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Changes in FoodShare and Medicaid requirements have caused benefits to be cut off for many and created difficulties for beneficiaries to get their applications reviewed or renewed.

And state workers are struggling to keep up.

Beverly Knox and her son Christopher Knox have had a front-row seat to the disruptions.

The long wait

Christopher Knox is the caretaker for his mother, who had brain surgery to remove a tumor and suffered a stroke nearly 30 years ago. She no longer has mobility in almost half her body.

The nightmare for them has looked like this:

“I was on hold with people from the (FoodShare) program for one and a half hours waiting to conduct my mom’s interview,” Knox said. “They asked me for my mom’s case number and put me on hold for another 20 minutes, and then an automated voice said something like: ‘We close at noon on Thursdays’ and ended the call.”

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ FoodShare call center is indeed closed at that time, which is not common knowledge for many people on these programs based on NNS interviews.

Knox said at least three times in June he endured two hours or more of wait times to secure a FoodShare interview for his mother so she could get the assistance she needed. 

Many times, Knox said, he was met with rude and disrespectful customer service. 

“She can communicate on her own, but ain’t no way in the world (she) would be able to do all this by herself,” Knox said. 

In addition to the family’s difficulty in getting the mother interviewed, Knox has had to send in documentation to again prove his mother’s medical condition for both FoodShare and Medicaid. 

“You need proof of everything,” he said.

‘All hands on deck’

Emergency FoodShare allotments ended in February, causing wholesale review of both FoodShare and Medicaid cases. In addition, work requirements for FoodShare and Medicaid recipients were reinstated earlier this year and are being phased out over nine months.

Jamie Kuhn, director of the Wisconsin Medicaid program, acknowledged during a call with the press the probability of long hold times. She said this is because of the high call volume, the hiring of new staff and the flood of cases that need to be reviewed.

“This is an unprecedented effort and all hands are on deck,”  Kuhn said. 

Knox was finally told by a call center employee to file a complaint with the Hunger Task Force, which works with the state Department of Health Services, or DHS, to expedite severe cases. 

“We are deeply concerned,” said Sherrie Tussler, executive director of the Hunger Task Force.

During the pandemic, the federal government issued extra emergency allotments of FoodShare. And during the pandemic, more people were accepted into Medicaid programs. Many requirements, such as being employed and having proof of income, were lifted or lightened. 

Rise in FoodShare, Medicaid recipients

The number of FoodShare recipients in 2019 averaged 609,359 a month in Wisconsin, according to DHS numbers. But despite the winding down and official declaration of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wisconsin has seen an average of 709,832 FoodShare recipients per month from January to June. That’s about 100,000 more Wisconsinites accessing FoodShare a month. 

For Wisconsin Medicaid, which includes programs like BadgerCare Plus, about 1.2 million people were receiving state medical insurance before the pandemic. That number has now risen to 1.6 million Wisconsinites. The DHS estimates that 1 in 4 residents will have to go through the renewal process over the next year. 

Studies from the Urban Institute and NORC estimate that at least 300,000 Wisconsinites will have to transition off of Medicaid. These studies also estimate that anywhere from 49,000 and 72,000 Wisconsinites will become uninsured. 

According to the DHS, more than 32,000 people who took action to renew Medicaid services were found ineligible in the month of June. 

Emergency FoodShare allotments ended in February and Wisconsin Medicaid programs resumed routine operations in May. Many of those Medicaid cases were suspended for people who did not submit renewals on time. 

As a result of the emergency aid, not as many people went to food pantries during the pandemic emergency period, Tussler said. That has since stopped. 

The Hunger Task Force saw a 20% increase in the use of food pantries from January to June and a 36% increase in the use of meal sites during the same time. 

A version of this story was first published by Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, a nonprofit news organization that covers Milwaukee’s diverse neighborhoods.

Wisconsin residents endure long waits due to FoodShare and Medicaid changes 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.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

At the peak of his powers, Montee Ball was a star running back for the Wisconsin Badgers; a Heisman finalist in 2011 who was setting records and getting drafted by the Denver Broncos. Yet, along the way, Ball succumbed to a vice all too familiar to Wisconsin: alcohol. 

Ball got cut from the Broncos and then the Patriots and was arrested for domestic violence driven by his alcoholism. Since reaching those lows, Ball has published a memoir and worked in alcohol-addiction support and outreach programs. He visited his alma mater in March to speak to current Badgers. 

Ball was introduced to football at an early age. Football took a toll on his body, which meant turning to alcohol at an early age. 

“There is this medication out there that will help me to relieve some stress. That’s when the seed was planted, right there in high school,” Ball said.

Ball’s collegiate career brought him and his family to Wisconsin, home to a drinking culture that was tough to fight. 

“The drinking culture here was a cultural shock. We all know where this school is ranked when it comes to partying. Coming onto campus wide eyed, ready to hit the ground running, I did not prepare for those stressors,” Ball said.

The warning signs appeared in his time at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but Ball neglected them. 

“It was very difficult to see those red flags because I was still having success on the field,” he said.  He covered up his alcoholism by jogging extra miles and skipping meals to prevent noticeable weight gain from consuming alcohol.  

After his storied four-year career as a Badger, Ball’s family was thrilled when the Broncos drafted him in 2013

However, Ball continued to conceal his alcoholism as a professional, sometimes entering training facilities early to shower and use the steam room to rid himself of the smell of alcohol. 

“Just unfortunate that that plan didn’t become a red flag for me in the moment,” he said. “I literally would never sacrifice the bottle for my dream, and I lost my dream.” 

By 2015, the Broncos cut him from their squad. He joined the New England Patriots’ training squad, but the Patriots released during a dark turn in his life. In February 2016, Ball was arrested after his girlfriend told police he had drunkenly thrown her across their Madison hotel room. A  previous girlfriend later told police that Ball had assaulted her two years earlier. 

Ball said he spent three days in jail while the Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50. An inmate pointed out during the game the life he had thrown away, and Ball could no longer mask his emotions. “I turned around and faced the wall, and I started crying,” he said.

After pleading guilty to two charges of disorderly conduct and one charge of battery, Ball was sentenced to 60 days in jail and 18 months in probation. He was released on bail but later found guilty of bail jumping in Whitewater as he visited a bar when his bail conditions prohibited it.

Ball said his life changed with the birth of his son Maverick. He realized how his actions would directly affect another person. Ball said his parents encouraged him to join therapy. He stressed the importance of acceptance and therapy to the audience. Taking these steps and making these realizations propelled Ball to sobriety and stability.

How alcoholism derailed former Wisconsin running back Montee Ball’s football career 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.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Blanketing the wall of an American-style dive bar in Prague: the Milwaukee Brewers, the Tavern League of Wisconsin and the iconic phrase “Drink Wisconsibly.”

Not only does Wisconsin consistently rank among the U.S. states with the highest excessive drinking rates, its high alcohol consumption draws global recognition. 

While many Wisconsinites take pride in this reputation, alcohol is taking lives at unprecedented rates in the state.

In 2020, Wisconsinites died from alcohol-induced causes at a rate nearly 25% higher than the national rate. The rate tripled from 6.7 to 18.5 per 100,000 from 1999 to 2020.

Wisconsin is “locked in this weird death grip with alcohol,” said John Eich, director of the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health. “There’s a cultural level of acceptance of excessive drinking.”

Despite challenges, some are pushing back against permissive drinking laws and culture.   

After a drunk driver killed her son in 2018, Sheila Lockwood started lobbying to reform laws in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. 

“I don’t know what else to do with the pain other than trying to change something,” Lockwood said. “If I can help somebody from going through this, then you just turn your pain into some sort of change.”

Binge drinking inflicts most harm

About 65% of Wisconsin’s adults reported having at least one drink over the previous 30 days — far above the 55% national estimate, according to 2019 federal survey data. 

But binge drinking inflicts most alcohol-related harm, said Maureen Busalacchi, director of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project, part of the Comprehensive Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Binge drinking consists of four to five alcohol servings over two hours. Any alcohol consumed by underaged and pregnant people is excessive, and heavy drinking involves one to two drinks daily, Busalacchi said. 

“While it doesn’t sound like a lot, it definitely raises your risk for all kinds of issues, including cancer, and if you need to drink every day, you probably should talk to somebody,” Busalacchi said. 

About one-third of Wisconsin adults in 2019 reported binge drinking in the previous month, more than any state except for North Dakota.

That thirst has proved deadly. 

Wisconsin experienced 1,077 alcohol-induced deaths in 2020, up from 865 in 2019, a Wisconsin Policy Forum report found. The tally included deaths from poisoning and certain liver, digestive and neurological diseases. It excluded accidents, falls, cancers and suicide. The nearly 25% increase was the biggest one-year jump in two decades. 

Alcohol death trends predated pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic may have fueled the deadly trend, as people already facing an alcohol use disorder stayed home and drank more, Busalacchi suggested. 

