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• Free, simple tools can help people measure the change in inflation and see whether their pay is keeping up. 
• Experts Wisconsin Watch spoke to said that if your wage hasn’t changed and inflation rises, your real earnings decrease. 
• Workers can use inflation calculators to seek a raise if their real wages have dropped.

Inflation hit a three-year high in May, leaving a growing number of Americans struggling to afford necessities. The rate has since slowed a bit, but most prices aren’t likely to come down. Analysts say “affordability” could be one of the deciding issues in this fall’s midterm elections. 

But while we all notice the spike at the gas pump and the cash register, many people may not realize they can use simple, free tools to quantify the change and figure out whether their pay is keeping up.  

Wisconsin Watch talked to two experts about how and why to use inflation calculators. Here’s what they told us.

What is inflation and how do we measure it?

Inflation is a measure of how much prices have risen in a given period. Some increase in prices is to be expected — the Federal Reserve aims for 2% inflation when it sets interest rates. When prices rise quickly, consumers and businesses may struggle to buy what they need. 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases monthly inflation reports showing how prices have changed over the month and the year. The most widely used of those measures is the consumer price index, which shows the change in “prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.” In other words, it’s the weighted average of the change in prices of many of the things American consumers buy. According to the bureau, this rate reflects the spending patterns of more than 90% of the U.S. population. 

The bureau also publishes a variety of more specific inflation rates, including for different geographic areas and for different types of expenditures, including food and beverages, housing and medical care. It also calculates a second version of its national inflation figure, called the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, which is based on the spending patterns of households where at least half of the income comes from wage or clerical work. 

Meanwhile, the Fed keeps an eye on a related but different inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, as it’s setting interest rates.

How high is inflation today?

The latest consumer price index numbers, released on July 14, indicate prices rose 3.5% over the last 12 months. The numbers also show prices fell 0.4% in June, when adjusted for seasonal changes. The drop over the month came from falling gas prices, though the average cost of a gallon of gas in the U.S. remains about $1.10 higher than it was before the war in Iran began, according to a price tracker from NBC News.

Inflation today is far lower than in 2022, when it hit 8%, the highest in more than 30 years. But 3.5% is still well above the 2% target, said Menzie Chinn, professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

“Inflation is not as big of a concern in terms of its absolute value as it was maybe four years ago, but it’s higher than we would want, and going forward we certainly don’t want inflation to be running at this pace,” Chinn said. 

Meanwhile, wage growth has slowed, falling behind price growth. Nationally, wages and salaries rose 3.4% between March 2025 and March 2026, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

“Concern about prices rising is not just prices rising, but it’s against the backdrop of how fast wages are rising. How many people are keeping up, and what components of the population are keeping up?” Chinn said.

The inflation rate may eventually come down, meaning the rate at which prices are rising slows. And some individual prices, including gas prices, could come down too. But prices overall seldom fall. 

“The price level is probably never coming down, unless we have a severe downturn of some sort,” Chinn said.

What are inflation calculators and how do I use one?

Inflation calculators let you enter a dollar value and see how the buying power of that dollar value has changed over time. One easy way to understand this is to think about what a dollar could have bought 50 years ago. Today, that dollar is essentially worth less because you’d need more than a dollar to buy the same goods. An inflation calculator can show you exactly how big the change is: You’d need $5.88 today to buy what a dollar would buy in 1976,  according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation Calculator.

For a more practical example, enter your wage or salary at the time of your last raise, indicate the month and year of that raise, then select the latest month for which data is available. That tells you how much that wage or salary is worth in today’s dollars. 

You can also do the calculation backward to see the contrast in a different way. For example, if you earn $50,000 and you last received a raise two years ago, your pay today only goes as far as $47,038.95 at the time of your last raise. In other words, your “real salary” has fallen by 5.9%.

“If your wage is stuck and inflation is going up, your real earnings are going down,” said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee economics professor John Heywood, who directs the school’s graduate program in human resources and labor relations. 

You can also use these tools to check whether a given price has been rising faster or slower than inflation.  Say your rent was $900 a month in June 2024, and it rose exactly in line with the index for all prices. It would now be $956.65. If it’s risen more than that, it’s outpaced inflation.

Here are links to a few useful inflation calculators:

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation Calculator: bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
• Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ inflation calculator: minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator 

How can I use the information I get from an inflation calculator?

Inflation calculations can be a helpful tool for workers seeking a raise. Heywood suggests workers seeking raises gather information on both how their real earnings have declined over time and how their earnings compare with those of people in comparable positions in the industry and geographic area, and present that data to their human resources department.

