Jake has the details on the economic effect all of the additional unemployment and tax payments that came out of the CARES Act and other legislation.

Of mid-western states, Wisconsin lagged behind its neighbors of Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa (and the national average was 34.2%).

Either Wisconsin has been less damaged by the pandemic than other states, or Wisconsin has been less successful than other states in paying out all of the pandemic-related unemployment benefits currently available. I am thinking the latter.

Of course, income was still up in the second quarter of 2020 despite the pandemic because of the stimulus checks and the $600-a-week PUC add-on that did go out. Unfortunately, Lost Wage Assistance is a pale replacement for the $600 PUC, and no other stimulus appears on the horizon at the moment. As Jake explains:

For both Wisconsin and the US, much of the major increase in income in Q2 will be reversed in Q3, due to the lack of further stimulus checks and the end of the $600-a-week add-on for unemployment benefits. We already got a hint what that might look like with July’s personal income report, which showed US income was $1 trillion below April’s number (when most of the stimulus was sent out), but also was $1.3 trillion above March’s figure.