14A SUNDAY, AUGUST 22, 2021 THE POST-CRESCENT Ascension 2021. All rights reserved. Stroke care wait Get advanced stroke care at AscensionWisconsin ERs and stroke centers When you experience signs of a stroke, important to call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. Ascension Wisconsin has nine advanced stroke centers located at our emergency rooms across the state, with early intervention and emergency treatment, recovery and rehabilitation. All are connected to specialists at our Comprehensive Stroke Center, recognized as delivering the highest level of stroke care.
Through the latest technology, our team of stroke specialists collaborate on diagnosing your stroke in as little as seconds and deliver the care right for you. beside you from the ER through recovery and rehabilitation. And we are maintaining strict precautions to keep you safe in our care. If you are experiencing a life-threatening emergency or difficulty breathing, go directly to the ER or dial 911. Learn your risk for stroke at ascension.org/WIstroke AscensionWisconsin And even as she worked to recover from that setback, she faced another problem: Because she receives food stamps and day care assistance, and be- cause those vital go away once she earns a certain amount of money, she had to weigh the pay requirements for her while seeking work dur- ing the pandemic.
Gray alone. For many people try- ing to care for their families, rent or buy housing and improve their household a small increase in pay can mean a disproportionately greater decrease in This called the makes it cult to make decisions about a new job or career advancement. In some cases, the additional earned income can cause stress. I lose day care assistance, I lose day care, therefore I lose my job and I start back at nothing. And then I could lose my Gray said.
realize that that and losing one as- sistance especially day care huge. And a 25-cent raise going to pay for $1,700 in day care a With a workforce shortage some industries, employers are raising wages to attract workers. Low-income workers receiving now have a better opportunity to reduce their de- pendence on and increase wages, as long as they wages high enough to survive the Rising wages present new opportunities for low-income workers While the minimum wage in Wiscon- sin has not increased, employers are of- fering higher wages as the economy picks up and workers are in short sup- ply. This is due to a pandemic economy in increased retirements, and more. The number of nonfarm jobs has been growing in Wisconsin since Febru- ary according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the increase in available jobs is another factor behind recent wage increases.
Businesses like retail, restaurants, and manufacturers are locked in com- petition for the same workers and rais- ing wages. Employers are reaching the suggested $15 wage on their own. Wage growth was slow for lowest- wage workers for decades. For people in the bottom 10th percentile of earnings, wages only grew by 6.5% in the last 40 years (1979-2019), ac- cording to a report by the Congressional Research Service updated in December 2020. Meanwhile, wages for those at the 90th percentile saw greater gains: their wages grew by 41.3%.
University of Wisconsin-Madison public and economics professor Timothy Smeeding noted the rise in wages for low-income workers means a good time for workers to reassess their jobs and a better one. those reasons, the job market is in favor of workers right now and turn- over is Smeeding said. people voluntarily leave jobs, econo- mists think good, because that meant they found something This is especially true for those re- ceiving government assistance for ne- cessities like food, child care, or hous- ing. Rising wages give these workers the overdue opportunity to increase their nancial independence and decrease de- pendence on However, pursuing higher-paying jobs or wage increases may bring cial stress in the short-term because of the where a small increase in income can lead to a disproportionately larger loss in In those cases, higher pay may result in a temporarily reduced standard of liv- ing or stress in the short run. especially for lower-income in- dividuals and any individual, really, who is relying on public assistance, I mean this can be a real said Da- vid Altig, director of research at the At- lanta Federal Reserve.
a minimum, it mitigates the positive impact of rising wages. In the worst case scenario, it ac- tually impedes progress from a pathway to higher The Atlanta Federal Reserve is work- ing on a that will allow people to predict where incoming are, depending on their household size, job type, location, and pro- grams. Altig said in the long run no question rising wages are good for work- ers and save the taxpayer money. a win-win because the individ- ual is better in the long Altig said. the public is better in the long run too, because we are paying out less in public and collecting more in income Surviving cliffs sometimes means saying no to a pay raise Jenna Dahlke, human resources re- cruiter at STL in Green Bay, sees community members navigate the ben- by declining promotions and keeping to a pay range when job hunting.
Dahlke, a former resident of the Green Bay shelter House of Hope, works with residents at area homeless shelters to jobs that would be a good match to those needs and work ex- periences. But negotiating income for shelter residents is tricky. Small pay increases can lead to a greater loss in public assistance, while being far short of enough to cover living costs. As a result, it is often safer to make less and remain on assistance than it is to make marginally more and lose the assistance altogether. Dahlke estimates about a third of her homeless clients need to negotiate pay within a low range just to keep have a large population of indi- viduals who are limited to only being able to make $13 to $14 an Dahlke said.
if they make 25 cents more an hour, going to lose their health insurance, lose their housing, their Dahlke can empathize as someone who also had to navigate the When she got her job while liv- ing at House of Hope, she received a $1,000 per month increase in pay. This might sound good, but she said she went from getting $800 per month in for her family to nothing. The budget was a little better, but it was still tight. She had to make do with no safety net. system give us grace to improve our Dahlke said.
all or national-level research indi- cating people will likely prioritize the pay raise over the loss. Researcher Elaine Maag at the Urban Institute, a policy research organiza- tion, interviewed people in the Tempor- ary Assistance for Needy Families pro- gram that funds state-administered support like child care assistance and job assistance about what they think about income increasing. and large, people want to work more, and not placing re- ceipt and changes in those front and center when making that de- cision about working Maag said. Where Wisconsin has its cliffs While the exact depends on a location, size and the type of received, a 2020 analysis by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers found exist for a fam- ily of three earning between $21,960 to $32,940 or as high as $43,290. Analysts ran this calculation for hy- Stuck Continued from Page 1A Jaleesa Gray plays with her children outside her home in Green Bay.
Gray, who was previously homeless, now owns a house and helps others improve their household at Circles Green Bay. SAMANTHA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN See STUCK, Page 15A.
