Removing Transportation Barriers to Employment: The Impact of Driver\u27s License Suspension Policies on Milwaukee County Teens

This report examines the impact of current driver\u27s license suspension and revocation policies on teenagers in Milwaukee County and central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. It is part of a series of public policy studies on barriers to employment for Milwaukee area workers. The research focuses on the special problems of youth in securing and keeping valid driver\u27s licenses due to municipal and circuit court fine and forfeiture collection policies. Teenagers and young adults with a driver\u27s license and access to a car can tap into jobs outside their neighborhoods and seek out employment in industries with greater opportunities for advancement. Wisconsin legislation allows municipal and circuit courts to place driver\u27s license suspensions on juveniles who fail to pay fines for curfew violations, underage drinking, jaywalking, and other violations. In most cases, suspensions are placed on juveniles who had not yet obtained a driver\u27s license. This study uses Wisconsin Department of Transportation driver\u27s license and suspension and revocation files to determine what happened to suspended teens as they reached working age and to describe differences in policy impact by neighborhood

The Driver License Status of the Voting Age Population in Wisconsin

For this report, new Employment and Training Institute research on interrelationships between race/ethnicity, income and geography for the driver’s license issue is applied to proposals in the Wisconsin Legislature to require state driver’s licenses or photo IDs as identification for voting in elections in the state. The report details the impact of the proposed voter identification legislation on the population of adults 18 and older in Wisconsin compared to the population of adults with a current driver license and current address. An estimated 23 percent of residents aged 65 and over do not have a Wisconsin driver’s license or a state photo ID. The population of elderly persons 65 and older without a driver’s license or a state photo ID totals 177,399, and of these 70 percent are women. Minorities and poor populations are the most likely to have driver’s license problems. Less than half (47 percent) of Milwaukee County African American adults and 43 percent of Hispanic adults have a valid driver’s license compared to 85 percent of white adults in the rest of Wisconsin. The situation for young adults ages 18-24 is even worse -- with only 26 percent of African Americans and 34 percent of Hispanics in Milwaukee County with a valid license compared to 71 percent of young white adults in the rest of Wisconsin

Survey of Job Openings in the Milwaukee Metropolitan Area: Week of May 24, 1993

To address the need for information on local labor market needs, the City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage Commission, Private Industry Council of Milwaukee County and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee joined together in a unique partnership effort to survey businesses in the metropolitan area and to improve planning for employment of Milwaukee residents. This study summarizes the project\u27s Establishment Survey of Job Openings detailing the types of jobs available at a point-in-time in the metropolitan area by industry, location, full or part-time status and level of fringe benefits. The 11,870 full-time job openings available the week of May 24, 1993, represented about 20 percent of jobs needed for the estimated 61,000 - 63,000 persons seeking or expected to work that month. If part-time and full-time job openings are combined, the total of 21,147 jobs represented about 35 percent of jobs needed for the Milwaukee metro population. While family poverty is concentrated in Milwaukee, only 1,289 of the May 1993 full-time job openings were located in central city neighborhoods. Only half of these jobs offered health insurance and wages above poverty for a family of four

NSAF Findings on Preschool Children, Mothers\u27 Employment Status and Child Care Choices

Data from the 1997 and 1999 National Survey of America\u27s Families on the employment patterns and child care choices of mothers with preschool children (under age 5) were analyzed for families with low-income (at less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level), mid-range income (at 150-299 percent of poverty), and upper-range income (at 300 percent or more of poverty)

Maps of African American and White Populations in 100 Metro Areas

The Employment and Training Institute prepared maps for the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. to aid public policy makers in identifying black-white integrated neighborhoods. The mapping project analyzed block level data, with cities encouraged to map their integrated neighborhoods by blocks. For ease of display, the metro maps shown here use block groups to aid communities in assessing the location and relative size of their racial mixes. Four maps are provided for each metro area. The first map shows the black-white racial composition by three categories: integrated block groups with at least 20 percent black population and at least 20 percent white population, block groups that are over 80 percent black, and block groups that are over 80 percent white. Concentrations of population are based on density per square mile. As a result, urban neighborhoods with highest concentrations of residents (in integrated, predominantly black, or predominantly white block groups) are tallest in the 3-D maps presented, while sparsely populated areas appear flat. Block groups are excluded where the institutionalized population makes up more than a third of the total population or where the block group population totals less than 50 people. Some metropolitan areas have residents living on black-white integrated blocks but have no block groups meeting the black-white integration criteria. Likewise, some metro areas, particularly those with large Latino and Asian populations, may show no blocks groups where the population is over 80 percent black or over 80 percent white

