions for stores — would need to know they are getting contingency funds by later this week or early next week for SNAP benefits to go out smoothly on Nov. 1.
“Even if on the 30th, the USDA acts late and then finally issues its contingency funds, benefits are still going to be late,” she added.
Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement Republicans should “come to the negotiating table” on the shutdown.
“After already cutting FoodShare in their One Beautiful Bill, Republicans’ inaction could again increase hunger and food insecurity,” she said.
When asked about FoodShare delays, Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican from northern Wisconsin who is running to replace Evers, pointed to Democrats’ 11 votes against Republicans’ continuing resolution bills.
“Maybe Governor Evers should ask Senator Baldwin why she is blocking the bipartisan budget bill and holding these programs hostage,” Tiffany said in a statement.
Republican Rep. Tony Wied, who represents the Green Bay area, pointed at Baldwin and other Democrats’ votes against the continuing resolution, accusing them of playing “political games.”
“House Republicans voted for a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open and ensure critical programs like FoodShare continue uninterrupted,” Wied said in a statement to NOTUS. “I am calling on Senator Baldwin and the rest of her Democratic colleagues to change course and vote to open the government immediately so Wisconsinites in need do not have to worry about going hungry.”
But Danielle Nierenberg, the president of the nonpartisan advocacy organization Food Tank, said Democrats and Republicans are “both in the wrong” for potential SNAP disruptions.
“Food should never have been politicized in this way. So whether you’re Democrat or a Republican you shouldn’t be punishing poor people for just being poor and denying them the benefits they deserve,” Nierenberg said.
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
As October comes to an end, the threat of missing FoodShare and WIC benefits looms for people across Wisconsin and across the nation.
In an Oct. 10 letter, Sasha Gersten-Paal, director of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s development division, said: “SNAP has funding available for benefits and operations through the month of October. However, if the current lapse in appropriations continues, there will be insufficient funds to pay full November SNAP benefits for approximately 42 million individuals across the nation.”
Nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites receive food and nutrition assistance through FoodShare.
Here are some things you can do if you live in Milwaukee and may be impacted by a lack of food resources in November.
Food resources
If you or someone you know needs emergency food, call 2-1-1, or visit the IMPACT 211 website here.
Hunger Task Forces’ Mobile Market : Operating as a grocery store on wheels, the Mobile Market provides healthy and affordable food options to families. The Mobile Market offers 25% off all items beyond Piggly Wiggly’s prices.
Community-powered fridges: In September, Tricklebee Café, One MKE and Metcalfe Park Community Bridges opened a community-powered fridge. Several more are planned to open.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
In the days following the release of my report focused on the shortage of public defenders in Wisconsin, Tracy Germait — the main subject of the story, who after three years and more than 10,000 calls still didn’t have a defense attorney — received a flood of messages.
“I know they passed out the newsletter in the jails because I have a friend that’s in Redgranite (Correctional Institution), and he’s like, ‘I seen your article,’” Germait said. “Then somebody in Brown County (jail) messaged me too and said that. I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’”
On Sept. 8, Wisconsin Watch published the investigation. The next day Germait saw her story on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Hours later Germait received notice that a Milwaukee-based criminal defense attorney, Jane Christopherson, had taken on her drug cases from 2022 and 2023.
Without an attorney earlier, Germait spent years in legal limbo despite her constitutional rights. Like many other Wisconsin residents caught up in the criminal justice system, she had to abide by bail conditions or face time in prison related to crimes she had not yet been tried for.
Now that Germait has an attorney, she will report to court on Oct. 22 for the preliminary hearing for her 2023 case. After that, she will report to court again in November for her 2022 case.
Germait also recently passed her Wisconsin state exam to be a certified parent peer specialist for the next two years, supporting parents and families who are navigating similar situations.
Wisconsin’s court system is under intense stress, and yet when lawmakers had a chance to address those issues in the latest state budget, they increased funding for prosecutors to file more cases, rather than protecting more people’s right to a speedy trial. Our story points out the toll that legislative decisions can take on individuals when their Sixth Amendment right is neglected, exacerbating jail crowding, eroding evidence and witness testimony for cases, and decreasing the strength of cases due to overburdened public defenders.
At Wisconsin Watch, we’re thrilled to shed a light on stories like Germait’s and see individual problems get resolved. We remain hopeful that the bigger problems get solved, too.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to remove an incorrect description of Christopherson’s representation of Germait.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Friday appealed a Waukesha County judge’s order requiring election officials to verify the citizenship of all registered voters and people seeking to register.
Attorneys for the Wisconsin Department of Justice wrote that the Waukesha County Circuit Court decision was “impermissively vague” and would require election officials to disregard multiple voter registration laws.