“My impression is that at large corporations and at corporations that sort of follow best practices, they don’t want their workers to be paid less than their rivals or have their earnings go down, because they’re always in a competition for keeping and retaining talent,” Heywood said.

“If you can show, for example, that your wage hasn’t kept up with inflation or with your comparables, then a sensible HR department says, ‘Here’s somebody we might lose,’ and might very well be willing to increase somebody’s hourly or salary rate,” he said. 

If you’re represented by a labor union, your union representatives are likely doing these kinds of calculations regularly.

“It’s part of making sure that their members don’t have their earnings eroded by inflation,” Heywood said. 

To hold workers’ buying power steady, Heywood said, many union contracts include automatic cost of living adjustments. Six months into the contract period, for example, workers’ wages will rise by the same percentage that prices rose during those six months. 

Clauses like those were far more common before the soaring inflation of the 1970s and 1980s, Chinn said, noting that raising wages automatically in response to inflation can sometimes make inflation worse. As economists battled to get prices under control in the 1980s, they became more skeptical of these automatic wage increases.

“It’s good for the workers, it protects their buying power, but that means the cost of making stuff rises … which then feeds into next year’s demands,” Chinn said. Thus even a temporary shock to the economy can last much longer. 

But not raising pay comes at a cost too. “If they don’t get that automatic adjustment, it’s more likely they won’t get to maintain the real wage,” Chinn said.

Automatic cost of living adjustments are still common in some industries. “The auto industry uses it, (along with) aerospace, defense, postal workers, letter carriers, and a lot of local public unions,” Heywood said. “It hasn’t gone away.”

What’s the inflation forecast?

Many economists are predicting 2.5% to 3% inflation over the next year, Chinn said. He thinks those predictions are probably about right. 

“That’s assuming that we’re not having a big resumption of the war with Iran that completely blocks off indefinitely the Strait of Hormuz,” Chinn said. “That assumes no big collapse in the stock market and no big jumps in a trade war going forward.”

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

With prices up, here’s how and why to use an inflation calculator 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.

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For years, the story surrounding American manufacturing was in decline. We heard about factories closing, jobs moving overseas, and communities struggling to replace the industries that once defined them. That narrative is beginning to change.

As executive chairman of QPS Employment Group, an employee-owned staffing and recruiting firm headquartered in Brookfield, I speak every day with manufacturers across Wisconsin and the Midwest. Unlike economists analyzing data after the fact, our recruiters hear what’s happening in real time. We know when production lines are speeding up, when companies are adding shifts, and when employers begin asking for more workers.

Today, the message we’re hearing is encouraging. Manufacturing is making a comeback. A recent Institute for Supply Management report backs up what employers have been telling us for months: U.S. manufacturing has expanded for six consecutive months. While growth moderated slightly in June, factories continue to report healthy levels of new orders and steady production, signs that demand remains resilient despite ongoing economic uncertainty.

That’s especially good news for Wisconsin. Manufacturing has long defined our identity.

From precision machining and industrial equipment to food processing and paper products, our state has built its reputation on making things. These industries don’t just create products; they create careers, support local businesses and strengthen communities.

A busy factory means more truck drivers delivering materials, warehouse employees moving inventory, and electricians, maintenance technicians, welders, engineers, accountants and administrative professionals supporting operations. The ripple effect extends well beyond the factory floor.

Several factors are contributing to today’s momentum. Companies continue investing in domestic production. Businesses learned from recent supply chain disruptions and increasingly recognize the value of producing more goods closer to home. Investments in artificial intelligence, data centers and advanced technologies are fueling demand for equipment, components and industrial products that American manufacturers are well positioned to produce. 

None of this means manufacturing is easy.

Many employers still face rising material costs, interest rate uncertainty and rapidly changing global markets. Labor shortages also remain one of the biggest obstacles to continued growth.

One of today’s biggest challenges is that manufacturing demand continues to grow even as companies struggle to find enough workers. That challenge won’t solve itself.

For decades, we’ve encouraged nearly every young person to pursue a four-year degree while overlooking opportunities in skilled trades and manufacturing.

The reality looks very different today. Modern manufacturing is clean, technology-driven and increasingly sophisticated. Employees operate advanced robotics, program automated equipment, analyze production data and work with technologies transforming the industry. Many of these careers offer competitive wages, excellent benefits and long-term stability without requiring massive student loan debt.

That is a message we need to do a better job of sharing with students, parents and educators alike. Employers share that responsibility.

Successful manufacturers aren’t waiting for talent to walk through the door. They’re investing in training, partnering with technical colleges, offering apprenticeships, improving workplace culture and creating career paths that encourage employees to stay.