Findings from the National Survey of America\u27s Families for Milwaukee County Families with Preschool Children, 1997 and 1999

This technical assistance paper was prepared at the request of Milwaukee County to use the NSAF survey to help estimate the number of families needing Wisconsin child care subsidies for low-income families and to analyze the type of care selected by working parents in Milwaukee County. The National Survey of America’s Families, conducted in 1997 and in 1999, provides a unique opportunity to examine the child care arrangements and employment patterns of Milwaukee County mothers with preschool children. The survey instrument was designed to be representative for the nation as a whole and for 13 states, including Wisconsin. Milwaukee County was the only county in the U.S. to be separately surveyed. The survey reported that the majority of Milwaukee County mothers of preschool children do not work fulltime. In 1999, 28 percent of preschool children in lower-income families had a mother employed full-time (40 hours or more a week), as did 36 percent of children in families with mid-range income, and 49 percent of children in families with upper-range incomes

Licensing Student Drivers in Wisconsin: Building Assets in Employment and Adulthood

This technical assistance paper for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction analyzes state Department of Transportation driver’s license files in order to assess the numbers of Wisconsin youth reaching adulthood with a driver’s license and to estimate the numbers of unlicensed youth in each of the 72 Wisconsin counties and 12 Cooperative Educational Service Agency (CESA) districts. The data is aiding DPI in considering whether expanded state financial support and programming for driver education and licensing of school-age youth could increase the skills of Wisconsin youth at the critical period of their lives when they are entering the labor force, preparing for postsecondary education, and acquiring assets to build on in their early adult years

23,639 Milwaukee County Residents with Driver\u27s License Suspensions Solely for Failure to Pay Fines and Civil Forfeitures

Thousands of adults in Milwaukee County have suspensions placed on their driver’s licenses solely for not paying fines and civil forfeitures. Younger teens may be issued license suspensions for failure to pay fines and civil forfeitures even though they have never had a driver’s license. Many teens and adults with suspensions continue to drive with or without a valid license. For this report the driver license status of all Milwaukee County residents was reviewed using state Department of Transportation records on driver’s license status, licenses suspension and revocation records for 2008-2011 in order to assess the driver status facing workers seeking employment or attempting to retain employment. The focus of this analysis is the policy of suspending licenses for non-payment of fines and civil forfeitures for individuals who otherwise have no unsafe driving suspensions or in some cases are yet to obtain a license. Most (82%) of those receiving failure-to-pay suspensions were minorities and 65% were African Americans. Residents with FTF suspensions are heavily concentrated in Milwaukee’s poorest neighborhoods while residents receiving unsafe driving-related suspensions such as OWI (operating while intoxicated) show more even distributions across middle income neighborhoods of the county

Concentration of Children in Poverty in Milwaukee County Neighborhoods

The Employment and Training Institute was asked to provide a detailed demographic analysis of the population on public assistance and the working poor not receiving public assistance in Milwaukee County. Computerized records of families and individuals receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), food stamps and medical assistance in 1990, 1993 and 1994 were used to construct a picture of Milwaukee County children on public assistance. The Milwaukee County working poor population, including families both on and off public assistance, was examined using 1993 income tax data especially generated by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, detailing the earnings of single parents and married couples. These data were compared to 1990 U.S. census data for Milwaukee County, while recognizing that the significant census undercount in central city Milwaukee may exaggerate the level of AFDC concentration in some neighborhoods. According to 1993 Wisconsin Department of Revenue income tax returns, working poor families, that is, families with adjusted gross income below the poverty level, are located throughout Milwaukee County. However, in two central city Milwaukee zipcode areas (53205 and 53233) over half of all working families had income below the poverty level. In four additional zipcode areas (53204, 53206, 53208 and 53212) over 40 percent of working families had income below poverty

Drilldown on African American Male Unemployment and Workforce Needs

The American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau has become a primary federal source of demographics on the unemployed population by age, race, sex, education levels, and disabilities and offers a valuable tool for workforce planning. This report for the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board examines the employment of African American males in Milwaukee County and presents unemployment rates among African American males by geography and age. The ACS offers useful benchmark data on the African American male population, particularly when combined with institutional data sources, including the income maintenance files of FoodShare and BadgerCare Plus enrollees, the unemployment insurance claimant files, and the Job Service ASSET records