The appeal follows a request for a stay, filed last week, in which the attorneys told the court it would be virtually impossible for the election commission to implement Judge Michael Maxwell’s decision by the February statewide election, and that it would illegally have to shut down online voter registration in the meantime.
In response, Maxwell stayed the part of his ruling that required citizenship verification for new registrants, but let stand the part requiring the Wisconsin Elections Commission to verify the citizenship of all currently registered voters.
Maxwell’s ruling did not specify how the commission should go about verifying the citizenship of registered voters: whether it should check them against other databases, confirm that they properly attested under oath to their citizenship when they registered, or demand documentary proof from registered voters, as some other states now require.
The case has further escalated a political debate in Wisconsin over how to ensure that only citizens can vote. Last fall, Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to ban voting by noncitizens across the state, and other states enacted similar bans.
Across the country, Republicans have also been pushing for laws requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, on the grounds that they’re needed to prevent noncitizen voting.
But there’s no evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens, and a Votebeat analysis and other studies have shown that such requirements can disenfranchise eligible U.S. citizens.
Wisconsin has lagged behind other states in seeking such measures through legislation, but the case in Maxwell’s Waukesha County court has sped up bill writing on the issue. Since his early October court ruling, Republicans have introduced a bill requiring an audit of potential noncitizens on the voter rolls, and directing election officials to compare those rolls against state and federal citizenship data, and they have raised the issue in political campaigns.
When Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who’s seeking reelection, filed a motion for a stay on Maxwell’s decision, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany — now running for governor — accused Democrats on social media of wanting “illegal aliens voting.”
That talking point has dominated conservative talk radio, while Democrats have stayed mostly quiet outside court filings.
How the state has responded to the lawsuit
The lawsuit in Maxwell’s court, filed last year by a Pewaukee resident represented by conservative attorneys, seeks to require citizenship verification checks of all new registrants and to require the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to provide the Wisconsin Elections Commission with its data on citizenship so that it can compare them against the voter roll.
Maxwell ruled Oct. 3 that the election commission was failing to ensure only lawful voters remained on the rolls, citing statutes limiting voting to citizens. He ordered the agency to check for noncitizens by February, but didn’t specify how, other than suggesting a match with DOT data, as the plaintiffs demand.
The election commission has told the court that there’s no state law requiring documentary proof of citizenship.
Kaul, the attorney general, has argued in court that launching a citizenship verification program before next year’s elections would be unfeasible, and that relying on DOT data that may be inaccurate could wrongly disenfranchise newly naturalized citizens. In the appeal, Justice Department attorneys said Maxwell’s ruling could disenfranchise eligible voters unable to meet Maxwell’s “undefined verification criteria” and lead Wisconsin’s 1,850 clerks to apply inconsistent standards.
Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, said Maxwell’s decision conflicts with Wisconsin election law, which calls for requiring proof of certain qualifications to vote, like residence, but not others, including citizenship, competence, or clean criminal record.
Existing laws already deter noncitizens from voting, Godar argued. “Noncitizens who register to vote face criminal liability under state law,” he said, “and if they vote, it also renders them permanently inadmissible under federal immigration law, which means deportation and other immigration consequences.”
Flawed tools for citizenship verification
There’s no standardized method used in states that require or retroactively check for proof of citizenship, but two methods have been recommended for Wisconsin for already registered voters.
The first is to check the voter rolls against citizenship records held by other state agencies, such as driver’s license information, as the plaintiffs in the Waukesha County case have suggested.
But the state Department of Transportation has told the court that its citizenship data can be inaccurate and outdated.The department records applicants’ citizenship status based on their proof of citizenship or legal residence at the time the license is issued. Those cards typically remain valid for eight years, and current state law doesn’t require applicants to update their citizenship status with the department if it changes during that time.
Because many people become U.S. citizens well before their licenses expire, the department’s data can quickly become outdated — a problem that grows as the number of naturalizations spikes ahead of major elections, a Wisconsin Department of Justice official said in a court hearing last October.
Another method that some states use — and that conservative legal groups such as the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty recommend — is to use the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ SAVE program. SAVE is a search tool designed for states to check whether their residents qualify for certain public-benefit programs, but the Trump administration has encouraged states to use it for checking voter rolls as well.
But its data can also be incomplete and outdated, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, which found it should be “considered useful, but not definitive” for citizenship verification.
Jasleen Singh, counsel for the Brennan Center’s voting rights program, told Votebeat the SAVE database includes only immigrants known to the U.S. government. Undocumented immigrants who haven’t interacted with federal agencies wouldn’t appear, and citizens born before 1978 may also be missing, since the Social Security Administration didn’t collect citizenship data until then.
What citizenship checks in other states have turned up
Louisiana ran its voter rolls through the SAVE program this year as part of an investigation into noncitizen voters. It found 390 potential noncitizens in records going back to the 1980s, including 79 people who voted at least once in that period. That’s a minuscule share of Louisiana’s registered voters.
