Wisconsin
Milwaukee logged lowest number of births on record in 2025, what’s behind the trend
In step with global and national trends, Milwaukee logged its lowest number of births on record in 2025, with just over 7,300 babies born in the city last year.
As of Jan. 5, Milwaukee had recorded 7,343 births in 2025, though that number will likely be closer to 7,386 once records are finalized, according to John D. Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education.
That’s a 5% decline from 2024 and nearly 22% decline from 2019, when birth rates dipped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year marked the lowest number of births on record since the state began collecting data in 1990, but Johnson noted it’s also likely the lowest since the 1960s, when Milwaukee’s population reached peak levels.
Still, following the pandemic drop-off, Milwaukee’s birth count had stabilized slightly between 2022 and 2024. Last year, however, the drop was the steepest in several years.
“None of this is surprising,” Johnson said. “Declining birth rates, in general, are super normal, but I don’t have an answer for what happened [in 2025]. It’s a concerning sign for the city.”
Along with people simply having fewer children than they used to, experts say a lack of affordable homes, health care and childcare are all driving the trend. Locally, parents say social isolation and diminishing resources for new families are also making it more difficult to raise kids in Milwaukee.
Why are fewer people having kids in Milwaukee?
The reasons births are declining in Milwaukee largely mirror the reasons births are declining nationally and globally, according to Noelle Chesley, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Some of those reasons are structural, like the skyrocketing costs of child care and declining access to affordable health care, Chesley said. Others are demographic, including a decline in the number of teenage parents and a growing divide between people who do and don’t want children.
Recent surveys have shown men are more likely to want kids than women; conservative-leaning people more likely to want kids than liberal-leaning people; and religious people more likely than non-religious, Chesley said. That could partly explain why the number of babies born in Milwaukee dropped throughout the 2010s, while the numbers in the surrounding suburbs remained relatively stable, she said.
“We’re so split politically between our city and the suburbs,” she said. “There could be an extent of out-migration to the suburbs as people have kids.”
Statewide, school enrollment data tells a similar story: throughout the 2000s and 2010s, enrollment in suburban school districts increased, while rural school enrollment continually declined, according to Sarah Kemp, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Applied Population Lab. Urban school districts, including Milwaukee, saw relatively steady enrollment through the 2010s, but the pandemic brought a sharp decline in student enrollment in most Wisconsin cities.
“There’s maybe not housing available for those young families to move into, or maybe the opportunities aren’t there for young families to find employment, and that may then show up in the school districts with declining enrollment,” Kemp said.
In the long term, declining birth rates will continue to strain social safety nets nationwide, namely the Social Security system, Chesley said. Wisconsin also logged its lowest-ever number of births last year, with 59,517 babies born in 2025, compared to more than 72,000 in 1990, according to the state Department of Health Services.
“When you have too many older people and not enough young people, you might see things like not having enough staff to run healthcare and nursing homes. You might not have enough people running restaurants, grocery stores or other businesses,” Chesley said. “There just could be chronic labor shortages.”
Milwaukee’s north side zip codes see steepest decline in births
The disparity in birth numbers isn’t just between the city and suburbs: Milwaukee’s north and south side neighborhoods have seen the largest decreases in births over the past few years, according to Johnson.
That’s likely because some neighborhoods in the city – downtown, the upper east side, lower east side and Bayview – were already seeing lower birth rates, and other neighborhoods are now catching up, Johnson said. However, the lack of resources for pregnant people and young families could also be driving parents-to-be to move out of certain neighborhoods at higher rates, he said.
Milwaukee’s 53209 zip code, which includes the neighborhoods of Menomonee River Parkway and Rufus King, saw 235 fewer births in 2025 than 2019. The neighboring 53218 zip code logged 182 fewer births, and the 53225 zip code, 134 fewer in the same time period. Most other neighborhoods saw declines below 100 births.
Dalvery Blackwell, president and founder of the African American Breastfeeding Network, said while affordability is a struggle for young families citywide, Black families face the largest barriers. The Breastfeeding Network works to decrease the Black maternal and infant mortality rate in Milwaukee, including by training doulas to support people of color through their pregnancies and births.
“The disparities are higher than any other ethnic group when we look at Black families being able to access quality health care, childcare or even housing,” Blackwell said. “The resources are just not available in large part due to systemic racism and social economic inequalities.”
In addition to decades of research, Blackwell’s assessments have been borne out in recent history: In the past few years, the north side has seen several grocery stores, a pediatric doctor’s office and a youth food program all shutter. All five of the Milwaukee Public Schools recently selected for potential permanent closure are clustered on the north side, though Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said she isn’t ready to recommend those schools for closure this fall.
Parents look for community despite social isolation
As births decline, those who do chose to have kids in the Milwaukee area say early parenthood can be stressful, anxiety-inducing and – above all in a post-pandemic world – lonely.
In March 2020, Heather Puente, health officer for the Cudahy Health Department, had just come back from maternity leave with her second child.
“COVID hits, and I was still breastfeeding,” Puente said. “I was pumping, coming home and showering before I could even see the kids or hold my baby. It was one of the honestly worst times that I can think of.”