Workforce development has become a competitive advantage. Wisconsin has long benefited from its work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit. Those strengths remain just as valuable today as they were generations ago. Sustaining this manufacturing resurgence will require continued investment not only in equipment and facilities but also in people.

That means supporting technical education, expanding apprenticeship opportunities, helping veterans transition into manufacturing careers and creating workforce solutions that allow businesses to fill critical positions. 

Manufacturers remain optimistic. After several years marked by supply chain disruptions, inflation and economic uncertainty, many employers are once again planning for growth rather than simply reacting to challenges. That shift in mindset matters because confidence often drives investment, hiring and long-term expansion.

We see that confidence firsthand. No one can predict exactly what the economy will look like a year from now. Manufacturing has always been cyclical, and challenges will inevitably emerge along the way. Still, the trajectory is moving in the right direction.

Wisconsin has an opportunity to build on that momentum by continuing to support the industries that have long been the backbone of our economy. If we invest in our workforce, embrace innovation and ensure manufacturers have access to the talent they need, this comeback can become sustainable.

It can become the foundation for the next generation of American manufacturing. That’s something worth building.

Scott Mayer is the founder and executive chairman of QPS Employment Group, an employee-owned staffing and recruiting firm headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

Guest opinion: Manufacturing’s comeback depends on Wisconsin’s workforce 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.

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A scam operation targeting Spanish-speaking injured workers is laying traps in Wisconsinites’ email inboxes.

Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development issued an alert this week about a possible “multi-state fraud scheme” that lures targets into fake worker’s compensation hearings to collect fees under false pretenses.

DWD spokesperson Haley McCoy told Wisconsin Watch that 10 Wisconsin workers reported receiving emails instructing them to attend “online workers’ compensation hearing(s)” via video call. The emails’ senders generally use “.org” addresses and bill themselves as government agencies like the “Workers’ Compensation Board.”

Workers who joined the calls via Zoom, WhatsApp, Teams and other video conferencing platforms sat through elaborate staged hearings complete with judges, bailiffs and attorneys, ending in a verdict in the workers’ favor. The fraudsters then told the injured workers that they could collect their compensation payout only after paying a fee to “finalize” the case. In some cases, victims also shared their Social Security numbers.

At least four Wisconsin workers have lost money to the scam since January, McCoy said, paying a combined $30,000 in sham legal fees.

McCoy also emphasized that attorneys involved in Wisconsin worker’s compensation cases must be licensed to practice law in the state. “Any ‘attorney’ not licensed in Wisconsin may be a fraudster,” she wrote in an email on Monday.

The DWD exclusively communicates with injured workers, employers and insurance carriers via mail, and telephone numbers on DWD correspondence will have Wisconsin area codes. 

A June alert from the nonprofit National Insurance Crime Bureau cited other examples of the same fraud scheme targeting injured workers — primarily Spanish speakers — in Illinois, Indiana and Oregon.

Neither the bureau nor Wisconsin’s DWD has determined how the scam’s organizers obtained the email addresses of injured workers. 

People who believe they’ve been victims of identity theft should contact the agency’s Consumer Protection Hotline at 800-422-7128 or DATCPHotline@wisconsin.gov, the agency said.

Scammers target injured Wisconsin workers with fake worker’s compensation hearings 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.

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• An undocumented construction worker was paralyzed after falling through a roof in Madison in 2023 while working for contractors that lacked Wisconsin worker’s compensation insurance. He waited for months in a hospital while attorneys and state investigators determined who would be held responsible — a common consequence of informal employment arrangements.
• Wisconsin’s Uninsured Employers Fund ultimately covered the worker’s nearly $1 million claim, including medical care, disability compensation and transportation back to Nicaragua. The fund exists for crises like his, but it does not solve the underlying problem.
• Construction companies account for a disproportionate share of uninsured employer cases, and many businesses dissolve or disappear before regulators can recover costs. Undocumented workers paid in cash often struggle to prove they were employed, making it difficult to access benefits after serious injuries.
• The worker’s injury was never investigated by OSHA. State worker’s compensation systems and federal workplace safety investigators rarely coordinate. Advocates say limited reporting requirements, staffing shortages and poor coordination allow many serious workplace injuries to escape regulatory scrutiny.

Juan can no longer walk. A fall through a Madison auto repair shop roof in 2023 paralyzed him from the neck down.

Juan spent two lonely years in Wisconsin health care facilities while his attorneys and state regulators worked out how to cover his medical bills and compensate him for the abrupt end of his working life.