Democrats say these figures show noncitizen voting is rare enough that it doesn’t need a blunt legislative solution that could disenfranchise anyone. But Republicans argue that even a single illegally cast ballot undermines election integrity.
In Arizona, those who haven’t shown proof of citizenship can vote only in federal elections. About 35,000 people as of last December, or just under 1% of the state’s voters, are on this “federal only” voter roll. A Votebeat analysis found these voters are concentrated on Native land, college campuses, and near the state’s main homeless campus; they tend to be younger, and vote at lower rates.
In Texas, about 1% of the voting-age population lacks proof of citizenship and another 6% would struggle to locate it, according to a University of Maryland study, which found Black, Latino, young, and Republican voters are particularly likely to face those challenges.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has proposed a multistep noncitizen audit — including matching voter rolls against DOT data as well as the SAVE database, checking for discrepancies, and then providing time for flagged voters to provide citizenship proof. Republican state Rep. Scott Krug, a Republican, introduced a proposal this month requiring a noncitizen audit that follows these steps.
Mequon City Clerk Caroline Fuchs already follows a similar process, using the DOT database to check registrants’ citizenship and sending flagged names to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security contact. She said the agent found about a dozen voters incorrectly marked as noncitizens in the DOT database, but none of those identified by DHS disputed the finding.
Fuchs told Votebeat in early October that she was pleased to see the Waukesha County judge’s order, but said she and other clerks weren’t rushing to implement it since they knew it would be appealed.
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Pulaski High School students have kept their community informed through the Pulaski News for more than 80 years.
As local news has dwindled nationwide, the Pulaski News has become a fixture in the community.
The publication’s niche is positive news on community members, but some wish it included independent, critical coverage. One thing it’s missing is coverage of village board meetings, for example.
Educators say students learn soft skills, like how to communicate with others, through their work on the paper.
“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t introduce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead.”
Three weeks into the school year at Pulaski High School, six teenagers sit around a cluster of desks, listening intently as journalism instructor Amy Tubbs taught them the mechanics of writing a news story.
While Tubbs knows it might sound harsh, the task of hooking readers carries weight for the students. For more than eight decades, Pulaski High School’s student newspaper has been the community’s newspaper of record, as the only news outlet consistently covering the rural village.
Students learn how to write a news story lede on Sept. 16, 2025, at Pulaski High School.
Neville Nguyen, a freshman, works on a story for the Pulaski News on Sept. 16, 2025. The paper is mailed to about 1,000 subscribers each week.
Dellah Hall, a sophomore, joined the Pulaski News because she loves to write.
Pulaski High School students have run the local newspaper that covers the village of Pulaski since the 1940s.
As local news has dwindled across the country,Pulaski News has become a fixture of the community, a tool to prepare students for the workforce and the last official source keeping residents informed about hyperlocal happenings.
Through routine practice with writing, interviewing, photography and media literacy, the teenagers secure skills that prepare them for life after high school. Students say working for the paper helps them feel closer to their northeast Wisconsin community.
“I joined last year because I really love writing, and I saw this as an opportunity to get to do that,” sophomore Dellah Hall said. “I’m now able to write not just for school and grades, but this is for the community.”
Along the way, the paper has secured a level of community buy-in that might feel foreign to some news organizations today, as trust in news declines. Students nurture this by regularly sharing feel-good stories.
For example, freshman Neville Nguyen is writing a profile on awell-known “legend of Pulaski”: an 84-year-old woman who runs the local McDonald’s drive-through every morning. Nguyen’s article is going to be published in the Pulaski News’ Thanksgiving edition, an annual feature that highlights someone who has something for which to be thankful.
“Its own kind of niche … That’s not necessarily something that a bigger paper is going to pick up … There’s definitely very much a hometown kind of feel to it,” Tubbs said.
A stack of copies of the Pulaski News are for sale at Vern’s Do It Best Hardware, Rental and Lumber on Aug. 12, 2025, in Pulaski, Wis. The hardware store is one of eight retail locations that sell the newspaper.
‘Pulaski needs a newspaper’
Roughly 20 miles outside of Green Bay, the village of Pulaski sits amid an expanse of farmland. The modest 3,700-person town straddles Brown, Oconto and Shawano counties.
The area has a turbulent history with local news. Residents saw a flurry of different papers stumbling to provide the headlines before Pulaski High School took the reins in the 1940s.
During the 1920s, residents relied on the Pulaski Herald. Archives of the Herald are sparse, but they show it ceased publication by the 1930s, when a resident launched the Pulaski Tri-Copa. In 1939, the Tri-Copa abruptly announced it would be rebranding, ambiguously citing “skirmishes” over the previous year.