“Maybe health care wasn’t accessible. We’re not sure of all the reasons,” she said. 

But alcohol killed a growing number of Wisconsinites even before the pandemic. From 2000 to 2010, statewide alcohol-induced deaths increased by nearly 27% before more than doubling over the next decade. Nearly two-thirds of the 2010-to-2020 surge predated the pandemic, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.  

All age groups experienced more alcohol-induced deaths over the time period. 

Meanwhile, liver disease has increasingly affected younger people, particularly women.

“Normally that was a disease in your 50s and 60s, but we’re seeing it in women in their 30s because of the high-intensity drinking,” Busalacchi said. 

The Wisconsin Policy Forum report highlighted racial disparities in deaths. The alcohol-related death rate for Black Wisconsinites has surged in the last decade. Despite a slight reduction in 2020, the death rate of 15.6 per 100,000 remained among the highest nationwide. American Indian or Alaska Natives in Wisconsin died at a far higher rate than any other race in 2020:  66 per 100,000 people.  

Those figures exclude motor vehicle accidents, where alcohol can factor heavily. 

While Wisconsin has seen a long-term decline in deaths related to drunk driving, a separate Wisconsin Policy Forum report found a near 50% increase — from 52 to 78 — in alcohol-involved crash fatalities during the study period in 2020, relative to 2019. More impaired and reckless driving during the pandemic helped drive the trend, researchers said.  

As of May 1, alcohol was involved in at least 10 of 16 fatal snowmobile crashes in 2023, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

County health departments typically rank alcohol abuse in their top three priorities, Busalacchi said.  But initiatives to address the problem remain underfunded. 

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services lacks designated alcohol subject matter experts, says Maggie Northrop, the agency’s Healthy Wisconsin coordinator.

“In Wisconsin, we seem to give up and chuckle at those drunks,” said Eich of the state Office of Rural Health. 

Fury over drunk driving fuels action

The advocacy nonprofit Mothers Against Drunk Driving wants Wisconsin to join 45 other states in a Driver License Compact — helping states exchange data related to license suspensions and traffic violations. Wisconsin’s lack of membership may allow people who drive drunk outside of their home state to face fewer consequences. 

In 2018, Austin Lockwood, 23, was riding in the passenger seat of Eric Labahn’s Chevy Trailblazer in Three Lakes, Wisconsin, where Lockwood was helping Labahn, an Illinois resident, clean a cabin. 

Labahn, who had just turned 21, told police he swerved to avoid a deer before smashing into a tree, killing Lockwood. 

Labahn survived and refused a blood test at the scene, according to media reports. A test hours later showed a blood alcohol concentration of .117, well above the legal limit of .08. 

Labahn faced charges in Wisconsin of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle but kept legally driving for a year and a half after the crash.

Since Wisconsin is not in the Driver’s License Compact, Illinois officials were not alerted of the crash and did not suspend his license. 

Labahn surrendered his Illinois license several months later and moved to Wisconsin, which granted him a license, allowing him to drive legally while the case was still pending. 

Wisconsin law requires a one-year license suspension for drivers who refuse a blood alcohol test, but it gave Labahn the right to a hearing on the suspension — and to keep his license ahead of that hearing, which faced delays tied to the homicide case. 

“It’s infuriating,” Sheila Lockwood said. “He had no consequences for a year and a half. He went out and partied. He went to Cubs games. He was celebrating his college graduation. And our lives are literally destroyed.”

In October 2019, the driver Eric Labahn was sentenced to three years of initial prison confinement with four additional years of extended supervision. Lockwood believes her efforts to raise awareness — yielding more than 80 victim impact letters sent to the judge — led to the steeper penalty than what the state recommended. 

A month later, Lockwood joined Gov. Tony Evers as he signed Wisconsin Act 31, establishing a mandatory minimum five-year sentence for those convicted of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle. The law allows shorter terms “if the court finds a compelling reason and places its reason on the record.” 

Lockwood pushed for a heavier penalty against Labahn. “But nothing would ever be enough. Because it’ll never bring Austin back.”

Little traction on the state level

Wisconsin remains a national outlier in its lax penalties for intoxicated driving — particularly for first and second-time offenders. 

While most states classify a first Operating While Intoxicated charge as a misdemeanor, for instance, Wisconsin considers it a non-criminal charge without jail or prison penalty. First-time offenders in Wisconsin typically face a fine and a driver’s license revocation for six to nine months. 

The state requires interlocking devices for drivers who refuse to take breathalyzer tests at traffic stops and all repeat offenders. The requirements don’t extend to first-time convicted drivers unless their blood alcohol concentration measures .15 or higher.  

When ignition interlocks are installed, drivers must blow into the mouthpiece, allowing a device to measure their breath alcohol content. The vehicle will not start if the driver’s alcohol content is above 0.02%, below the 0.08% legal limit for blood alcohol concentration. 

Interlocks reduce repeat drunk driving offenses by about 70% while installed, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has spent years urging Wisconsin lawmakers to extend interlock mandates to all first-time offenders and join 34 states and the District of Columbia that require them for all people convicted of drunk driving.  

Evers, a Democrat, proposed such a change in his 2023-25 budget. The Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Committee on Finance removed the provision along with hundreds of others before Evers ultimately signed the budget in July. 

Most alcoholism goes untreated 

For those seeking help with alcohol addiction? Wisconsin has a shortage of treatment providers, and high costs further limit options, said Busalacchi of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project. 

An estimated 80% of Americans with an alcohol use disorder never receive treatment, and 14% of those who don’t seek help cite cost as a barrier, a Recovery Research Institute study found. The most common reason for avoiding treatment: The thinking that “I should be strong enough to handle it on my own.”

The Department of Health Services in February released a state health improvement plan focused on building community-based solutions rather than an individualistic approach. It includes addressing issues that fall outside of the typical domain of public health agencies, such as access to housing, childcare and other resources. Busalacchi said a community approach could help tackle Wisconsin’s alcohol problems. 

Seeking solutions

An example is Operation River Watch, formed to monitor Riverside Park in La Crosse after eight college students between 1997 and 2006 were found to have drowned in the Mississippi River after excessive drinking. Volunteers have prevented further drownings by making sure people don’t enter the park at late hours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. 

The CDC’s community-based recommendations to reduce alcohol consumption include taxing alcohol, limiting the density of alcohol outlets through zoning or licensing policies, using liability laws to prevent sales to underage people and limiting liquor store hours.

Focusing solely on individuals rather than communities won’t address the full scope of Wisconsin’s alcohol problem, Busalacchi said. 

“Population-level approaches work best versus only doing individual things,” she said. “You kind of have to do both, right?”

Wisconsin Watch’s Rachel Hale contributed reporting to this story.

Wisconsin’s ‘death grip with alcohol’ is killing more residents       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.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s 988 hotline marked its one-year milestone this month. Mental health experts say the three-digit number made help more accessible than before.

The hotline was designed with the idea that people experiencing emotional distress are more comfortable reaching out for help from trained counselors than from police and other first responders through 911.

Since the federally mandated crisis hotline’s new number launched in July 2022, 988 has received about 4 million calls, chats, and texts, according to a KFF report — up 33% from the previous year. (The hotline previously used a 10-digit number, 800-273-8255, which remains active but is not promoted.)

At a July press event, policymakers and mental health experts celebrated the hotline’s first-year successes as well as its additional $1 billion in funding from the Biden administration. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra described 988 as a “godsend” during taped remarks. “It may not be the solution,” he said, “but it lets you touch someone who can send you on a path to where you will get the help you need.”

Those same advocates recognized the dark reality represented by 988’s high call volume: The nation faces a mental health crisis, and there is still much work to be done.

One year in, it’s also clear that the 988 hotline, a network of more than 200 state and local call centers, faces challenges ahead, including public mistrust and confusion. It’s also clear the hotline needs federal and state funding intervention to be sustainable.

Here’s a status check on where things stand:

What Worked?

The original 1-800 national mental health crisis hotline has operated since 2005. The huge increase in calls to 988 compared with those to the 1-800 number in just a year is likely linked to the simplicity of the three-digit code, said Adrienne Breidenstine, vice president of policy and communications at Behavioral Health System in Baltimore. “People are remembering it easily,” she told KFF Health News.

According to a survey by NAMI and IPSOS conducted in June, 63% of Americans had heard of 988, and those ages 18 to 29 were most aware. Additionally, the survey found that LGBTQ+ people were twice as likely to be familiar with 988 as people who don’t identify as LGBTQ+.

The 988 hotline provides 24/7 support for people in suicidal crisis or other kinds of emotional distress, Breidenstine said. “They can be calling if they really just had a bad day,” she said. “We also get some calls from people experiencing postpartum depression.” Callers are directed to a menu of options to choose which kind of service would best help them, including a veterans’ line.