Like many undocumented immigrants working in construction, Juan found the job repairing a sheet-metal roof in Madison through a blurry relationship between a labor recruiter and a general contractor. Neither had the worker’s compensation insurance state law requires.

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) investigates thousands of employers each year for potentially violating those requirements. In 2024 alone, investigators issued more than 4,400 penalties totaling $8.7 million against employers for operating without insurance. The penalties flow into Wisconsin’s Uninsured Employers Fund, which compensates injured workers while the state attempts to recoup costs from their employer. 

But even identifying his employer after his injury proved difficult, Juan said. Wisconsin Watch is using only part of his name to protect his identity. 

While he eventually received compensation, Juan considers his lengthy hospitalization a cautionary tale both for regulators and for fellow immigrants afraid to ask who cuts their checks for fear of losing work. “Sometimes people just work and work without asking questions,” he said, “and that’s what happened to me.” 

Meanwhile, disconnects between worker’s compensation systems and federal workplace safety investigators can shield dangerous conditions from scrutiny, leaving more workers at risk of life-altering injuries.

A job with no clear employer

Juan, 40, was one of hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans who immigrated to the U.S. between 2020 and 2025.

Many fled after police responded violently to widespread protests against President Daniel Ortega’s totalitarian regime. Juan said he headed north to support his family back home. 

He waded across the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, Texas, on an early morning in December 2022. 

After a brief encounter with U.S. Border Patrol officers, Juan joined a nephew in Florida. Eager to work and constrained by his lack of work authorization, Juan fit the target demographic for labor recruiters connecting employers in agriculture, construction and food processing with Florida’s then-booming population of newly arrived undocumented immigrants. 

A recruiter named Angel connected Juan with his first gig: renovating his nephew’s apartment complex. One job led to another, and he soon found himself crisscrossing the Midwest as an itinerant construction worker. 

“One week we’d go to one place in Wisconsin; the next week we’d be in another,” he said. 

The work itself was a blur. “Sometimes we’d work up to 13 hours,” he recalled — usually at an unrelenting pace. Wary of asking questions that could cost him a job, Juan said he never fully knew who called the shots. “That’s the problem,” he said. “You start working and you don’t investigate who owns the company…. Sometimes they don’t think it’s good to investigate.”

Juan still didn’t know his employer’s identity when he climbed onto the auto repair shop’s roof on a cloudy Friday in August. The site supervisor hadn’t provided him with a safety harness, he added, so nothing broke his fall when he accidentally stepped through a sheet of insulation.

He fractured his spine upon impact with the concrete floor below.

Juan struggled to remain conscious as the site supervisor debated whether to call an ambulance. “It seemed like he was scared,” he recalled. “Afraid they would cause trouble for him because I had fallen. I kept telling him, ‘Call someone! Call someone! I’m dying!’” 

Who pays when a worker is hurt?

Confined to a trauma unit bed at University Hospital in Madison, Juan was in a bind.

Among other looming questions, “there was some doubt about who was going to cover the medical bills,” said Gabriel Manzano, an attorney who represented Juan. 

Aaron Halstead, also on Juan’s legal team, estimates that roughly three-quarters of Uninsured Employers Fund claims he pursued over his three-decade career involved undocumented workers. Spanish-speaking worker’s compensation attorneys are few and far between in Wisconsin, and undocumented workers are overrepresented in injury-prone trades.

The types of opaque employment arrangements that left Juan in limbo are especially common among undocumented immigrants, Halstead said.

“They get paid in cash by some guy they may or may not know,” he added, and when disaster strikes, they’re left without an easy way to prove the identity of their employer. 

The state denies a claim if a worker or attorneys cannot gather sufficient evidence to identify an employer, said Jim O’Malley, who directs the legal services for DWD’s worker’s compensation division.

“They need to be able to give us something that establishes a relationship (with an employer),” added Aaron Galarowicz, chief of DWD’s uninsured employers fund unit. “Pay stubs are easy,” he said, “but when they’re paid in cash… that’s a little bit more difficult.”

Tracking down the responsible employer requires a degree of “amateur detective” work, he added. Text messages, worksite photos and cellphone location history can all help solve the mystery, Halstead said — or at least create a clear enough picture to bring a claim to DWD. 

Leads in Juan’s case pointed to two possible employers: Luis Villafuerte, the subcontractor who brought Juan to Madison, and RestoreMasters, a then-Florida-based contractor in charge of the roof repair. 

Neither had worker’s compensation insurance in Wisconsin. Employers sometimes forgo insurance to cut costs, Halstead said. “Some percentage of them end up with injured workers,” he added, “and they hope that no one’s going to do anything about it.”