“We don’t care to divulge what we have up our sleeve at this time,” the Tri-Copa’s farewell edition read. “It will be more pleasant to surprise you, but take our word for it, you are going to get more paper for your money.”
Two months later, the paper restarted as the Tri County News. It ran for three years before folding due to financial issues brought on by the Great Depression.
The first edition of the rebranded Pulaski News, Aug. 12, 1942.
Leaders at Pulaski High School saw an opportunity for their student newspaper, which was roughly four years old, to fill the gap left by the Tri County’s closure. Ahead of the 1942-43 school year, the paper debuted a new title: The Pulaski News.
“Pulaski needs a newspaper,” the first edition read. “To fill that need; to provide a means of informing the parents and community on the progress of the school; to provide the community proper channels for information, news, and advertising; and give students experience in journalism the Pulaski Board of Education authorized the publishing of a newspaper.”
When Pulaski News began publishing, it was tabloid-sized. A team of students handled the enterprise’s business aspects, including selling ads across the community.
Today, 83 years’ worth of newspapers — including those early editions — live on a classroom shelf in dozens of hardcover books. In its current iteration, the paper is lengthier and printed in color, but the model remains largely the same.
Although Pulaski’s students fit within a nationwide demographic that consumes much of their news online, the writers still find appeal in the print product’s legacy. Senior Madelyn Rybak said that while she reads the majority of her news online on her phone, writing for Pulaski News makes her want to consume more print stories. Her parents subscribe to the Green Bay Press-Gazette’s print edition, which she reads.
“I like the feeling of holding the newspaper,” Rybak said. “It kind of feels like I’m more connected to the stories… instead of just being behind my phone.”
Steve Peplinski carries a box of archived editions of the Pulaski News through the attic of the Pulaski Area Historical Society on Aug. 12, 2025, in Pulaski, Wis. Peplinski worked for the Pulaski News as a reporter in 1965-67. He now works as secretary of the Pulaski Area Historical Society, where he took it upon himself to digitize every issue of the newspaper.
Steve Peplinski looks through a box of archived editions of the Pulaski News on Aug. 12, 2025. Peplinski wishes there was more independent, critical coverage of local issues in the paper, such as village board meetings.
Pulaski News archives are stacked on shelves along a classroom wall on Aug. 12, 2025, at Pulaski High School in Pulaski, Wis.
Bob Van Enkenvoort, Pulaski Community School District’s communications coordinator and Pulaski News editor, poses for a portrait during the newspaper’s summer session on Aug. 12, 2025.
A ‘valuable service’
At the front of the Pulaski News’ classroom, a calendar governing the paper is posted on the whiteboard: Students turn in stories one week before the paper is sent to press every other Tuesday. It’s printed on Wednesdays and delivered on Thursdays. The school mails roughly 1,000 copies to subscribers, who pay $30 or $35 annually. Eight local businesses sell another 100 copies for $1 each.
Each semester, roughly a dozen students work on the paper for class credit. Course enrollment is fueled largely by word-of-mouth between friends or parents encouraging their teenagers to follow in their footsteps. In the summer, students vie for five part-time positions that pay $11 per hour.
The operation has felt increasingly crucial as Pulaski feels the national trend of thinning local news coverage.
Nearby papers once covered Pulaski more closely than they do today.Now, regional news outlets sometimes drop in for flashier stories, such as crime issues, but there’s no source of consistent information about local events beyond what the students publish.
“You’ve seen other local papers close and their communities really don’t have anything,” said Bob Van Enkenvoort, the school district’s communications coordinator and the paper’s editor. “So the district sees this as a valuable community service.”
“It doesn’t really have a good feel for political issues in town, so the community is not all that well served, as far as coverage of local village issues like the village board meetings or growth in the village, so that’s sort of a negative,” said Steve Peplinski, a local resident creating a digital archive of Pulaski’s newspapers for the village’s museum. Peplinski wrote for Pulaski News himself when he was in high school.
While the school district’s administration doesn’t decide what Pulaski News covers — “I’ve never really had anyone say ‘you can’t do this’ or ‘you can do this.’ That’s my decision,” Van Enkenvoort said — the staff generally doesn’t wade into hard news.
Outside of the routine sports, local events and school news, the staff has carved out a niche creating more “positive stories”:They profile interesting community members and spotlight Pulaski alumni doing good deeds.
Morgan Stewart, a 15-year-old sophomore, shook the first time she had to call someone on the phone to report a Pulaski News story. Her nerves dissipated over time to the point that she’s considering a career in journalism.
Three of the six students working on the Pulaski News wear Converse high top shoes on Sept. 16, 2025, at Pulaski High School.