As it launched, mental health experts worried about the hotline’s ability to keep up with demand. But it appears to be growing into its position. “Despite a huge increase of demand on the system, it’s been holding up, and it’s been holding up exceptionally well,” Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told KFF Health News. It now takes an average of 35 seconds for someone reaching out to 988 — by calling or texting — to reach a counselor, according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. A year ago, that average was one minute and 20 seconds.

Wesolowski said one of the biggest surprises with the launch was the frequency of text-message traffic. In November 2022, the Federal Communications Commission voted to require 988 to be texting-friendly.

In May, according to SAMHSA, 988 received about 71,000 texts nationwide with a 99% response rate, compared with 8,300 texts in May 2022 with an 82% response rate.

This month, HHS announced the addition of Spanish text and chat services to 988.

Challenges Ahead

More than half of Americans have heard of 988, but only a small fraction understand how the hotline operates. According to NAMI’s survey, only 17% of people who responded said they were “very/somewhat familiar” with the hotline.

Most people think that by calling 988, like 911, emergency services will automatically head their way, the survey found. Currently, 988 does not use geolocation, meaning call centers don’t automatically receive information about callers’ locations. Vibrant Emotional Health, which operates the hotline, is working to incorporate geo-routing into the system, which would help identify callers’ regions — but not exact locations — making it possible to connect them to local counseling groups and other mental health services.

But incorporating geo-routing into the hotline isn’t without controversy. When it launched, people responded on social media with warnings that calling 988 brought a heightened risk for police involvement and involuntary treatment at psychiatric hospitals. “Based on the trauma that so many people in the mental health community have long experienced when they’ve been in crisis, those assumptions are very understandable,” Wesolowski said.

Fewer than 2% of calls end up involving law enforcement, she said, and most are de-escalated over the phone.

“The vast majority of people think that an in-person response is going to happen whenever you call — and that’s just simply not true,” Wesolowski said.

Another challenge mental health advocates face is informing older adults about 988, especially veterans, who are at higher risk of having suicidal ideations. Americans ages 50 to 64 had the lowest awareness rate of 988 — at 11% — among all age groups, according to NAMI’s survey.

This is a telling sign of how older generations are less willing to discuss and admit to mental health struggles, Wesolowski said. “Young people are just more willing to be open about that, so I think that breaking down that stigma across all age groups is absolutely vital, and we have a lot of work to do in that space.”

Is 988 Sustainable?

Since the hotline launched, it has been dependent on federal grants and annual appropriations. A gush of funding flowed when 988 launched, “but those annual appropriations are something you have to keep going back for year after year, so the sustainability aspect is a little more fraught,” Wesolowski said.

This is where Congress and state legislatures come in.

Mental health leaders hope to push legislation that allows 988 to be funded the same way 911 is nationwide. The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 mandated 911 to be the country’s universal emergency number, and ever since, users have automatically been charged — an average of about a dollar a month — on their monthly phone bills to fund it. Six states have imposed a similar tax for 988, and two states — Delaware and Oregon — have bills for this tax on their governor’s desks.

It’s under the FCC’s power to levy a nationwide tax, but the federal agency hasn’t done so yet.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

A year with 988: What worked? What challenges lie ahead? 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.

Robert Califf, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, doesn’t seem to be having fun on the job.

“I would describe this year as hand-to-hand combat. Really, every day,” he said at an academic conference at Stanford in April. It’s a sentiment the FDA commissioner has expressed often.

What’s been getting Califf’s goat? Misinformation, which gets part of the blame for Americans’ stagnating life expectancy. To Califf, the country that invents many of the most advanced drugs and devices is terrible at using those technologies well. And one reason for that is Americans’ misinformed choices, he has suggested. Many don’t use statins, vaccines, or covid-19 therapies. Many choose to smoke cigarettes and eat the wrong food.

Califf and the FDA are fighting misinformation head-on. “The misinformation machine is really causing a lot of death,” he said, in an apparent ad-lib, this spring in a speech at Tufts University. The pandemic, he told KFF Health News, helped “crystallize” his need to tackle misinformation. It was a “blatant case,” in which multiple studies gave evidence about very effective therapeutics against covid. “And a lot of people chose not to do it.” There were “large-scale purveyors of misinformation,” he said, poisoning the well.

Occasionally, though, Califf and the FDA have added to the cacophony of misinformation. And sometimes their misinformation is about misinformation.

Califf hasn’t been able to consistently estimate misinformation’s public health toll. Last June, he said it was the “leading cause of meaningful life-years lost.” In the fall, he told a conference: “I’ve been going around saying that misinformation is the most common cause of death in the United States.” He continued, “There is no way to prove that, but I do believe that it is.”

At other times, as in April, he has called the problem the nation’s “leading cause” of premature death. “I’ll keep working on this to try and get it right,” he said. Later, in May, he said, “Many Americans die or experience serious illness every year due to bad choices driven by false or misleading information.”

Americans’ health is indeed in dire straits. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted the country’s life expectancy has dropped two years in a row — it’s at 76.1 years as of 2021 — a dismal capper to four decades of lagging gains. Countries such as Slovenia, Greece, and Costa Rica outrank the U.S. Their newborn citizens are expected to live more than 80 years, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Several factors are at the root of those differences. But Americans’ choices, often informed by bad or misleading data, political jeremiads, or profit-seeking advertising, are among the causes. For instance, one 2023 paper estimated that undervaccination against covid — caused in part by misinformation — costs as much as $300 million per day, accounting for both the costs of health care and economic costs, like missed work.

Outside experts are sympathetic. Misinformation is a “huge problem for public health,” said Joshua Sharfstein, a Johns Hopkins University public health professor and former FDA principal deputy commissioner. Having a strategy to combat it is crucial. But, he cautioned, “that’s the easiest part of this.”

The agency, which regulates products that consumers spend 20 cents of each dollar on per year, is putting more muscle behind the effort. It’s begun mentioning the subject of misinformation in its procurement requests, like one discussing the need to monitor social media for misinformation related to cannabis.

The agency launched a “Rumor Control” page seeking to debunk persistent confusion. It also expects to get a report from the Reagan-Udall Foundation, a not-for-profit organization created by Congress to advise the FDA. Califf has said he thinks better regulation — and more authority for the agency — would help.

Califf has noted small victories. Ivermectin, once touted as a covid wonder drug, “eventually” became one such win. But, then again, its use is “not completely gone,” he said. And, despite winning individual battles, his optimism is muted: “I’d say right now the trend in the war is in a negative direction.”

Some of those battles have been quite small, even marginal.

And it’s difficult to know what to take on or respond to, Califf said. “I think we’re just in the early days of being able to do that,” he told KFF Health News. “It’s very hard to be scientific,” he said.

Take the agency’s experience last fall with “NyQuil chicken” — a purportedly viral cooking trend in which users roasted their birds in the over-the-counter cold medicine on social media platforms like TikTok.

Califf said his agency’s “skeleton crew” — at least relative to Big Tech giants — had picked up on increasing chatter about the meme.

But independent analyses don’t corroborate the claim. It seems much of the interest in it came only after the FDA called attention to it. The day before the agency’s pronouncement, the TikTok app recorded only five searches on the topic, BuzzFeed News found in an analysis of TikTok data. That tally surged to 7,000 the week after the agency’s declaration. Google Trends, which measures changes in the number of searches, shows a similar pattern: Interest peaked on the search engine in the week after the agency announcement.

Califf also claimed “injuries” occurred to participants “directly” due to the social media trend. Now, he said, “the number of injuries is down,” though he couldn’t say whether the agency’s intervention was the cause.

Again, his assertions have fuzzy underpinnings. It’s not clear what, if any, actual damage the NyQuil chicken fad caused. Poison control centers don’t keep that data, said Maggie Maloney, a spokesperson for America’s Poison Centers. And, after multiple requests, agency spokespeople declined to provide the FDA’s data reflecting increased social media traffic or injuries stemming from the meme.

In countering misinformation, FDA also risks coming off as high-handed. In September 2021, the agency tweeted about purported myths and misinformation on mammograms. Among the myths? That they’re painful. Instead, the agency explained that “everyone’s pain threshold is different” and the breast cancer-screening procedure is more often described as “temporary discomfort.”

Statements like these “erode trust,” said Lisa Fitzpatrick, an infectious diseases physician and currently the CEO of Grapevine Health, a startup trying to improve health literacy in underserved communities. Fitzpatrick has previously served as an official with the District of Columbia’s Medicaid program and with the CDC.

“Who are you to judge what’s painful?” she asked, rhetorically. It’s hard to brand subjective impressions as misinformation.

Califf acknowledged the point. Speaking to 340 million Americans is difficult. With mammograms, the average patient might not have a painful experience — but many might. “Getting across that kind of nuance and public communication, I think, is in its early phases.”

Scrutiny over the agency’s role regarding food and nutrition is also mounting. After independent journalist Helena Bottemiller Evich wrote an article criticizing the agency for relying on voluntary reporting standards for baby formula, Califf tweeted to correct a “bit of misinformation,” saying the agency did not have such authority.

