In March of 2020, Wisconsin Policy Forum’s Jason Stein appeared on WORT’s Evening News to talk about a Policy Forum report on Wisconsin State Government’s ability to weather an economic recession. The report rated the state’s financial resiliency as “about average” among U.S. states. With the global pandemic still in its early stages, the word “coronavirus” appeared only a few times in that report. Now, here we are, a year later, with 626,000 cases of COVID-19, and over seven thousand dead from the virus. Daily life has been turned upside down, with businesses shut down or operating at reduced capacity, millions working from home, and hundreds of thousands thrown out of work. So, in retrospect, how well did Wisconsin’s financial resiliency hold up? With Governor Evers’ budget now out and a new Wisconsin Policy Forum Budget Brief out, we thought it would be a good time to check back in with Jason Stein.

Source: Wisconsin Policy Forum | Budget Brief