Daniel Roggenbauer, a freshman, works on a Pulaski News story on Sept. 16, 2025. Educators say students learn soft skills, like how to communicate with others, during their time at the paper.
Olivia Sharkey, a sophomore, poses for a portrait on Sept. 16, 2025.
While some might have trepidation when it comes to speaking with journalists, that “hometown” feel of the paper has resulted in a deep trust among local residents.
“It’s well known in the community,” Van Enkenvoort said. “People understand what the mission is, so I think they are willing to work with the students.”
Though Pulaski News is district-funded, the paper isn’t immune to the turbulence plaguing journalism today. The subscriber base skews older, and every obituary that publishes is a possible patron, Van Enkenvoort said.
Securing soft skills
The first time Morgan Stewart, a 15-year-old sophomore, picked up the phone to call a subject for her story, she was so terrified that she shook. But over time, those nerves dissipated, and she’s found herself growing into more of a “people person.”
“I think I want to pursue doing journalism,” Stewart said. “I didn’t have much of a plan coming into high school, but after doing this … (Van Enkenvoort) has helped me a lot to find what I love most about Pulaski News, and it’s opened my eyes a lot to the future and what it holds for me.”
There’s always a learning curve at the start of a semester. Students are typically scared to make cold calls. They sometimes try to text community members, only to realize they’re messaging a landline. For their first class assignment, students write profiles about one another to practice asking good questions.
With a few notable exceptions, many students who participate in the Pulaski News aren’t planning to go into the journalism field. But through the routine — and sometimes uncomfortable — work, they learn many “soft skills,” or traits that allow them to communicate and work well with others, Tubbs and Van Enkenvoort said.
“We tend to try to get them away from their phones and talk to people face-to-face, so they get used to talking to adults and having to think on their feet and have conversations, which will help them when they’re interviewing for colleges or interviewing for jobs,” Van Enkenvoort said. “A lot of them are just not that comfortable with it at the start, but they get better and they feel more comfortable once they do.”
On paper, the experience allows Pulaski students to complete a class that the state considers “post-secondary preparation,” or training for life after high school. In the 2023-24 school year, 39% of Pulaski High School students participated in a “work-based learning program” like Pulaski News, far above the state average of 9%.
Amelia Lytie, a sophomore, poses for a portrait while checking out a camera to use for a Pulaski News story on Sept. 16, 2025.
Connecting students to community
While stories on sports games and district updates are commonplace in Pulaski News, students also devise the creative stories that fill the paper. In the process, many become more closely engrained in their community.
Rybak is from Hobart, a roughly 20-minute drive from Pulaski, so she isn’t as familiar with the area as some of her classmates. Working for the paper has helped change that. When there’s pressure to come up with a story pitch, she finds herself scouring the internet and local organizations’ websites for events.
“We encourage the students to try to come up with story ideas for two reasons,” Van Enkenvoort said. “We need everybody’s eyes and ears out in the community. But also, if they come up with a story and they’re excited about it, they typically do a really good job on it.”
At the end of the year, Tubbs asks students to share their favorite stories. Without fail, it’s always the ones centering community members.
That’s true for Rybak, whose standout story last year was a front-page feature on Pulaski’s summer school program. She interviewed four teachers, the program director and students who attended classes.
“Our summer school doesn’t really get recognition, even though there’s a lot that goes into it,” Rybak said. “I kind of liked the feeling that I was shining a light on the people who do a lot of work in our community.”
“(The paper) makes me more aware of what’s going on in the community,” she said. “Through interviewing people who I would literally never talk to otherwise, it just helps me get to know the people there that I wouldn’t have known.”
This story is part of Public Square, an occasional photography series highlighting how Wisconsin residents connect with their communities. To suggest someone in your community for us to feature, email Joe Timmerman at jtimmerman@wisconsinwatch.org.
Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.
Asked if they believe in God or a universal spirit, 16% said no.
Pew also found that 29% of Americans (including atheists) said they are not religiously affiliated, up from 16% in 2007. The largest affiliation was Christian — 62%, down from 78%.
AP-NORC: 7% atheist. 7% agnostic (believe God’s existence is unknown). 16% “nothing in particular.” Overall, 79% professed belief in God or a higher power, including 4% of atheists.
Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, who represents part of eastern Wisconsin, said Oct. 13 that over 18% of Americans are atheists. His office didn’t reply to comment requests.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Are 1 in 5 Americans atheists? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
A new Republican bill that would exempt certain life-saving medical procedures from falling under the definition of “abortion” is drawing criticism from medical professionals despite being described by its authors as an attempt to protect reproductive health care.
Under the bill, introduced on Friday, medical procedures “designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant woman and not designed or intended to kill the unborn child” would not fall under Wisconsin’s abortion definition. They would also not be subject to state laws prohibiting funding for “abortion-related activities” and Wisconsin’s ban on abortion past 20 weeks.