An agency communications specialist made a similar intervention with New York University professor Marion Nestle, referring to a “troubling pattern of articles with erroneous information that then get amplified.” The agency was again seeking to rebut arguments that the agency had erred in not seeking mandatory reporting.

“As I see it, the ‘troubling pattern’ here is FDA’s responses to advocates like me who want to support this agency’s role in making sure food companies in general — and infant formula companies in particular — do not produce unsafe food,” Nestle retorted. Notwithstanding the agency’s protests to Evich and Nestle, the agency had only recently asked for such authority.

Efforts to respond to or regulate misinformation are becoming a political problem.

In July, a federal judge issued a sweeping, yet temporary, injunction — at the instigation of Republican attorneys general, multiple right-wing political groups, and prominent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense — barring federal health officials from contacting social media groups to correct information. A large section of the ruling detailed efforts by a CDC official to push back on suspected misinformation on social media networks.

An appeals court later issued its own temporary ruling — this time countering the original, sweeping order — nevertheless underscoring the extent of pushback on government pushback against misinformation. Califf has consistently played down the government’s ability to solve the problem. “One hundred percent of experts agree, government cannot solve this. We have too much distrust in fundamental institutions,” he said last June.

It’s a remarkable change from his previous tenure leading the agency during the Obama administration. “I would describe the Obama years as genteel, intellectual, and a lot of fun,” he has said. Now, however, Califf is bracing for more misinformation. “It’s just something that I think we have to come to grips with,” he told KFF Health News.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

FDA Head Robert Califf battles misinformation — sometimes with fuzzy facts 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.

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of six news outlets covering northeastern Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Parents have a lot to worry about when preparing for a baby: their health, hospital bills, whether or not the delivery goes smoothly — the list goes on and on. But another concern is becoming more prominent.

“(Child care) has literally been the biggest stress of my entire pregnancy — not knowing exactly where our baby is going to go, if they’re going to be safe, and just knowing the waitlists are so long and the astronomical prices,” said Menasha’s Hannah Wainio, who’s expecting her first child in late July.

Hannah and her husband, Grant, started their child care search as soon as they learned she was pregnant at five weeks. When Hannah spoke to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin in June, the family still had not found care.

Their story isn’t unique. In Outagamie County, there are over 1,200 children younger than 2 on regulated child care waitlists, according to data recently compiled by Child Care Resource & Referral Fox Valley. In Winnebago County, there are nearly 550.

In Family and Child Care Resources of Northeast Wisconsin’s service area, infant waitlists can span one to two years, said executive director Paula Breese. CCR&R Fox Valley’s executive director, Candy Hall, said wait times can be over five years.

Because of this, it’s increasingly common for parents to get on wait lists even before they conceive. Six months before Ripon’s Ashley Giese found out she was expecting her fourth child, she told her child care provider she was trying to get pregnant. In New Glarus, Abby Funseth timed the conception of her second child around a child care opening.

“People plan all of the things they need and the logistics of waking up at night (to feed their infant), those are things you expect as a new parent. But you don’t always expect an 18-month waiting list for daycare,” Giese said.

Why is care for infants, specifically, so difficult to find?

The financial model most child care programs in Wisconsin operate within is flawed, said Kelly Matthews, co-director of Wisconsin Early Childhood Association’s shared services network.

Aside from funds from Child Care Counts, the state’s monthly stabilization payment program, which is set to expire in early 2024, the price parents pay for care is often the only revenue centers see, Matthews said. This has to cover myriad costs, including utilities, rent or mortgage, insurance, personnel costs and more.

Providers often charge parents less than the actual cost of care — all costs of running the child care facility, from bills to livable wages and benefits for the educators — in an attempt to keep prices manageable. And that’s with child care workers being notoriously underpaid compared to those with similar credentials in other fields.

Child care businesses are left to survive on thin profit margins — typically 1% to 2%, while most businesses’ profit margins span 10% to 20%, according to research compiled by the Greater Fox Valley Child Care Alliance.

Licensed child care programs in Wisconsin are also subject to regulations aimed at ensuring infants get age-appropriate care, Matthews said.

In a licensed family child care setting — a child care business based in the provider’s home — the number of children younger than age 2 present often limits the total number of children it can serve full time, which also limits its revenue.

In group centers, staff-to-child ratios allow for more children per staff member as children get older. For example, one staff member can either supervise four children younger than 2, or six children ages 2 to 2½.

“Without (funding) based on the true cost of care, it is a better financial decision for child care programs to take children 2 and older than it is for them to take infants, which (leaves) both programs and families struggling,” Matthews said. “The issue is the (lack) of revenue coming in, not the ratios.”

Caring for infants is often more labor-intensive than caring for older children, as infants typically require more one-on-one interaction, according to First 5 Fox Valley Director Barb Tengesdal. It’s also harder on providers’ bodies, with all of the bending and lifting, according to Corrine Hendrickson, a licensed family child care provider in New Glarus.

As a result, there’s often high turnover among infant teachers.

What happens when families can’t find care?

Even searching for care well before their infant is due doesn’t always guarantee families a spot — let alone one they can afford. According to Child Care Aware of America, the average cost of center-based infant care in Wisconsin in 2022 was $13,572, and the average price of infant care for in a family child care was $10,400. Both surpass the cost of a year of in-state tuition at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

As soon as she knew her pregnancy was viable, Allyssa Thomas, a Milwaukee-area teacher, began contacting centers, many of which required nonrefundable waitlist fees. Based on the responses, she doesn’t expect a slot will open by the time her maternity leave ends.

While Thomas is confident she can piece together care for a few months if needed, she said if it takes too long, she might need to leave her job.

“I’d imagine that either myself or my husband would need to choose not to work, at least for a year while our child is still an infant, which would be hard,” Thomas said. “Child care is expensive, but paying for child care with two incomes is (more feasible) than going down to one income.”

Parents may also turn to their own parents when they cannot find an opening. Carolyn Nelson’s mother drives five hours each week between her home in Beloit and Nelson’s home in Appleton to care for Nelson’s 6-month-old daughter, Emma.

This allows Nelson to continue working as a Help Me Grow navigator with ThedaCare, helping connect families with early childhood resources and information — for now. Nelson worries about what will happen if a spot doesn’t open before winter, when ice and snow may prevent her mother from traveling.

“If there’s still no child care, where do I put Emma every day?” Nelson asked. “Can I work through her nap times and have her home with me? To be quite honest, that sounds like I will be burnt out in two months. Would I be able to (leave work temporarily) and return once I get child care? Would that even be an option?”

On one hand, Nelson said she can’t help but wish she looked sooner, starting months before Emma was born. At the same time, she knows doing so could’ve had unforeseen drawbacks.

“I would have been pretty crushed to get a phone call saying that there’s a spot opening on a waitlist if I was no longer pregnant (due to medical complications),” Nelson said.

When parents can’t find an infant opening at a high-quality child care, they may be forced to leave the workforce, turn to lower-quality options or patch care together from a variety of sources.

Tammy Dannhoff, a licensed family child care provider in Oshkosh, said consistency is key for a young child’s development, and the early months and years are the prime time for children to develop secure relationships with caregivers.

This led Dannhoff to bend the rules a few summers ago to add a second child younger than 2 to her program. Under licensing regulations, she was supposed to care for only one child younger than 2 if she wanted eight slots, the maximum number a licensed family provider can have.

“When I was talking with his mom, I found out he was going to be going to three or four different places every week in the summer because she had to piece together care for him,” Dannhoff said. “At the time, he was 22 months, and I thought, ‘It’s going to be more detrimental for him to go to three or four different places for child care, so I’m going to take the risk and just take him.’”

Dannhoff was able to get an exception so she remained in compliance. Department of Children and Families Communications Director Gina Paige said there’s a flow chart of sorts that helps determine when exceptions should be granted, but some family child care providers said they feel these exceptions are granted inconsistently.

What can be done?

The solution to the care shortage for children up to age 2 doesn’t lie in doing away with regulations or increasing staff-to-child ratios.

“That, I believe, would be the fastest way to close down more of the under-2 rooms,” said Brooke Skidmore, co-owner and director of The Growing Tree, a child care center in New Glarus. “You will not find teachers that want to have five babies under their care, and it still will not make it profitable.”

Matthews thinks the solution to the infant care crisis lies in funding child care businesses based on the true cost of care.

“If we had true cost of care for payment amounts … it would still get the bills paid and not be a loss for the program,” Matthews said.

Increasing tuition rates often comes with the risk of making child care unattainable for families. Matthews said finding a path forward will require collaboration between communities, employers, families and the government.

Angel Berry, the executive director of the nonprofit A Million Dreamz child care in Sheboygan, said solutions lie in creative funding models. For example, she said, child care businesses could make infant care sustainable by operating under a nonprofit model and seeking funding support from the community.

