Wisconsin's Unemployment Rate Continues to Sit Near Record Lows

Tuesday, June 13th, 2023 -- 11:00 AM

(By Joe Schulz, Wisconsin Public Radio) For more than a year, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has stayed near record lows.

Since last January, the state’s unemployment rate hasn’t gone above 3.1 percent. In April, the state’s unemployment rate hit a new record low at 2.4 percent, and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that six Wisconsin metro areas had rates lower than 2 percent that month.

The state also hit a new record-high for jobs in April, with 9,600 more jobs than its pre-pandemic peak in January 2020. That would have been unheard of decades ago. The state’s unemployment rate in the 1980s never went below 4.1 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

At the same time, Wisconsin had over 150,000 more job openings than it had people receiving unemployment benefits as of January. Experts say the tight labor market has improved the bargaining power of workers to ask for better pay, benefits and more flexible schedules.

It’s also created opportunities for some who have previously struggled to find jobs. Timothy Smeeding, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Wisconsin Public Radio's "Central Time" that the tight labor market has helped low-wage workers the most.

Between 2019 and 2022, the lowest 10 percent of wage earners nationally saw their inflation-adjusted hourly wage grow by 9 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute. That’s the fastest wage growth for the lowest-wage workers since 1979.

Smeeding said demand for workers exceeding supply is what led to that growth, especially as the pandemic waned and people began going out again. He expects that trend to continue as long as there’s a tight labor market.

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