The bill, authored by Rep. Joy Goeben, R-Hobart, and Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, specifically exempts early inductions or cesarean sections performed in cases of ectopic, anembryonic or molar pregnancies from being considered abortion so long as the physician conducting them makes “reasonable medical efforts” to save both parent and unborn child from harm.
Moreover, the bill would change the definition of “unborn child” in Wisconsin statute from “a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive” to “a human being from the time of fertilization until birth.”
OBGYN Carley Zeal, a representative for the Wisconsin Medical Society and fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health, said “unborn child” is not a medically recognized term because doctors don’t confer personhood to a fertilized egg or fetus. Legal expert Howard Schweber told Wisconsin Watch he doesn’t expect changing the definition of “unborn child” to begin at fertilization will have a meaningful impact.
Abortion as a political issue hits deep in the heart of Wisconsin, where Marquette Law School polls since 2020 show 64% of all voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Democrats have campaigned in support of eliminating restrictions on abortion, while Republicans, who in 2015 passed the state’s current ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy, have sought to increase restrictions on, penalize or ban abortion completely.
The bill follows multiple successive changes to Wisconsin’s abortion law since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling and returned the issue of abortion to individual states — leaving Wisconsin scrambling to put together a consistent abortion policy.
The new GOP bill also seems to nod toward several high-profile national incidents of patients dying from being denied reproductive care in states with restrictive abortion bans, even when the bans include exceptions for abortion care if a patient’s life is in danger.
One National Institutes of Health study found that after Texas’s abortion ban was passed, maternal morbidity during the gestational period doubled from the time before the law despite it having a medical emergency clause.
Goeben and Quinn stated in a memorandum that their bill seeks to “counter misinformation spread by bad actors” about doctors not performing needed medical care for fear of being criminalized under abortion statutes. Goeben told Wisconsin Watch she consulted with physicians about the bill and believes it will reassure them of their ability to provide this care.
“A doctor may at all times, no matter where the state is at on the abortion issue, feel very confident in providing the health care that women need in these very challenging situations that women face,” Goeben said.
Medical and legal experts weigh in
Both Zeal and Sheboygan OBGYN Leslie Abitz, a member of both the state medical society, the Committee to Protect Healthcare and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said they oppose the bill.
They argue it is an attempt by the Wisconsin Legislature to use “emotionally charged, ideologically driven, non-medical terms” to “interfere with the patient-physician relationship” in medical care.
“The stated goal of the bill — to distinguish between medical procedures from abortion — is misleading because it suggests that abortion care is not an essential part of comprehensive health care,” Abitz said.
“A woman is putting her health and her life at risk every time she chooses to carry a pregnancy, and so she shouldn’t be mandated to put her life at risk.”
Schweber views the bill differently. While a clause in Wisconsin’s 20-week abortion ban statutes already exempts abortions performed for the “life or health of the mother,” he believes Goeben and Quinn’s bill could make hospitals and insurance companies more comfortable with authorizing lifesaving reproductive health care procedures.
“Insurance companies and hospitals or doctors, in order to err on the side of safety, will tell the doctors not to perform a procedure that is medically needed and, in fact, properly legal,” Schweber said. “(This) law is trying to prevent a chilling effect on legal medical procedures.”
Though the bill is not yet formally introduced, the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit composed of physicians, nurses and public health practitioners specializing in abortion and contraception science, opposes it.
“The narrative that exceptions to an abortion ban — or redefining what abortion care is — can mitigate the harm of restrictive policies is based in ideology, not evidence,” Executive Director Amanda Dennis said in a statement.
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has not yet taken a position on the bill, but told Wisconsin Watch that state medical emergency clauses “do not offer adequate protection for the myriad (of) pregnancy complications people experience, resulting in substantial harm to patients” in the case of an abortion ban.
Political reaction to the bill
Prominent Democratic lawmakers, such as gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, have criticized the proposed bill as part of a series of moves by anti-abortion politicians to distance themselves from the “deadly” consequences of abortion bans.
“The way that you protect people from legal jeopardy is by not criminalizing health care,” Roys said. “Goeben’s bill just shows how deadly and dangerous criminalizing abortion bans are. It’s an acknowledgement of the truth, which is that abortion bans kill women.”
Goeben said she is surprised by the opposition because her bill on its own does not introduce any additional penalties to abortion.
“These are the issues that the other side of the aisle has talked about, saying, ‘oh, the poor women that can’t get health care!’” Goeben said. “So I thought honestly that this would be supported by everybody, if we are really concerned about the health care of women.”
She said she would also be open to discussing amendments to the bill, which would include exemptions for abortions performed because of other medical complications such as preeclampsia or maternal sepsis.
