Lawton claims gains in women's economic status
Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton issued a "midterm" report last week on efforts she initiated five years ago to improve the economic condition of Wisconsin women.
She said in a news release that Wisconsin women have made "significant gains" under the Wisconsin=Prosperity program. Listed among the accomplishments are improved health care access for women and girls, expanded opportunities for women-owned businesses and skills training programs for low-income women.
Lawton also noted that W-2, the state's welfare-to-work program, "continues to get better at moving working women out of poverty."
While the report itself didn't actually offer any evidence to back up that claim, it did identify a couple of efforts in particular that, if adopted on a widespread basis, could help lead people toward economic self-sufficiency.
Under a six-year pilot program at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, money is finally being provided for a limited number of women on W-2 to attend college. Not public money, mind you. Since the 1996 overhaul of the nation's welfare system, that practice all but dried up.
But with a $2 million grant from the Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation, UW-Milwaukee started a program in 2005 that provides $5,000 annual grants to low-income students with children for college and day-care expenses. Currently, 11 women and one man are in the program, which also offers access to a life coach and other staff who help students with their academic, economic and career-related needs. The program plans to expand in its sixth year to cover 60 students.
The report also mentions a new pilot program that promises to help W-2 recipients "gain real work experience in jobs that pay wages, instead of W-2 stipends or grants." This program attempts to address the needs of recipients who exhaust the benefits allotted to them before acquiring the skills needed to get a good job on their own. Under the pilot, 100 people in Milwaukee, Kenosha and Marathon County will be placed in jobs that provide training, mentoring and that all-important paycheck.
John Keckhaver, a research analyst with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, said such an approach has worked well in other places.
"We believe very strongly in the transitional jobs model as a workforce development approach," he said.
"It makes W-2 agencies actually place people in real jobs," he added. "There seems to be a real psychological benefit for someone not just receiving a benefit, but for earning a real wage."
Keckhaver also praised the program for providing recipients with an income tax credit at tax time and case management services while they adapt to working life.
The latter, in particular, "is critical to their success and to their staying on the job."
On the downside, Lawton's report points out that two other attempts to improve the health and economic status of low-income women and their children did not make it through the political process, though Gov. Jim Doyle did include the proposals in his budget. These included extending newborn leave for W-2 recipients from three to six months, and providing benefits to high-risk women in the third trimester of pregnancy.
God, I love this candy!
Among the products being showcased last month at the All Candy Expo in Chicago were jelly beans made by Scripture Candy Inc., an outfit out of Birmingham, Alabama.
With its slogan, "Reaching the world one piece at a time," the company aims to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ by taking "the best-tasting candies" and wrapping them in Scripture. Or, in the case of the jelly beans, in a poem.
Space constraints allow us to print just a couple of verses:
"Thank you, Lord, for jelly beans.
They remind me of your love.
SPECKLED represents the effects of sin
Separating me from you above.
RED is for the blood you shed
A sacrifice only you could pay."
Eat up!