RestoreMasters, which did not respond to requests for comment, carried insurance elsewhere but failed to get a Wisconsin endorsement on its policy before taking the Madison job, Halstead said.

Not all states offer a fallback. Had he been injured while working for an uninsured contractor while living in Florida, for example, Juan’s only path to compensation would require filing a lawsuit against his employer.

In Wisconsin, however, DWD’s Uninsured Employers Fund could step into the gap as investigators sorted out which contractor to hold accountable.

A million-dollar claim

Passing interactions with fellow Spanish-speaking patients provided Juan moments of comfort during his initial hospital stay. Those connections dried up once he transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility. He had no family or close friends in the area. “I felt alone,” he recalled. “I felt devastated … to not be able to see anyone.”

State investigators reached a decision in February 2024. RestoreMasters was his employer at the time of his injury, DWD determined, so it bore responsibility for failing to secure a worker’s compensation insurance policy in Wisconsin. 

By the time the state secured an agreement with RestoreMasters to cover his ballooning medical bills, Juan had another request: a flight back to Nicaragua. With nobody in the U.S. to care for him, returning was his only viable option. 

The final payout, including all medical costs, compensation for Juan’s injuries and a chartered flight to Managua, reached nearly $1 million. Only one other uninsured employer — a now-dissolved trucking company in Oshkosh — paid a larger sum to the Uninsured Employers Fund in the past two decades. 

Construction dominates uninsured employer cases

Construction firms like RestoreMasters made up a disproportionate share of the uninsured employers that settled with DWD. Roughly one in four businesses that settled with the Uninsured Employers Fund between 2013 and 2023 offered construction or remodeling services. By comparison, the construction industry accounted for one in 14 worker’s compensation claims filed in Wisconsin during the same period, according to DWD data.

But RestoreMasters, a business with a portfolio spanning half the country, wasn’t a typical uninsured employer. “Employers with Uninsured Employers Fund claims tend to be less established than other businesses,” DWD spokesperson Haley McCoy wrote — and difficult to track. 

A quarter of the roughly 150 employers that faced Uninsured Employers Fund claims between 2020 and 2025 have since dissolved, Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions records show. Some may have reincorporated under a different name. State records list another 20% as “delinquent,” having failed to file required reports or pay state taxes.

Less than half of employers still incorporated in Wisconsin with names matching Uninsured Employers Fund records have obtained worker’s compensation policies since encountering DWD.

Of the more than two dozen businesses Wisconsin Watch contacted about their experiences navigating Uninsured Employers Fund claims, only one responded: a used car dealership on Milwaukee’s South Side owned by former Greenfield alderwoman Linda Lubotsky. 

Her business is among those that have not obtained insurance policies; Lubotsky told Wisconsin Watch that she now runs a one-person operation that isn’t subject to Wisconsin’s worker’s compensation insurance requirement. 

Lubotsky called her business’s run-in with DWD as a “witch hunt,” accusing the former employee who filed a worker’s compensation claim in 2024 of fraud and the agency of failing to act as a neutral arbiter. “I spent $15,000 on attorney fees,” she said, “and I’m currently in the appeal process.”

Employers and employees appealing Uninsured Employers Fund decisions first make their case to an administrative law judge. They can then appeal to Wisconsin’s Labor and Industry Review Commission before taking a case to court. 

When serious injury escapes OSHA scrutiny

Even as the state investigated and settled with RestoreMasters, the company faced no scrutiny from federal workplace safety regulators after Juan’s fall.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) serious injury records from 2023 contain no mention of the incident, and the agency’s enforcement data shows no penalties against RestoreMasters for workplace safety rule violations.

Federal rules require employers to report workplace accidents resulting in deaths, overnight hospitalizations or the loss of a body part, and employers that fail to report injuries can face financial penalties.

“OSHA can barely enforce those penalties,” said Debbie Berkowitz, a fellow at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor and a former Obama administration senior policy adviser for OSHA. 

OSHA has six months to fine employers for failing to report serious workplace injuries, Berkowitz said. That deadline, coupled with overwhelming caseloads and a shrinking corps of investigators, allows many cases to fall through the cracks. 

Others aware of Juan’s fall could have reported the incident to OSHA. But Wisconsin DWD has “no established reporting process” for sharing information about Uninsured Employers Fund payouts with the federal agency, McCoy wrote.

That disconnect goes both ways. “OSHA doesn’t double-check worker’s (compensation) records,” said Eric Frumin, health and safety director for the Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of national labor unions. The agency’s investigations aren’t primarily driven by workplace injuries, he added, so worker’s compensation data would be “a bit out of their wheelhouse.”