However, in the meantime, some say slight alterations to state licensing requirements could help.

After Dannhoff investigated ways to change family child care requirements for a college capstone project in 2021, she said she supports employing a “weighted” system that distinguishes between young infants and children 18 months and older. The younger children would have a higher “weight” than the older children, essentially making a spot at a family child care available for another child once an infant turns 18-months-old instead of 2 years.

Hendrickson, who also supports this change, explained that by 18 months, children are typically more mobile and better able to verbalize their needs. The Wisconsin Family Child Care Association has long discussed the exact weights each particular age group would be assigned. As of now, however, WFCCA has not brought any formal proposals to DCF.

While Hendrickson said this change could help get families off waitlists and into consistent care more quickly, she said it alone cannot rectify Wisconsin’s infant care shortage.

“It’s definitely not a solution, per se, for the crisis because it’s not going to even come close to fixing the problem, but it would be one potential way to alleviate some of the pressure,” Hendrickson said.

Employers have a role to play, too. Providing and extending paid family leave gives parents essential time to bond with their infant as well as more time to search for child care, Tengesdal said. For industries in which flexible scheduling is possible, allowing parents to work from home, bring their child to work when needed, and reduced hours after birth helps both parents and babies adjust, she said.

Many of the potential solutions advocates say could bolster Wisconsin’s child care sector in general would, by extension, help solve the infant care crisis, Hendrickson said. These range from significant state and federal investments to shifting the way society views child care.

“If there is no infant care, the likelihood of a mother returning to work is significantly reduced,” Hendrickson said. “This impacts her family’s financial wellbeing, her career trajectory, her mental health and the growth and development of her child.”

Can’t find child care for your infant in Wisconsin? You’re not alone. Industry experts break down why it’s so difficult. 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.

A proposed federal rule calls for forcing companies to disclose whether their products contain toxic “forever” chemicals, the government’s first attempt at cataloging the pervasiveness of PFAS across the United States.

The Environmental Protection Agency rule would require manufacturers to report many products that contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They’re a family of chemicals that don’t degrade in nature and have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and hormone irregularities.

Companies would have to disclose any PFAS that have been manufactured or imported between 2011 and when the rule takes effect, with no exemptions for small businesses or for impurities or byproducts cross-contaminating goods with PFAS. Those disclosures would be available to the public, barring any trade secrets linked to the data. The EPA will finalize the rule in the coming months, agency spokesperson Catherine Milbourn said, then require companies to report back within 12 months.

The effort excludes pesticides, foods and food additives, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices regulated under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, Milbourn said. It also is essentially a one-time reporting and record-keeping requirement — and companies wouldn’t need to provide updates.

Still, the chemical and semiconductor industries are grumbling about what the EPA estimated is a potential $1 billion cost to comply with the rule. The U.S. chemical industry says it generates more than $500 billion annually.

On the other side, environmental health activists say the data collection exercise would be flawed, as it accounts for only a tenth of the more than 12,000 PFAS chemicals, which are used in everything from nonstick cookware to kids’ school uniforms. Moreover, they say, it wouldn’t stop PFAS from making their way into the air, waste, or consumer products, nor would it clean up existing contamination.

Congress gave the EPA the power to track PFAS chemicals in 2016, when it revised the Toxic Substances Control Act. Then a bipartisan effort in 2019, which President Donald Trump signed into law, called for the EPA to inventory PFAS. However, health activists warn that unless Congress overhauls U.S. chemical laws to give the EPA and other agencies more power, PFAS will continue to threaten humans and the environment.

These so-called forever chemicals went from marvel to bête noire in just 50 years. When PFAS debuted, they were revered for making Teflon pans nonstick and Gore-Tex jackets waterproof. They are effective at repelling water and oil yet so durable they don’t break down in the natural environment. That strength has become their downfall, as the chemicals accumulate in landfills, soil, drinking water supplies, and, ultimately, human bodies. As scientists learn more about PFAS’ toxic nature, governments around the world have set limits or imposed outright bans.

Because PFAS are found in thousands of products — contact lenses, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals such as Prozac, paper plates, clothing, and dental floss, to name just a few — regulators are scrambling to gather data on the scope of the PFAS threat. The EPA data collection proposal is a move in that direction.

Milbourn told KFF Health News that 1,364 types of PFAS may be covered by the rule, and EPA officials are reviewing public comments they received to determine whether they should modify its scope to capture additional substances.

By contrast, the European Union is discussing banning or limiting 10,000 PFAS chemicals, according to Hanna-Kaisa Torkkeli, a spokesperson for the European Chemicals Agency.

“In the U.S., chemicals are innocent until proven guilty,” said Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit based outside Washington, D.C. “In the EU and Japan, chemicals are guilty until proven safe — and that’s why they have fewer PFAS.”

That lack of regulation in the U.S. is driving states to take matters into their own hands, pursuing PFAS bans as gridlock and industry lobbying in Washington thwart tougher federal laws. Minnesota’s crackdown on PFAS limits the chemicals in menstrual products, cleaning ingredients, cookware, and dental floss. Maine’s law will ban all avoidable uses of PFAS by 2030. Vermont and California ban PFAS in food packaging.

“The states are acting because our federal system doesn’t currently allow the government to say ‘no more use of PFAS,’” said Liz Hitchcock, director of the federal policy program at Toxic-Free Future, a national advocacy group. “And even if it did, that wouldn’t clean up the mess already made.”

U.S. courts are also weighing in on PFAS contamination. On June 22, 3M agreed to pay up to $12.5 billion to settle lawsuits by communities around the country that argued their drinking water was contaminated by the company’s PFAS-containing products.

Additionally, the U.S. military is moving to limit PFAS, after a report said more than 600,000 troops were exposed to the toxic chemicals in drinking water contaminated largely by PFAS-laden firefighting foam.

Just cleaning up PFAS waste at U.S. military bases could cost at least $10 billion. Removing it from U.S. drinking water supplies could add more than $3.2 billion annually to the bill, according to a report commissioned by the American Water Works Association.

“The CDC estimates that 99% of Americans have PFAS in their blood,” said Melanie Benesh, vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that researches the ingredients in household and consumer products. “We estimate that 200 million Americans are exposed to PFAS in their drinking water right now.”

Officials with the U.S. Geological Survey released a similar finding July 5 when they announced that the agency’s researchers estimate more than 45% of U.S. tap water is contaminated with at least one PFAS chemical after they conducted a nationwide study of water samples.

As ubiquitous as PFAS are, the reason they haven’t generated more outrage among the public may be that the damage from PFAS chemicals isn’t immediate. They affect health over time, with repeated exposure.

“People aren’t getting headaches or coughing from exposure to PFAS,” Bennett said. “But they are getting cancer a few years down the line — and they don’t understand why.”

Some environmental health advocates, such as Arthur Bowman III, policy director at the Center for Environmental Health, say the EPA’s data collection project could help. “It will be fairly straightforward for the EPA to gather PFAS information on cleaning products and other wet chemicals that contain PFAS,” Bowman said. “And this will lead to phaseouts of PFAS.”

Some retailers, such as Dick’s Sporting Goods and REI, have recently announced plans to remove the chemicals from many of their products.

But Bowman said it will be more difficult for manufacturers to remove PFAS used in the production of semiconductor chips and printed circuit boards, since alternative products are still in the research phase.

The Semiconductor Industry Association has asked the EPA for an exemption to the proposed reporting requirements because, it maintains, semiconductor manufacturing is so complex that it would be “impossible, even with an unlimited amount of time and resources, to discern the presence (if any) of PFAS in such articles.” Other industries have also asked for waivers.

The American Chemistry Council, which represents large PFAS manufacturers such as 3M, disagrees with those calling for the entire class of PFAS chemicals to be banned. “Individual chemistries have their own unique properties and uses, as well as environmental and health profiles,” said Tom Flanagin, a spokesperson for the trade group.

While the council’s member companies “support strong, science-based regulations of PFAS chemistries that are protective of human health and the environment,” Flanagin said, the rules shouldn’t harm economic growth “or hamper businesses and consumers from accessing the products they need.”

For their part, some environmental advocates welcome the reporting proposal, expecting it to reveal new and surprising uses of PFAS. “However, it’s going to be a snapshot,” said Sonya Lunder, the senior toxics policy adviser for the Sierra Club.

Lunder said even if PFAS were found in, for example, brands of baby bibs, pesticide containers, or pet food bags, it isn’t clear which federal agency would regulate the products. She said Americans should demand that Congress add PFAS and other harmful chemicals to all major environmental statutes for water, air, food, and consumer products.

And another worry: If the data does make it into the mainstream, will consumers simply tune it out — just as many do with California’s multitudinous cancer warning signs? Lunder doesn’t think so, since “the audience is scientists, regulators, and — for better or for worse — tort attorneys.”

