'Great news for Wisconsin': UWM professor says census results positive for Badger state

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) – The results of the U.S. Census are in. As many states will gain or lose congressional seats, Wisconsin will stay the same.

“This is great news for Wisconsin,” UW-Milwaukee Professor Emeritus Mordecai Lee said. “It turns out that the Wisconsin effort and the Milwaukee effort really paid off because Wisconsin had a good count compared to other states that had a bad count.”

California, New York, Ohio and Illinois will all lose seats while Texas, Colorado and Florida will gain them.

“It’s probably an indication that Wisconsin’s population is happier,” Lee said. “In other words, not that many people are moving out into other places, the other thing is that our competition is turning out to be the mountain states in the Pacific Northwest.”

As Lee explained, congressional seats are not the only thing decided by population, so is federal funding. He says it’s another win for Wisconsin.

“So the fact that we remained the 20th largest state, we didn’t gain, we didn’t lose, means that we’re going to get the same proportion of money while Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania are going to lose money,” he said. “That’s just so important in terms of federal funding and that’s why there was such a big effort in the city of Milwaukee to count everybody.”

Lee said the results also showed the continuing trend of people moving out of the city of Milwaukee and into the suburbs.