Even in states that enforce workplace safety laws through OSHA-approved programs, including Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota, regulators do not use worker’s compensation records, Frumin said. 

But properly reporting injuries to OSHA doesn’t guarantee follow-up investigations, Berkowitz noted. In 2021, for instance, OSHA compliance officers investigated less than 40% of reports of severe workplace injuries.

A long road back

Juan boarded a chartered flight to Managua last fall. The final leg of his return — an eight-hour drive from the capital to his rural hometown — sapped what remained of his energy.

“I arrived home in terrible shape,” he said. “But I made it back.” 

He’ll spend the rest of his life in a house he built with the payout from RestoreMasters. “Nothing fancy,” he said — but with a floor plan he can navigate in a wheelchair. 

A roofing accident left a new immigrant paralyzed. Tracking down his employer took ‘detective’ work. 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.

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• Fidelity bonds protect businesses if an employee steals or commits fraud. 

• The state issues the bonds, and research shows they’re one of the most effective ways to persuade employers to hire people with criminal records.  

• But Wisconsin issues few fidelity bonds. 

• Experts are divided on the issue, with some saying the free insurance can’t hurt and might help. 

• Others say it doesn’t address all the concerns employers have or educate them about the benefits of giving people with criminal records a second chance.

For every 10 people released from Wisconsin’s prisons, just seven find jobs within two years — even as the state’s ongoing worker shortage leaves many employers scrambling to find the help they need. 

The struggle isn’t unique to Wisconsin. Formerly incarcerated people nationwide are far more likely to be unemployed than the general population. One reason: Though people with criminal records often outperform their colleagues, many employers worry they’ll be unreliable or even dangerous. 

That’s why, 60 years ago, the U.S. government began insuring employers against that risk, for free. 

The Federal Bonding Program, established in 1966, offers “fidelity bonds” to reimburse businesses for losses if the covered employee steals or commits fraud. 

Recent research suggests these bonds are one of the most effective ways the government can persuade employers to give jobs to people with criminal records. Those jobs have ripple effects.  Families become more financially stable, communities become safer — as people with jobs are less likely to commit new crimes — and taxpayers save money as fewer people return to prison.  

So why aren’t Wisconsin employers requesting these bonds? While some states issued hundreds last year, Wisconsin issued just three — even though an estimated 1.4 million Wisconsinites have a criminal record. 

Demand in the state is so low that when the federal government in 2019 offered Wisconsin $100,000 to spend on bonds, workforce officials used just $15,000.

To figure out what’s going on, Wisconsin Watch spoke to economists, insurance experts, criminologists and workforce development officials, who ranged from enthusiastic to cynical about bonding. 

Some said the coverage limits may be too low to address employers’ worries, or that bonds don’t help when employers are worried about safety or a bad work ethic. Some said employers overestimate the risk of hiring people with criminal records and that education — not insurance — is the solution. But most said offering this free insurance can’t hurt and might help. 

In a worker-strapped state, is this insurance program a little-known lifeline or an irrelevant relic? 

Bonding basics

Imagine you’re a hiring manager who wants to offer a job to an applicant with a criminal record. If you’re in the same boat as many businesses, your commercial insurance may not cover any theft or other act of dishonesty if the employee in question has a criminal record. 

To fill that insurance gap, you contact your state’s bonding coordinator to apply for a six-month, no-deductible fidelity bond that will reimburse you for up to $5,000 in losses. In special circumstances, you can apply for additional coverage of up to $25,000. The state handles the paperwork and the $100 cost. 

The program boasts a claim rate of just 1%, meaning businesses in the program seldom report losses. At the end of the six months, you may now be satisfied that your new employee is trustworthy — or you can buy additional coverage. 

In Wisconsin, these bonds are the only incentive available to encourage what’s often called “second chance” or “fair chance” hiring.

“It is a unique tool to help a job applicant get and keep a job,” the state’s Department of Workforce Development says on its bonding webpage. “It is like a ‘guarantee’ to the employer that the person hired will be an honest worker.” 

The same bonds are also available to other job applicants whose background could make it hard to get or keep a job. That includes people in treatment or recovery for alcohol or drug addictions and people with little or no work history. 

In practice, the program is almost exclusively used for people with criminal records, according to program administrator Kevin Kulling. 

Wisconsin focuses much of its outreach effort on prisons, making sure people know how to take advantage of the program when they get out. The stakes are high: Of those released in 2023, nearly 1 in 3 were rearrested within a year and 1 in 8 ended up back behind bars. 