Benesh, of the Environmental Working Group, said the disclosures could reach further and “embolden consumers to demand even more market change.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Proposed PFAS rule would cost companies estimated $1B; lacks limits and cleanup requirement 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.

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of six news outlets covering northeastern Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Shelley Peel moved into Apple Creek Place in Appleton, Wisconsin nine months ago.

Apple Creek Place advertises itself as a facility with 22 beds and care options tailored to those who are physically disabled and those with dementia or Alzheimer’s. But Peel said that’s not her experience.

Peel, 61, said she’s lucky if she can get a shower once a week. Someone is scheduled to help her go from her wheelchair to the bathroom for a shower every Monday and Thursday, but usually a staff member is not around to assist, she told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

“They’re supposed to help me a lot more than they do,” Peel said.

It’s a problem the new owners of Apple Creek say has been fixed. Cornerstone Management took over Apple Creek Place in December, a couple months after Peel became a resident in September, and were able to fill all the job vacancies, said Rebecca Rutgers, a spokesperson for Cornerstone.

Peel disagrees. Between showering, cleaning her room and the bathroom, and the laundry not getting done, Peel said she regularly goes without getting everyday chores done because staff is not around. Sometimes it’s taken between 30 and 45 minutes for someone to come when she calls for help, she said.

“I can ask and beg and plead until I’m blue in the face,” she said. “They say, ‘We don’t have time. We’re understaffed.’”

Many residents are struggling to get their needs met at other senior living facilities, as well, according to state health inspection reports. The staffing shortage has turned into a crisis around the region, leading to dangerous conditions at several nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Complaints coming in to the state Department of Health Services about the conditions at senior living centers are surging to numbers not seen in recent years, as residents sometimes go without medications, basic care, or are under the care of staff members who are not trained to provide support to such vulnerable people.

Without staff, residents don’t get showers, medications, help with transfers, everyday care

After receiving two complaints regarding the provider, DHS inspected one of Apple Creek Place’s buildings in November — prior to the ownership change — and found 18 deficiencies. Peel said she contacted Appleton police about her experiences but has not filed any official complaints with DHS.

DHS inspectors found that three caregivers were not trained in fire safety and first aid, and gave residents medicine without proper training in administering them. Two of them were not trained on how to respond to “challenging behaviors,” including residents who wander outside the building, and suicide prevention, according to the report.

Two residents’ records showed they missed doses of regular medications, according to the report.

Inspectors also noted there were not enough employees at the facility to take care of all the residents in the building, with sometimes just one caregiver in the building to take care of everyone.

Since the DHS inspection in November, Apple Creek Place isn’t facing any of the problems cited by DHS, Rutgers said. Part of that is because the facility has a full staff now, she said. Nursing homes are required to report their staffing numbers to the federal government but assisted living do not share the same guidelines. As of July 5, Cornerstone’s careers site did not have any current job openings at Apple Creek Place.

“Things are going much much better,” Rutgers said. “Staffing levels are improving.”

Still, Peel said it sometimes can take up to an hour for someone to check on her after she uses her call alert necklace because all the employees are taking care of other residents.

“One time it was almost two hours,” Peel said. “I peed my pants. I was so scared.”

The incidents are becoming more frequent in nursing homes and assisted living centers all around the state and advocates are saying it’s only going to get worse.

Melanie Cairns, an attorney with Disability Rights Wisconsin, said the number of complaints about similar concerns is on the rise in senior care facilities, and increasing in their level of severity. This includes resident abuse, neglect, and serious rights violations, she said. 

Disability Rights Wisconsin has noticed growing concerns about delays in getting medications, not enough available staff trained to administer meds, less assistance, or delays with daily living tasks such as showering, toileting and meals. Residents are also not getting help with transfers or lifts. 

“Many of those, if not all, are directly related to staffing shortages,” Cairns said.

At Century Oaks of Appleton, an assisted living center at 2300 E. Glenhurst Lane, one resident died from injuries sustained in a fall while trying to get out of bed, according to a DHS report in April.

On Dec. 15, the resident fell while trying to get out of bed to go to the bathroom around 5 a.m., the report said. The resident was taken to the ER and was diagnosed with a humerus fracture from the fall. The resident died five days later due to the fracture, according to the report.

Family members told inspectors that the resident pressed the call light, but no one came to the room for over 15 minutes so the resident decided to move to the bathroom alone. The resident’s care plan required staff help the resident with toileting and getting in and out of bed overnight when they were groggy and unsteady.

Caregivers told DHS the buildings were often short-staffed and some residents missed doses of meds because no one was available to provide them. In October, a resident was not given pain meds and an order for an X-ray was delayed while the resident was in hospice care.

“Evidence demonstrates that (the resident) was not attended to and (the resident) was in pain for a number of days leading up to (the resident’s) death,” the report said.

Century Oaks did not respond to a request for an interview.

Complaints on the rise but inspections remain backlogged

The complaints against senior care facilities are rising to numbers not seen in recent years. In 2022, there were 2,284 complaints at assisted living facilities in the state — which include adult family homes, community-based residential facilities, and residential care apartment complexes, according to data obtained from DHS.

That’s a 17% increase in the number of complaints from 2021. DHS received 1,923 complaints toward assisted living facilities in 2021 and 1,820 complaints in 2020. In 2019, the state received 1,626 complaints. Every year, most of the assisted living complaints were against community-based residential facilities.

Concerns have also been surging against nursing homes. Layered with vacant positions for inspectors and nurses, the complaints are adding to a backlog of inspections and more detrimental conditions.

To combat the years of inadequate levels nationwide, President Joe Biden is expected to announce a federal minimum staffing requirement for nursing homes this summer, but some advocates say it may not be a practical way to solving the crisis.

Meeting a more extensive daily staffing requirement will become more challenging if the number of vacancies stay the same, said Renee Eastman, the vice president of financial and regulatory services at LeadingAge Wisconsin, a statewide association of nursing homes and other long-term care providers. It may only lead to more providers ending new admissions or closing altogether if they can’t meet the mandate.

“That mandate won’t magically come with any additional qualified bodies,” Eastman said.

“When nursing facilities take fewer admissions that generally means people are waiting in the hospital longer, which creates a bottleneck for people in communities who need acute care and also creates a bottleneck for family caregivers are who seeking to admit someone from the community,” Eastman added.

Senior care not on the mend after COVID-19 pandemic

While other health care sectors are further on the road to recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, long-term care facilities are struggling to compete.

The pandemic exacerbated many of the problems impacting senior care, but facilities were having trouble finding stability and adequate staffing levels even before 2020. Mike Pochowski, the president and CEO of the Wisconsin Assisted Living Association, said the caregiver crisis in senior care facilities has only continued to worsen.

Inflation and rising costs have made the situation more urgent after the pandemic, Pochowski said.

Certified nursing assistants and caregiver job vacancies reached nearly 30% for assisted living and nursing home providers in 2022 — more than double the shortage in 2016, according to the latest Long-Term Care Workforce Crisis report from a coalition of long-term care associations including the Wisconsin Health Care Association/Wisconsin Center for Assisted Living, Wisconsin Assisted Living Association, LeadingAge Wisconsin, and Disability Service Provider Network.

More than 25% of caregiver positions were empty in community-based residential facilities, according to the report.

“When you talk about the activities and services that a direct support professional provides, it is a very difficult job providing the most personal care to our most vulnerable people,” said Lisa Davidson, CEO of the Disability Service Provider Network in Wisconsin.

The low wages and loss of caregivers have caused facilities to close or discharge residents living on Medicaid to reduce costs.

When providers are required to close, it limits options for Wisconsin’s aging population to find a new place to live. 

According to DHS, the closures are on the rise. In 2019, 109 assisted living facilities closed statewide. In 2020, 116 more providers closed, and between January and September 2021, 156 closed.

The number of nursing homes is shrinking statewide, too. Between 2016 and April 2021, 42 nursing homes closed, according to LeadingAge Wisconsin.

“Because of that, we’re unable to care for as many people as we would like to,” Pochowski said.

Funding continues to fall short

Because long-term care is not covered by Medicare, individuals often have to go through all of their savings to pay for care before they become eligible for help. In Wisconsin, Family Care is a state Medicaid program created in 1999 for the elderly and adults with disabilities. After a resident’s financial resources run out, Family Care kicks in to cover the costs of the facility.

As Wisconsin ages, the demand for long-term care options will only become more pressing as the “Silver Tsunami” moves into community living centers or nursing homes. If conditions don’t improve, the region’s elderly will only become in even more danger.

But Medicaid reimbursements to providers, historically, are too low to support the costs of an assisted living facility or nursing home, leading some to discharge Medicaid residents because keeping them is no longer financially possible.

In Green Bay, the average cost of an assisted-living room is $4,450 per month and $9,824 for a private nursing home, according to the American Association of Retired Persons. In Appleton, it’s about $5,137 per month for residence at assisted living and $9,581 for a private nursing home.

