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Has Wisconsin’s Act 10 union law saved taxpayers billions of dollars?

βœ‡Wisconsin Watch
By: Tom Kertscher ／ Wisconsin Watch
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Wisconsin Watch partners withΒ GigafactΒ to produce fact briefs β€” bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions, has saved taxpayers billions of dollars.

The 2011 law could be reviewed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court because of a recent judge’s ruling.

The law achieved savings mainly by shifting costs for pension and health benefits for public employees to the employees.

The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found in 2020 that state and local governments saved $5 billion from 2011 to 2017 in pension costs alone.

PolitiFact Wisconsin reported in 2014 that public employers saved over $3 billion on pensions and health insurance.

Getting rid of Act 10’s pension, health insurance and salary limits would raise annual school district costs $1.6 billion and local government costs $480 million, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty estimated in September.

However, the recent court ruling doesn’t invalidate Act 10’s higher employee contribution requirements, said attorney Jeffrey Mandell, who represents unions in the pending case.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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Has Wisconsin’s Act 10 union law saved taxpayers billions of dollars? 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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