Recent research backs bonds 

Governments have tried a variety of ways to persuade employers to hire people with criminal records. 

Nationally, there’s the $2-billion-a-year federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which rewards employers for hiring people with felony convictions. But new research finds the tax credit doesn’t increase pay or hiring for the workers it’s designed to help. It expired in December but could be reinstated.

Meanwhile, a growing number of states have tried to boost job seekers by barring employers from asking about criminal records on job applications. In about a dozen states, public and private employers are subject to such “ban-the-box” measures. 

Evidence is mixed. Several studies find these laws reduce hiring for Black and Hispanic men, suggesting that when employers can’t check an applicant’s criminal record, they instead make assumptions based on demographics.

Enter the bond, a policy that predates the others by decades. In 1975, the U.S. Department of Labor commissioned a study of the then-new program. Participating workers reported major salary increases after joining the program, and a majority held on to their bonded job longer than one year. 

New evidence supports the program. In a 2023 article, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research teamed up with an online hiring platform to survey businesses. The platform asked users about their willingness to hire people with criminal records and how that might change if the platform offered wage subsidies or insurance coverage. 

Researchers found employer willingness to hire someone with a criminal record rose 12% when offered up to $5,000 in crime and safety insurance. It would take an 80% wage subsidy to get the same result. 

Mitchell Hoffman, an economics professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, co-authored that study. He said policymakers have often tried to solve these hiring challenges by trying to change the workers, like with training or therapy. This research suggests it’s possible to change employers’ behavior, too.

That matters, he said, because employers hold the cards. “If firms don’t want to employ people with a record, then it’s hard to move them to employment and to good jobs,” Hoffman said.

The findings are welcome news to Jen Doleac, executive vice president of criminal justice at the philanthropy Arnold Ventures and author of the book “The Science of Second Chances: A Revolution in Criminal Justice.” Doleac, who researches crime and discrimination, was surprised when she first learned about the Federal Bonding Program.

“It’s such a smart idea. Employers say they’re worried about the risk of hiring someone with a record. How do we deal with risk? We provide insurance,” Doleac said. A critic of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, she said the new research shows why bonds are a better bet. 

“Insurance just moved the needle more, and much more dollar for dollar,” Doleac said.   

Experts divided

Even in states issuing hundreds of bonds a year, that’s just a fraction of those released from prison annually, and a smaller share of all people with criminal convictions. 

“The total number of firms nationally that were involved, it seemed like a very small number,” Hoffman said. “There's interesting variation across states, but overall, just not that much usage.”

Just 27 Wisconsin employers participated in the program in the last five years, according to federal records obtained by Wisconsin Watch. Those businesses range from national retailers like Dollar Tree to smaller agricultural businesses like Rine Ridge Farms. 

Why haven’t bonds proven more popular? Wisconsin Watch asked more than a dozen Wisconsin businesses and industry groups about their experience with the Federal Bonding Program. Just one responded, and none agreed to answer questions. 

Hoffman thinks maybe employers just aren’t that worried, or that the risk they’re worried about isn’t covered by the bonds. They may worry the applicant will be unreliable or even dangerous, despite evidence to the contrary. In a 2021 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, more than 80% of business leaders said second-chance hires perform the same as or better than other employees. 

“If someone does something bad to a customer,” Hoffman said, that customer might sue, or customers might take their business elsewhere. Bonds don’t cover that risk. “That is very difficult to quantify. What is the cost of that sort of event?”

Another possibility, Doleac said, is that employers don’t know about the bonds. Some states may be doing more to get the word out than others, but marketing costs money that state workforce departments may not have.

The more likely explanation, she said, is that the process is too cumbersome for employers who are used to buying insurance that covers all their employees. Although job applicants and employers do not have to complete any paperwork to get a bond, employers still need to keep track of the policies that were issued to a specific employee. 

“It’s just too inconvenient and too much paperwork to keep track of,” Doleac said. She and her colleagues are exploring whether standard policies could include riders covering these workers, without a separate process or schedule. 

Meanwhile, some advocates for formerly incarcerated people worry that the bonds can backfire, making employers worry even more. 

Craig Coleman, a case manager for Forward Service Corporation, helps formerly incarcerated Wisconsinites get trained and find work. He doubts bonds will help them. 

“You’re saying to your employer, ‘If I steal from you, then you'll be reimbursed,’” Coleman said. “I’m not an HR person, but if I had someone come in with an insurance policy saying, ‘If I steal from you,’ that’s the end of the conversation. I'm not hiring you.”

Genevieve Martin of Talent Nova agrees. Before starting a website designed to help formerly incarcerated people prepare for the workforce, she worked at Dave’s Killer Bread, which built its brand on hiring people with criminal records. 

