MON AM News: State’s food insecurity rate rises to 13.5%, study shows; DFI official touts ‘exceptional’ earnings for credit unions

August 31, 2026

— Wisconsin’s food insecurity rate was 13.5% in 2024, according to new data from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap project.

That’s up from 11.8% in the prior year.

The group found the state had a “food budget shortfall” of $551 million for 2024, up from $463 million in 2023. This represents the total dollar amount those deemed “food insecure” report needing to buy enough food, adjusted for local food prices, tax and other factors.

Twenty-seven of the state’s 72 counties had food insecurity rates above that of the state overall, with clusters of counties with higher rates in Wisconsin’s central, northeastern and northwestern regions.

Menominee County had the highest rate among any Wisconsin county with 18.6%, and the study estimates $524,000 in additional funding would be needed to meet the food needs of residents. Among hungry residents, just 11% were above the threshold to qualify for SNAP — the state’s foodstamps program — while the other 89% fell below that threshold.

By comparison, 44% of all food insecure people in the state are above the SNAP threshold while 56% had income below the threshold of 200% of the federal poverty level.

The Menominee Indian Reservation shares boundaries with Menominee County, and Native Americans make up more than 82% of the county’s population, according to an earlier UW-Madison Wisconsin Partnership Program report.

In addition to the county’s food insecurity challenges, residents also face high rates for diabetes, coronary heart disease hospitalizations and general socioeconomic hardship, with 27% of the population living below the poverty level.

No other Wisconsin county exceeds 17% food insecurity, according to the Feeding America data.

Milwaukee County comes in at No. 2 on the list of counties with the highest rates of food insecurity with 16.9%. Given the largely urban county’s much larger population, the dollar amount needed to meet residents’ food needs is estimated at $114 million.

Thirty-two percent of food insecure county residents exceed the SNAP eligibility threshold, and the other 68% fall below it.

Meanwhile, the county with the lowest rate of food insecurity is Calumet County with 9.8%, and 54% of its food insecure residents are above the SNAP threshold while 46% are below it. The study estimates $3.7 million would be needed to meet residents’ food needs.

The Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin in a recent release warned of a “significant increase” in the number of food insecure families, children and seniors across the state’s southwestern region.

Within the group’s 16-county service area, a total of 169,310 people of all ages are considered food insecure, marking a 16% increase over the prior year’s findings, according to a separate analysis from the foodbank. The number of children in the area considered food insecure has “risen sharply” by 28% from the previous year, reaching 50,840.

Michelle Orge, the group’s president and executive director, says the latest figures “reinforce what we’re hearing” from its network of local partners, that more families need help in the region.

“Behind these numbers are our neighbors who are having to make difficult choices about how to put food on the table,” Orge said in a statement.

See the data.

— A state official overseeing credit unions says “exceptional earnings” in the second quarter supported the industry’s financial position.

The state Department of Financial Institutions on Friday announced total assets for state-chartered credit unions in Wisconsin increased to $73.4 billion as of June 30, marking an increase of $3 billion since the end of 2025.

At the same time, outstanding loans rose by $1.8 billion while shares and deposits rose by $2.7 billion, pushing the loan-to-share ratio down from 91.32% to 90.36%. And the ratio of delinquent loans to total loans fell from 0.77% to 0.69% over the same period.

“Overall, Wisconsin’s state-chartered credit unions continue to be financially stable with positive growth ratios across all key areas,,” DFI Office of Credit Unions Acting Director Troy Kaja said in the release.

See the release.

See more in DFI’s Mid-Year Credit Union Bulletin.

— The head of Leo Cancer Care says a new collaboration with GE HealthCare “is a clear signal” that its upright radiation therapy approach is gaining traction with industry leaders.

The Middleton-based business on Friday announced the commercial partnership with GE Healthcare, which will explore how the companies’ radiation therapy technology and software can complement one another.

It has a specific focus on GE’s AI-supported iRT software platform for radiation therapy, seeking to address “longstanding challenges” in this field of cancer treatment. That includes care environments with multiple vendors, issues with system interoperability, “fragmented” clinical workflows, patient experience and more.

Stephen Towe, CEO of Leo Cancer Care, notes GE HealthCare is “one of the most established names” globally for medical imaging.

“Its decision to partner with Leo Cancer Care, is a clear signal that upright radiation therapy is being recognised at the highest levels of our industry,” he said in today’s announcement.

Meanwhile, GE HealthCare Global Head of Oncology Ben Newton says the collaboration could “reduce the time from imaging to treatment” for cancer patients.

See the release.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

Sign up here.

— The Joint Finance Committee will meet tomorrow to consider a request from the Department of Natural Resources to release nearly $10 million from the state’s PFAS trust fund for cleanup efforts.

The request follows a settlement the state reached in June with Tyco Fire Products for alleged violations of Wisconsin’s spills law for failure to notify and remediate PFAS contamination around its fire training facility in Marinette.

The agreement requires Tyco to provide safe drinking water by installing new deep wells, treating new and existing wells, and providing bottled water to households without a deep well or treatment.

The company has now deposited $10 million into the PFAS trust fund. The DNR has proposed using that money to focus on efforts for affected residents in the Marinette and Peshtigo areas.

The committee’s agenda also includes the Department of Administration’s proposal to sell two state buildings in downtown Madison. The Building Commission has already signed off on the $12.65 million deal for the buildings known as G.E.F. 2 and 3.

— In the latest Dem radio address, Gov. Tony Evers calls out President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans following the new trade war with Canada.

“President Trump has started a trade war with Wisconsin’s largest export partner, Canada, leaving farmers and producers here in America’s Dairyland in the lurch,” the Dem governor says. “And let me be clear: he isn’t doing this alone. Republicans in Congress, including every Republican of Wisconsin’s own Congressional delegation, are enabling him.”

Evers says Wisconsin’s congressional Republicans have “caved” to the president on “erratic tariffs” and “reckless policies” that have left Wisconsin families and farmers behind. He adds Wisconsin Republicans should be standing up for Wisconsinites and not “staying silent.”

“Wisconsin farmers and producers, working families, seniors, and veterans are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table, and now, many are having to go without healthcare coverage because Republicans made that more expensive, too,” Evers says. “It’s reckless and ridiculous.”

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