Anti-abortion organizations Wisconsin Right to Life, Pro-Life Wisconsin, Wisconsin Catholic Conference and Wisconsin Family Action have endorsed the proposal.
A similar bill by Quinn prior to the Wisconsin Supreme Court invalidating Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban in July died in the Senate last year. Even if the new bill is to pass through the Legislature, Gov. Tony Evers plans to veto it, spokesperson Britt Cudaback told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Looming gubernatorial, attorney general and legislative races in 2026 could decide the future of abortion laws and enforcement in the state. New legislative maps and a national midterm environment that historically has favored the party out of power in the White House gives Democrats their best chance to win control of the Legislature since 2010.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the GOP frontrunner for governor, previously supported a bill planning to ban abortion after six weeks, though he has rolled back that position in recent media appearances and deleted all mention of abortion from his website.
Schweber said Wisconsin’s newly liberal majority Supreme Court will decide the future of abortion in the state. The justices must answer the cases being brought to them on whether the state constitution guarantees a right to an abortion.
“Just because the U.S. Constitution does not secure a right to abortion does not mean that Wisconsin or Ohio or Texas constitutionally doesn’t have that right,” he said. “Each state supreme court now has to decide this profound question.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to remove an incorrect description of the Society of Family Planning and to include additional background for Zeal and Abitz.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The median price of a home in Wisconsin rose nearly 120% over the past decade, from $155,000 to $337,000 according to data from the Wisconsin Realtors Association.
But median Wisconsin incomes have increased only about 50% in that time period, illustrating just one of the reasons why voters and politicians are increasingly concerned about a housing affordability crisis.
Past bipartisan efforts at the Capitol have worked to address these issues. In 2023, the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers dedicated more than $500 million in the biennial budget toward several loan programs at the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority aimed at creating new affordable housing, rehabilitating homes and transitioning space in commercial buildings.
But state lawmakers and both Democratic and Republican candidates for governor in 2026 are seeking more ways to address Wisconsin’s housing challenges.
Multiple bills passed through the Assembly in early October, from a proposal with a financial mechanism to ease the costs of infrastructure for building homes to another creating a grant program for converting multifamily housing into condominiums.
Several of the proposals received public hearings in the Senate’s Committee on Insurance, Housing, Rural Issues and Forestry last week and lawmakers could vote on them in the coming weeks.
What bills are in the Legislature?
The housing bills making their way through the Legislature touch on multiple avenues to boost the state’s supply of affordable housing.
One set of proposals creates a residential tax increment district, which can ease the costs of housing infrastructure on developers and lower the initial price of starter homes.
“We’re not talking about subsidized housing, we’re talking about affordable housing … the housing stock that was built just a generation or two ago,” Rep. Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, said at a September press conference. “We’re talking about small ranch homes, bungalow homes, some of those homes built without garages or alleyways or detached garages.”
Rep. Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, is seen during a convening of the Assembly at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Jan. 25, 2020 in Madison, Wis.
Another set of bills would establish a condo conversion reimbursement program administered by WHEDA. Legislation would provide $50,000 per parcel to convert multifamily properties to condominiums, according to the bills. The dollars would be funded through up to $10 million from a WHEDA housing rehabilitation loan program created in 2023.
Other legislative proposals include requiring cities to allow accessory dwelling units on residential land with a single family home. But Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby, expressed concerns over a prohibition on short-term rentals for accessory dwelling units.
Assembly Democrats in early October argued some of the Republican proposals fall short. An amendment offered by Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, would have allowed housing cooperatives to participate in the condo conversion program. It failed after Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, raised concerns about the renovation costs of housing co-ops, which Nass referred to as “communes,” while he disparaged Clancy, a Democratic Socialist, as a “communist.”
“I will be voting for this… but it is so disappointing to have to do that because we had something better in front of us,” Clancy said.
State Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, speaks at a press conference on Nov. 2, 2023, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Evan Halpop / Wisconsin Watch)
Wisconsin state Sen. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, is seen at the State of the State Address at the Capitol in Madison, Wis. on Jan. 10, 2017. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
What are candidates for governor proposing?
The candidate field for Wisconsin’s 2026 gubernatorial race is not yet finalized, but housing affordability is a priority for many of the candidates who responded to questions from Wisconsin Watch.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany told Wisconsin Watch he wants to lower housing costs through freezing property taxes and cutting government regulations. Tiffany additionally said he wants to explore how to steer the state’s housing affordability programs to focus on homeownership rather than renting.
“We need a red tape reset that cuts regulations and lowers costs while keeping safety a priority,” Tiffany said in a statement to Wisconsin Watch.
A campaign spokesperson for Republican Josh Schoemann said the Washington county executive would bring county programs statewide. The Heart and Homestead Earned Downpayment Incentive program helped Washington County residents with down payment loans on homes under $420,000, which could be repaid through volunteering or charitable donations. Another program, Next Generation Housing, brought together developers and local government leaders to encourage development of smaller starter homes in Washington County below $420,000.
