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(The Center Square) – An increasing number of Wisconsin voter registration information does not match information from the state’s Department of Transportation.
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.
A former Milwaukee teacher's aide is among the people suing over a change in federal immigration policy. The lawsuit accuses ICE of breaking federal laws and policies that are intended to protect crime victims.
If you run into Jim Anderson of Cable, you'll probably find him training for a marathon or other long-distance race. The 73-year-old has run dozens of marathons and other races in every state and on every continent except Antarctica, and his 47 American Birkebeiner races put him in the top 10 of participants in the Wisconsin cross-country ski race.
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