At Agape, a residential support service based in Appleton for individuals with developmental disabilities, their properties are facing a shortage of about 45 caregivers, said Agape CEO Dan Witt. With the aid of direct care workforce funding, Agape was able to increase pay from $9 to $14 or $15 for staff, Witt said, but it’s still low in comparison.

“If you compare that to what say a high school student is able to earn in retail or fast food — $14 or $15 isn’t really that competitive and our caregivers have far more responsibility than what a high school student would have,” Witt said.

The Joint Finance Committee took up the Family Care budget June 15 and boosted Family Care funding to provide wage increases to caregivers. Gov. Tony Evers signed the two-year state budget Thursday, and it’s a step in the right direction, Wisconsin long-term care associations said.

“As Wisconsin’s workforce crisis continues many assisted living facilities face significant staffing and financial challenges,” Pochowski said in a news release. “These investments are necessary to maintain quality care and services to elderly individuals and those with disabilities.”

The issue of senior care only becomes more critical as Wisconsin gets older. Brown County’s population of residents who were 65 and older passed 44,000 in 2022 out of the county’s over 270,000 residents — increasing roughly 50% from 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In Outagamie County, the number of residents over 65 reached nearly 32,000 people in 2022.

By 2030, one in four Wisconsinites are expected to be of retirement age.

Baby boomers are aging across the state and birth rates remain low. The state Department of Administration expects the population of 65-plus Wisconsinites to grow by nearly 500,000 by 2040 and comprise nearly a quarter of the total population, up from 14% in 2010.

“Where are the caregivers going to come from to support the needs of baby boomers such as myself?” Witt said. “This could become a catastrophic shortage when the baby boomers’ needs for long term care expand exponentially.”

Complaints surge at short-staffed Wisconsin senior living facilities. Residents go without medication and basic care 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.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

A judge refused Friday to toss out a lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s 174-year-old abortion ban, keeping the case inching toward the state Supreme Court in a state where debate over abortion rights has taken center stage.

Wisconsin lawmakers enacted statutes outlawing abortion in all cases except to save the mother’s life in 1849, a year after Wisconsin became a state. The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion had nullified the ban, but legislators never repealed it. Then, the high court’s decision last June to overturn Roe v. Wade reactivated the statutes.

The state’s Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, has vowed to restore abortion access. He filed a lawsuit in Dane County days after Roe v. Wade was overturned, seeking to repeal the ban. Kaul argues that the ban is too old to enforce and that a 1985 law that permits abortions before a fetus can survive outside the womb supersedes the ban. Three doctors later joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs, saying they fear being prosecuted for performing abortions.

Kaul has named district attorneys in the three counties where abortion clinics operated until the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade as defendants. One of them, Sheboygan County’s Republican district attorney, Joel Urmanski, filed a motion seeking to dismiss the case in December.

Urmanski maintains that it’s a stretch to argue that the ban is so old it can no longer be enforced and that the 1985 law and the ban complement each other. Since the newer law outlaws abortions post-viability, it simply gives prosecutors another charging option, he contends.

Kaul’s attorneys have countered that the two laws are in conflict and doctors need to know where they stand.

Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper explained in a written ruling denying Urmanski’s dismissal motion that the 1849 ban makes killing fetuses by assaulting or battering the mother illegal and doesn’t apply to consensual abortion. That means the doctor plaintiffs could ultimately win a declaration that they can’t be prosecuted for performing abortions and hence the case should continue, Schlipper wrote.

The ruling means that the lawsuit will continue in Schlipper’s courtroom. Regardless of how the judge ultimately rules, the case carries so much weight for the future of the state that it almost certainly will rise to the state Supreme Court, which is exactly where Democrats want it.

Liberal justices will control the court with a 4-3 majority after progressive Janet Protasiewicz is sworn in on Aug. 1. She stopped short on the campaign trail of saying how she would rule on a challenge to the 1849 ban but said repeatedly she supports abortion rights.

Wisconsin judge: lawsuit to repeal abortion ban can continue 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.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Editor’s note: A previous version of the story referenced a grant Cassville obtained through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We removed that reference after learning the village obtained the funding without a formal application, making the information irrelevant to this story.

Wisconsin’s small communities could obtain slices of the billions of federal dollars allocated for infrastructure and renewable energy projects, such as upgrading drinking water systems or purchasing electric buses.

But the Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected a recent proposal to help staff-strapped towns and villages circumvent the greatest barriers for bringing home such funds: the federal government’s time-consuming application and record-keeping requirements.

In his two-year budget proposal, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers pitched the creation of a five-person resource team to help local governments identify and apply for federal and state grants.

“This is a small amount of state money that can help local units of government access large amounts of federal funds,” Milwaukee Rep. Evan Goyke, the ranking Democrat on the state’s budget-writing committee, said during a June hearing. “And what those federal funds can do locally can be transformational, but those locals have to know the opportunity is there and they have to have the technical assistance.”

However, the GOP-controlled Joint Committee on Finance rejected the $960,000 measure along party lines before sending the budget to the full Legislature.

Evers on Wednesday signed the budget, vetoing 51 items from the $99 billion plan mostly authored by Republicans, including scaling back a major income tax cut and extending school funding increases for more than 400 years. But because the state grant team under his original proposal would have created new positions, Evers could not write them back into the budget with his veto pen.

Small communities struggle to manage grants

Wisconsin cities and villages, where the median population is about 1,500, often lack the staff capacity to track, apply for and manage grants.

“Wisconsin is a state of small towns. We need to recognize the limitations,” said Jerry Deschane, executive director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities. “They simply don’t have a bunch of bodies sitting around waiting to do federal paperwork.”

In southwest Wisconsin, the village of Cassville, population 777, contracts with a local engineering firm for grant administration.

Keevin Williams, who retired as village president earlier this year after 27 years in public service, said grant applications and recordkeeping would be significantly harder to handle without outside assistance. A state team could be of great use to communities lacking that resource, he said.

But even for small municipalities that employ staff with expertise, federal programs aren’t always relevant to their needs.

“Much of the funding at the federal level tends to be for projects that we just don’t have,” said David Carlson, administrator of Lancaster, a city of 3,907.

He pointed to a recently announced program that seeks to increase connectivity in rural areas, funded under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocated $550 billion dollars in new spending for water, transportation, energy and broadband internet projects. The rural connectivity program requires proposals to have a regional impact, according to grant criteria.

“Let’s face it, most small communities don’t have transportation projects that have regional impacts,” Carlson said.

Environmental lobbyists who backed the grant resource team found most lawmakers actually supported the proposal and observed a need for it within their own communities. But a majority on the Joint Committee on Finance nonetheless opposed creating additional government staff positions.

“It’s the very communities this was most supposed to help that are going to be most hurt by this rather political decision,” said Jennifer Giegerich, government affairs director with Wisconsin Conservation Voters.

Committee co-chairs Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, and Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, did not respond to requests for comment.

Ultimately, the communities and states that aggressively invest in staff capacity will be the ones that reap the federal funding, Giegerich said.

“My hope is that in the next year, there’s just gonna be so many opportunities coming down and so many communities in Wisconsin who are not able to take advantage of them, that legislators will see the error of their ways and hopefully include this in our next budget.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

Republican lawmakers reject proposal to help Wisconsin communities access federal grant programs 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.

This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan.

Donald Domitrovich grew up in the small town where he still lives and works. Every day, it seems smaller. 

In Ontonagon, a Lake Superior shore village of about 1,500 and the surrounding county of the same name, there are now five funerals for every birth. Between 2010 and 2020, the county lost 14% of its population, as jobs dried up and people — especially the young — moved away. 

“They go to college and there’s no reason to come back unless they want to work at the school, the hospital or the bank,” Domitrovich said. 

“When I was growing up (in the 1990s), there were no parking spaces along Main Street Friday through Sunday,” Domitrovich recalled. “Now, Saturday night, you can roll a bowling ball down Main Street.” 

Cross the border into Wisconsin, and the story is different. Though similarly wooded and nearly as remote as the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, four of five Wisconsin counties that border Michigan have made population gains since 2010. A few miles away, every county on the Michigan side has fewer residents. 

In addition to Ontonagon losing one in seven residents, Gogebic County dropped 12%. Iron, Menominee and Dickinson counties lost between 1% and 2% in the decade.

“We’ve got history,” said Ontonagon resident, former teacher and local historian Bruce Johanson. “What we don’t have is people.”

Michigan ranks 49 in population growth since 1990, ahead of only West Virginia. Its stagnating population impacts the state’s ability to attract new businesses and for existing companies to expand. It’s part of the reason Michigan workers earn less and housing values are lower than the national average. With demographers projecting population decline in the coming decades, those problems are likely to get worse unless state leaders can figure out how to reverse the trend. 

