ARRA (Recovery Act) Resources

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has provided fiscal assistance to states, local governments and individuals in innumerable ways – making it difficult to keep up with how the federal money has been and is being used. To help people understand and monitor ARRA, we have written a number of publications relating to ARRA, listed below, and have pulled together the following list of helpful websites.

Recovery Websites
WI Budget Project and WCCF Reports About ARRA
ARRA-Related Blog Posts

RECOVERY WEBSITES (offsite)

• The Institute for Wisconsin’s Future and its coalition partners have developed a site that includes information on how the Recovery Act has helped Wisconsin, how the money has been used, and how to advocate for future aid.

• The official Recovery site of Wisconsin state government has resources to allow tracking funding by program area and county, and includes the Governor’s announcements of new Recovery funding and projects.

• The official Recovery site of the federal government has downloadable data on thousands of projects across the country.

• The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a national policy analysis organization, has devoted a separate section of its site to Recovery issues.

• ProPublica has taken Recovery data from the federal government’s stimulus website and put it into a more manageable format on their website.

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WI BUDGET PROJECT AND WCCF REPORTS ABOUT ARRA

• $4.7 Billion from Two Recovery Measures Directly Benefitted Wisconsin Residents. Two important stimulus efforts -- extended jobless benefits and the payroll tax cut -- will expire at the end of the year unless Congress takes action. This analysis includes a county-by-county estimate of payments received through those two programs. These two benefits are just part of the larger Recovery effort, and a county-by-county estimate of additional benefits related to the stimulus can be found here (November 2011).  

• Fact Sheet on Unemployment Compensation and Extended Benefits in Wisconsin (July 7, 2011).

• Extended Unemployment Benefits Can Provide a Critical Boost for Wisconsin’s Jobless Workers and the State’s Economy. This short paper explains the reasons why Wisconsin policymakers should accept federal funding, estimated at $89 million this year, to extend unemployment insurance benefits for an additional 13 weeks  (June 23, 2011).  

• The Recession's Impact on Wisconsin Counties: Unemployment and Poverty Rates are Up, Health Insurance is Down in 2009. WCCF analyzed and charted the relevant Census Bureau data for 23 Wisconsin counties, and found that Wisconsin residents are feeling the impact of the national recession, as steep job loss has pushed many residents into poverty and forced the loss of health insurance coverage. BadgerCare Plus has been critically important for families who have lost their jobs and their private health insurance during the recession. See county data and interactive charts here (December 2010).

• The Recovery Act: Direct Benefits in Wisconsin, Six Provisions Benefit Wisconsin Residents by More Than $3 Billion (August 16, 2010).

• Medicaid Fiscal Relief – An Effective Prescription for an Ailing Economy (August 5, 2010).

• TANF Emergency Fund Helps Cushion Effects of the Recession and Creates Options for State Policymakers. (June 22, 2010).

• Recovery Act Benefits in Wisconsin: The First Year (April 2010)

• Federal Fiscal Relief Helps Balance the Budget (Sept. 2009)
  Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the federal government provided significant sums to state and local governments, allowing them to avoid even more painful cuts to critical services and programs.

• Comparative Summary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Its Implications for Wisconsin (revised 2/26/09) http://www.wccf.org/pdf/comparative_summary_ARRA.pdf

• Federal Aid as a Tool for Wisconsin’s Economic Growth
  Feb. 2009 WisKids newsletter article

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ARRA - RELATED BLOG POSTS

The following list is a compilation of some of our blog posts relating to the Recovery Act.  You might be able to find more current WI Budget Project blog posts on this subject by clicking here. 

• Approaching Hazards for a Fragile Economy (July 18, 2011)

• A One-year Reprieve for the Transitional Jobs Program (July 14, 2011)

• Extension of Unemployment Benefits Put on Fast Track of Legislative Action (July 13, 2011)

• What’s Driving the Federal Deficit? Not the Recovery Act (June 9, 2011)

• Alternative Measure of Poverty Shows the Value of Recovery Act (May 4, 2011)

• Getting No Respect: Is the Recovery Act the Rodney Dangerfield of Politics? (April 28, 2011)

• U.S. House Budget Would Make it harder to Respond to Future Recessions (April 20, 2011)

• Recovery Act Kept 4.5 Million People Out of Poverty (February 11, 2011)

• New Report Shows Recovery Act Decreased Poverty in Wisconsin (December 7, 2010)

• What is Next for Federal Unemployment Benefits? (November 15, 2010)

• Unhappy Fiscal New Year Begins for TANF-Subsidized Jobs Programs (Oct 1, 2010)

• Census Bureau Releases New Poverty Data (September 16, 2010)

• WBP Releases Analysis of Stimulus Benefits  (August 16, 2010)

• U.S. Senate Approves State Help for Medicaid and Education  (August 5, 2010)

• Stimulus Effort Creates or Saves 63,000 Jobs in Wisconsin  (August 4, 2010)

• Significant Unemployment Benefits Victory, but What Comes Next?  (July 22, 2010)

• Wisconsin Governmental Units Take Advantage of Build America Bonds (June 18, 2010)

• Op-Ed: State Residents Benefiting Mightily from Tax Breaks in the Recovery Act (March 22, 2010)

• Wisconsin Receives High Marks for Transparency in Use of Recovery Funds  (January 27, 2010)

• New Report Shows Federal Recovery Act Keeping Thousands of Wisconsinites Out of Poverty  (December 17, 2009)

• FoodShare Gets a Boost from Federal Stimulus Package  (April 2, 2009)

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