Democratic candidates said their housing plans focused on local engagement and encouraging different financial and zoning reforms to boost affordable housing construction in Wisconsin.
A campaign spokesperson for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said Crowley would gather local leaders in rural, urban and suburban communities to find housing solutions that fit their communities. Crowley has done this with partners to build affordable housing throughout Milwaukee County, the spokesperson said.
Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, said in a statement that as governor she would use a combination of tax incentives, zoning reform and public bank-backed construction financing stabilization to make it easier to build affordable housing. She said she would also encourage home ownership models such as community land trusts and limited-equity co-ops.
Rental properties in downtown Madison, Wis., seen on March 25, 2020.
Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said she would direct more dollars to existing affordable housing programs to speed up the time it takes for developers to get necessary funding. Roys said she wants changes to zoning laws to allow types of housing that works for certain neighborhoods around the state, such as accessory dwelling units or higher density housing in transit and commercial corridors. Additionally, Roys said she would encourage more market-rate housing development and expand support systems such as housing vouchers to help ease costs of buying a home.
Crowley, Hong and Roys all expressed interest in a Right to Counsel program that would provide free legal representation for tenants at risk of eviction.
A campaign spokesperson for Missy Hughes, the former head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., said Hughes will share a more “comprehensive vision” of her housing plan over the course of the campaign.
Beer vendor Ryan Strnad said he would be open to increasing subsidies for lower-income housing across the state.
Notable
Watch your mail if you’re a disabled worker. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development began sending notices to 13,000 disabled workers who might be eligible for past unemployment benefits they were previously denied.
Several legislative committees meet at the Capitol this week. Here are a few worth watching:
Assembly Committee on Agriculture: The committee on Tuesday will hold a public hearing on Assembly Bill 30, which would entirely prevent a foreign adversary from acquiring agriculture or forestry land in Wisconsin. The bill follows a national trend of states that are passing stricter prohibitions on who can purchase farmland. Current state law prohibits foreign adversaries from holding more than 640 acres for purposes tied to agriculture or forestry.
Senate Committee on Health: Lawmakers will hear public testimony during its meeting Wednesday on Senate Bill 534, a Republican-led bill to legalize medical mairjuana and create a regulation office for patients and caregivers tied to the Department of Health Services.
Assembly Committee on Government Operations, Accountability and Transparency: Lawmakers will hold an informational hearing following a Cap Times report that 200 cases of teacher sexual misconduct and grooming cases were shielded from the public between 2018 and 2023.
Angel Perez, 65, has been fishing the waters of Milwaukee for more than 25 years. Everyday during his breaks from work at the Harley-Davidson Museum, he comes down to his fishing spot underneath the Sixth Street Viaduct and casts away. One day, Perez caught seven bluegills in the Menomonee River. Perez says that everyone needs to have something to help them relax, and for him, it’s fishing.
Perez said he was introduced to fishing early in his life by several mentors while growing up in the Wrigleyville neighborhood in Chicago. Now, Perez hopes to be a mentor for kids in Milwaukee, and that’s why in 2026 he plans on starting a camp called Urban Fishing with Angel.
Perez walks to a fishing spot on the north side of the Harley-Davidson Museum.
Perez baits his hook before fishing the Menomonee River, where he hopes to catch trout, bass, bluegill and even salmon as they make their run.
Perez wears polarized sunglasses to help him see fish better in the Menomonee River.
Perez shows the bait and hook setup that he primarily uses while urban fishing.
A bluegill is pulled out of the Menomonee River by Perez.
Perez reflects on his love for fishing as he casts out.
“It kept me out of trouble, and I was always a sports guy. But fishing, something about it for me. I love it.”
Angel Perez
Perez poses for a portrait at his fishing spot on the north side of the Harley-Davidson Museum.
Perez inspects a bluegill that he caught in the Menomonee River in Milwaukee on Oct. 6. Perez has been urban fishing in Milwaukee for more than 25 years and says he has noticed that the fish in the river are looking much healthier than in the past.Perez shows a photograph of a fish he caught on the Menomonee River. Perez has caught large trout, bass and carp all within city limits.
Perez inspects a bluegill that he caught in the Menomonee River. Perez has noticed that the colors on the fish look more vibrant and no longer are covered in warts like they used to be in the past.
Perez removes a hook from the mouth of a bluegill. Perez usually catches and releases the fish that he reels in.
Perez catches a bluegill from the Menomonee River. Perez hopes to launch his urban fishing youth camp in 2026. His goal is to meet with students, provide rods and teach youth of Milwaukee how to fish in the hopes that they can feel more connected to nature.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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