One place to look for lessons is eight hours away from Lansing, in the villages that dot the hemlock and sugar maple forests of the Michigan-Wisconsin border. There, residents say a more concerted focus on tourism and infrastructure, such as internet and in the electrical grid, and a choice by Wisconsin to spend suitcases of federal COVID dollars to support businesses have helped prop up Wisconsin border county population while their Michigan neighbors are losing people. 

‘What makes us special?’

Wisconsin itself is below the national average in population growth, ranked 33rd among the 50 states since 1990. But if Michigan had grown at the same rate as Wisconsin rate since 1990, it would have an additional 1.1 million residents, the equivalent of close to another Oakland County in additional students, workers and taxpayers.

Always sparsely populated, the Upper Peninsula has suffered the sharpest decline in the state in recent decades. Industries that power the economy in the western U.P. — mining and lumber — have dwindled or disappeared.

Businesses have closed, and those that remain struggle to find employees to stay open. In the town of Ontonagon, downtown storefronts “look like a smile with a lot of missing teeth,” said Rich Ernest, director of the local chamber of commerce.

There is little industry on the Wisconsin-side of the border, either, but those counties are holding steady in population or growing.

For example, Michigan’s Ironwood has lost 7% of its population since 2010 (dropping from 5,389 residents to 5,007), while its sister city a mile away, Wisconsin’s Hurley, increased 2% (1,535 to 1,560). Michigan’s Menominee retreated 1.4%, while across the Interstate Bridge, sister city Marinette, Wis., edged up 1.4%.

Differences are more stark between Ontonagon County (down 14%) and Wisconsin’s Vilas County (up 7.5%) since 2010.

Barb Kilmer, manager of the Ontonagon Herald newspaper, said her county, which includes part of the Ottawa National Forest and Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, is trying to increase tourism, but it’s been a slow process.

“We have lakes, but everyone has lakes,” Kilmer said of the region. “What makes us special?”

50 miles to buy shoes

Kilmer graduated from Ontonagon High School in 1986, in a class of 86 seniors. Kilmer opened up a recent edition of the Herald that published photos of the 2023 graduates, all 25 of them.

“When I was growing up, there was a lumber yard and a furniture store,” Kilmer said. “You could buy a pair of shoes in town.”

Now, residents must drive 50 miles to Houghton to the nearest shoe store or fast-food restaurant. “There’s nothing here but bars and churches,” Kilmer said.

Eagle River, Wis., has a similar year-round population as Ontonagon (1,600, compared to Ontonagon’s 1,200), but its main street (Wall Street) is vibrant, with rows of boutiques and specialty shops. Posters advertise a “Sip and Shop Wine Walk,” just a few blocks from a community arts center and the Northwoods Children’s Museum.

Owner Jim Gleich is doing a brisk business at the shop he owns, Minocqua Popcorn & Puffs. When his shop opened four years ago, “20 percent, maybe 30 percent of the storefronts were empty,” Gleich said, looking down the street. “Hooked and Tagged is new, the cigar shop is new, Rustic Allure is new, the pet shop is new. It’s completely full now.”

Eagle River has always had some tourist business because it is near a popular chain of lakes. But the town really took off with an aggressive state grant program for small businesses: Main Street Bounceback Grants provided up to $10,000 to small businesses that were opening or expanding. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. has a staff of small business specialists who assist businesses in filling out the paperwork for the grants.

Continued funding for the program isn’t assured for the next state budget year, but in the past two years, Wisconsin leaders prioritized helping businesses launch and grow through one-time COVID federal funds.

Wisconsin ranked number one in the nation in the percent of American Rescue Plan Act funds it devoted to businesses, shoveling 31.6 percent of the funds the state received from the federal government to aid businesses.

So far, 132 businesses in the five Wisconsin counties bordering Michigan have received Bounceback grants, ranging from a nail salon in Marinette to a book store in Hurley. Grantees include tackle shops and tattoo parlors, clothing boutiques and construction companies.

Michigan dedicated less than 1% of ARPA funds to businesses, ranking 43rd. Instead, the state devoted the lion’s share of ARPA funds to health and education programs.

Wisconsin doled out $95 million in grants to small businesses through Bounceback grants. About 50 businesses in Vilas County, where Eagle River is located, received the $10,000 awards. Another $250,000 was given to Eagle River for a brewery project downtown.

Gleich credits Karen Margelofsky, executive director of the Eagle River Main Street Program, for helping spark the revitalization .

“She got us a nice state grant here recently,” Gleich said. “It helped us get some remodeling in this store. And when there’s an empty building, she works her magic (to get grants) and she has a list of people looking to put stores in Eagle River.”

A few blocks from the popcorn shop, Margelofsky was helping christen a new public tennis center, an amenity paid for by businesses and residents.

Margelofsky told Bridge Michigan that Wisconsin did a good job sending seed money to get small businesses off the ground. “We filled a lot of buildings,” she said. “Some of the businesses were online vendors who now wanted to be part of a community.”

As businesses expand, population has begun to tick up. “People realize I can go live up at my cabin and work remote,” Margelofsky said.

The key, Margelofsky said, is offering the consumer amenities residents can get in larger communities, and reliable internet.

Margelofsky said internet and cell service is an advantage her rural area of Wisconsin has over similarly rural Michigan, just a few miles away.

“I know when I drive even up to Watersmeet (a 20-mile drive into Michigan) there are big gaps (in cell phone service).”

That communications technology gap may exist along the Michigan-Wisconsin border, but overall, a higher percentage of Michigan residents (91%) have access to broadband than Wisconsin residents (87%).

And Michigan officials announced earlier this month the state will receive $1.5 billion in federal funds to expand high-speed internet to 210,000 homes. It’s part of a $42 billion nationwide program to expand broadband to underserved communities.The announcement did not say what areas of the state will receive the upgrades.

Lessons Michigan and other states can take from Wisconsin to address population stagnation, Margelofsky said, are to invest in small business and beef up the number of people assigned to help entrepreneurs navigate the application process for state funds.

Brian Calley, president and CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan, said Wisconsin has followed a business strategy of “not putting all their eggs in one basket” – a reference to Michigan’s recent economic development emphasis on large battery plants.

“I understand the play. You really have to take a both/and approach,” Calley said. “We need to be just as aggressive about building an environment of success around small business that provides resiliency to the economy.”

Calley said the Michigan Economic Development Corp is in the early stages of expanding small business programs.

While not direct grants to small businesses, MEDC has several placemaking programs, including $83 million in grants to help fund projects in 22 communities, and $100 million for Revitalization and Placemaking 2.0, which is aimed partly at rehabilitating vacant buildings and properties. That funding is split across regions of the state, and is not limited to small towns or small businesses.

MEDC also has a Match on Main program that offers grants of up to $25,000 to local redevelopment or main street districts for distribution to small businesses. Total annual funding is $1.5 million.

“I see signs that they understand and appreciate the importance of small business and starting to organize around it,” Calley said. “You need to have high local engagement. That’s what you see with a lot of activities that have been deployed in the states that spend a lot of money on small business. It accomplishes more than spending money; it leverages others to come to the table with resources.”

Calley cautioned that the same grants that have sparked business and population growth in and around Eagle River might not have the same impact in the western U.P., at least not yet. The U.P. is “held back by infrastructure” needs, such as high-speed internet and electrical capacity, Calley said.

‘Bottomed out’

Ernest, of the Ontonagon chamber, said he often looks at Eagle River as a model his hometown could emulate. 

“They expand on their resources there to be a tourism draw,” Ernest said. “Those people buy cabins and they demand a good selection of stores and places to eat.”

Those stores and restaurants would provide job opportunities, and could encourage those with second homes in the area to make Ontonagon their primary home.

“Ontonagen is finally realizing that needs to be done,” Ernest said.

For now, though, that goal is a long way off.

“College kids, they’re not coming back,” Ernest said. “And you often see when the kids leave, the parents will follow.

“Right now I’d say we’ve bottomed out.”

As UP’s population shrinks, Wisconsin rural counties grow. Here’s why. 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.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

A new Wisconsin Policy Forum report finds Wisconsin’s population growth in rural areas is more robust than most of the Midwest.

The group found Wisconsin’s 5.1% population growth between 2000 and 2022 outstripped 10 other Midwestern states. Only North Dakota’s rural areas grew more during that time. On average, the 12 Midwestern states lost 1.1% of their rural population since 2000, the group found.

It said four rural Wisconsin counties — Sawyer, Vilas, Bayfield and Burnett — are among the top 10 fastest growing in the state since 2010, with population gains of 10% or more. Door County came in at 9.9%. 

“It’s notable that the fast-growing rural counties listed above are dominated by many of rural Wisconsin’s top destinations for tourism and recreation, especially during warm-weather months,” according to the report. “They may be particularly attractive migration destinations for retirees, particularly those who already own vacation properties there. These places also may appeal to remote workers, a group whose numbers increased sharply during the pandemic.”

Report: Wisconsin near top in Midwest rural population growth 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.