Low-wage workers have found it especially hard to afford higher housing costs, even before a spike in prices in 2022, explained Laura Dresser, associate director of the High Road Strategy Center (formerly COWS, a left-leaning think tank) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dresser’s research has found that increasing the minimum wage to $15 over the next five years would increase wages for one in seven workers in Wisconsin. That includes one of every four Black and Hispanic workers.