Family and School Deterioration is a Troubling Combination

by Mike Nichols

Sometimes, the numbers tell the tale – a disturbing one in this case.

In 1940, only 4% of births in the United States were to unmarried women. That percentage grew relatively slowly until 1969, when it hit 10%. By 1983, it was 20%. By 1992, it was 30%.

In 2020, the last year for which the federal government has released data, it reached 40%.

Eloise Anderson, former secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, says this is detrimental in myriad ways – for children, for men, for society as a whole.

“I just don’t think society can survive without the family,” she said.

Wisconsin as a whole is roughly in line with the rest of the country. The percentage of all 2020 births that were to unmarried women here in the Badger State was 38% – within two percentage points of the national average. But that masks a particularly troubling fact.

Over 84% of Black women who gave birth in Wisconsin in 2020 were not married – the highest percentage in the entire country and 14 percentage points higher than the national average. In some neighborhoods, there are almost no children being born into a household with married adults.



Read the full column here.

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Voters Have Amended the State Constitution 146 Times. Will They do it Again?

By Jim Bender

Sometime during the 2023 session, the Wisconsin Legislature is expected to approve a resolution proposing that voters consider amending the state constitution to restore long-lost legislative oversight of major federal spending initiatives in the state.

Frustrated legislative leaders in the Assembly and Senate led a move to pass identical joint resolutions, a pointed response to the control given to Gov. Tony Evers and the other 49 governors over how to spend more than $5 trillion in three spending bills approved by Congress since the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020.

Evers has had nearly total discretion over the spending of $2 billion from the CARES Act, $2.5 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and, if he remains in office after the November election, over the next five years a minimum of $7.2 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The Legislature passed several bills to add legislative oversight and accountability to the federal appropriations of these funds, only to have Evers veto them. Amending the constitution would provide an oversight guarantee the governor cannot override.

Read the full article here.

New Free Exchange Podcast: Legislature Tries to Restore Fiscal Sanity

As billions of federal “relief” dollars flow into Wisconsin, the state Legislature has advanced two measures designed to restore legislative oversight and sound budgetary practices. Sen. Dale Kooyenga, a supporter of both measures, joins Free Exchange to discuss.

Entrepreneurship on Tap

In case you missed it, yesterday was National Beer Day marking passage of the Cullen–Harrison Act of 1933 that legalized the sale of beer in the United States for the first time since Prohibition went into effect 13 years earlier.

Economist Mark Perry took a look at the trends in brewing and concluded, “The growth in America’s breweries over the last decade, especially the exponential growth in craft breweries, microbreweries, and brewpubs, has to be one of the most remarkable small business success stories in recent history.”

To view the full article, click here.

• The Federalist: Marriage makes you happier, better, and more successful but fewer Americans are even willing to date

• City Journal: The case for regulatory sandboxes

• The Hill: Elected officials can't ignore reality on school choice

• Hechinger Report: After the pandemic disrupted their high school educations, students are arriving at college unprepared

• The Hill: Nobel economists were dead wrong on inflation: don't expect an apology

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A standard bearer of conservative thought in the Badger State, our biannual Diggings magazine takes an in-depth look at policy and cultural issues that affect Wisconsin residents. Click here to read Diggings.