There, she trained more than 50 other companies on “fair-chance hiring,” teaching them that hiring people with criminal records isn’t risky. Talking about extra insurance policies undermines that message, she said.

“Rather than hiring the person because they’re the best person for the job, but they happen to have a record. Now we’re trying to say, ‘Here’s an insurance policy. Please do it,’” Martin said. 

The fact that Wisconsin employers seldom use fidelity bonds might even be a good sign. The state has unusually strong organizations that prepare applicants for work and match them with employers, said Josh Morby, who represents such groups as spokesperson for the Wisconsin Workforce Hub. If those organizations are doing their jobs well, employers will trust their participants — no insurance policy necessary. 

“Wisconsin employers are looking for candidates who are screened, prepared and supported so hiring justice-impacted talent becomes a reliable workforce solution, not a risk,” Morby said in an email.

Wisconsin bond use lags 

The bonding program’s popularity varies among states, according to data Wisconsin Watch obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. In 2025, New Jersey issued 277 bonds, and Washington, D.C., issued 192. 

Meanwhile, 12 states didn’t issue any in 2025. 

Wisconsin Watch requested interviews with workforce officials in New Jersey, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia to learn why employers there are using more bonds. None responded. A U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson also declined an interview. 

One possible explanation for the higher numbers is that those states have higher unemployment rates. But Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was at a historic low in 2018, when the state issued 27 bonds, more than 12 times as many as it did in 2025. 

In 2019, Wisconsin workforce officials requested the maximum $100,000 federal grant to buy more bonds. They said they planned to buy 1,000 bonds over four years, plus more with other funds. They estimated more than 5,500 Wisconsinites with criminal records were eligible. The bonds, they said, would help break “the cycle of recidivism.”

But the COVID-19 pandemic — which shuttered businesses and locked down prisons — derailed the state’s plans. 

“With the unemployment rate at an increased rate in Wisconsin, many recruitment efforts for employers to use Fidelity Bonds (have) slowed,” officials wrote in each quarterly grant report from April 2020 to February 2021.

When the grant period ended in 2023, Wisconsin had issued just 59 bonds. Officials wrote that, despite their outreach efforts, their bond numbers were “extremely low.”

The bond’s popularity has since further waned. In each of the last two years, Wisconsin issued no more than three bonds. Department spokesperson Haley McCoy attributed that to the state’s tight labor market. 

“Given the strong demand to fill vacant positions, employers have not needed the added incentive of fidelity bonds to hire justice-involved employees during this historically strong economic period,” McCoy wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.

Asked whether the Department of Workforce Development plans to make any changes to Wisconsin’s bonding program, McCoy said the bonds are “just one tool in the toolbox that can help a job seeker secure a job.” 

“We’ll continue to work with our partners to provide opportunities and prepare job seekers and workers for their next opportunity in Wisconsin,” McCoy wrote.

From a job market ‘hidden force’ to a lever against bias

Meanwhile, Arnold Ventures researchers are trying to figure out how to get more businesses across the country to use federal fidelity bonds or something similar. 

Criminal justice director Carson Whitelemons has been studying ways to improve the federal program. But she said just trying to understand how bonding works and how it fits with existing business policies can be “incredibly difficult.”

“Even for business owners who are trying to ask their insurers what is covered and what is not covered, it's not always clear, and often that realm of uncertainty, I think, is what makes employers cautious,” Whitelemons said.

But it’s not just about bonding. The work is part of a new effort she’s organizing with experts from a variety of fields, trying to understand the biases that can keep people from getting all kinds of coverage and how to fix them.  

“(Insurance) is such a powerful lever in terms of what people feel safe or empowered to do, what they feel protected from. This has come up again and again in terms of different issues in the United States, in home ownership and redlining — insurance is often this hidden force, especially in areas where there is stigma or discrimination.”

Hoffman, the HR economist, said if more employers use bonds, that could help dispel misconceptions about people with records. 

“Employers … think they’re less productive than they actually are,” Hoffman said. That’s not the problem bonds are designed to solve, but if bonding gets more employers to hire these applicants, the experience may change how they view similar applicants in the future, he said. 

Meanwhile, officials from Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections will continue teaching prisoners about these seldom-used bonds and encouraging them to pitch the opportunity to their potential future bosses — for better or worse.  

Hongyu Liu is a data investigative reporter for Wisconsin Watch. Email him at hliu@wisconsinwatch.org. 

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

‘Second chance’ bonds show promise. Few Wisconsin businesses use them 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.