With her first baby, Puente said she leaned on support groups and free resources for moms through local hospitals, but these these support systems have been diminishing, notably in Cudahy and Milwaukee’s south side. In 2022, Ascension St. Francis Hospital closed its labor and delivery unit.
In the absence of larger support systems, some parents are working to create and provide their own free resources for young families. Puente is a board member for Park Pals WI, a Milwaukee-area nonprofit organizing free programming to children and their families, in hopes of connecting both kids and parents with one another.
A need for connection is also what drove Mequon resident Stephanie Ciatti to start Babbling Babes MKE, a social club for moms across the Milwaukee area. When pregnant with her third child, Ciatti said she “made a vow” to herself to start visiting the coffee shops, stores and restaurants she had loved before becoming a mom but began to feel inaccessible with small children.
Going with a group of other parents made the experience less intimidating, she said. These gatherings have also become a space for moms to connect over their struggles with limited maternity leave, postpartum support and other challenges of raising kids in the city.
“We need to do a better job nurturing those moms in the first year of life when isolation is so high, especially with winters in Wisconsin,” Ciatti said. “If you really lay out the facts, the support does not equal what these women are going through.”
Which Central Wisconsin high school girls soccer standout is most worthy of being called 2026 MVP for the area? You can be the judge right here.
Choose from a field of first-team and second-team all-conference honorees on the field across the Marshfield, Stevens Point, Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids areas.
Cast your vote for the local soccer star you feel is most deserving of the nod until the poll closes on Friday, July 17 at noon. Refresh the page if the poll does not populate.
MORE LOCAL COVERAGE:
Contact or send game stats/info to Sports Reporter Alfred Smith III at alfred.smith@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @AlfredS_III.
Scores of camping chairs and event tents surrounded the basketball courts at Elver Park on Madison’s west side on a day in late June. The smell of carne asada rode a light breeze as basketballs arced through the air against the backdrop of thick summer clouds.
The crowd was gathered for Quiotepec en Wisconsin, a basketball tournament hosted annually for more than 10 years.
Event organizer Guillermo Martinez Melgar said while participating teams tend to be from the Midwest, some come from as far as California. The thing that connects them all, he said, is their shared roots in Oaxaca, Mexico.
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A total of 14 men’s and 6 women’s teams appeared in the tournament. Over 100 players from Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Arcadia, Sparta, Minneapolis and Chicago traveled to Madison to compete for cash prizes.
Representing Oaxaca in Madison
Angelica Navarro Gomez is the captain of Madison-based team Las Alebrijes, which has played together for three years.
“It started off with one of our friends, Itzel and her sister,” she said. “There were no girls playing [in the tournament], and she decided ‘Hey, how about we make a team?’”
Las Alebrijes had never played basketball before, but saw it as an opportunity to grow.
“We just never looked back,” Navarro Gomez said.
Her sister, Marisela Gomez Castellano, said Oaxaqueños are known within Mexico for their special interest in basketball.
The region hosts a decades-old tournament called La Copa Benito Juárez, named after Mexico’s first indigenous president. That tournament attracts teams from across Oaxaca and the Mexican diaspora in the United States.
“I think there is a lot of pride in representing where you are from,” she said in Spanish.
Gomez Castellano said playing basketball in Oaxaca is tied to the community’s indigenous identity.
Soccer is widely accepted as the favorite sport in Mexico. The country has hosted the World Cup more than any other nation in the tournament’s 100-year history. But in the Sierra Norte region of Mexico, basketball is the unchallenged favorite.
In the 1930s, Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas introduced basketball as a method of folding the indigenous communities that resided in the mountainous region into Mexico’s wider national identity. Basketball has smaller courts than soccer, which are easier to build in the region’s terrain. While Cárdenas’ vision did not come to fruition — most indigenous communities remain isolated — basketball became a tradition and a part of indigenous identity itself.
Indigenous identity is still represented through the sport today. Las Alebrijes named themselves after the sculptures of mythical creatures that artisans carve in Oaxaca.
Tournament continues despite fear of immigration enforcement
While the community feels pride in bringing their customs to Madison, she said this year felt different.
“Right now, it looks a little empty with everything going on with immigration,” she said in Spanish. “People didn’t want to come because they were afraid of not knowing what could happen.”
Increased enforcement by ICE across the country and in Wisconsin is driving Latinos to be more cautious about how they show up in the community. Gomez Castellano said it has driven the community to have more “underground” and “low key” gatherings.
“So [at the tournament] you see the absence of the crowd, the absence of the community,” she said in Spanish. “And though we have some people here, you don’t feel the same energy and vibe as when everyone is present.”
Despite being “a little scared,” Gomez Castellano and organizers decided to publicize the Quiotepec tournament.
“I think we’re trying to resist and we’re trying our best,” she said.
For Gomez Castellano, resisting looked like showing up and participating, in spite of what could happen.
“I think that’s also beautiful and inspiring to see that regardless of all the fear and the violence that our community is facing, they’re still showing up and being positive about it,” she said.
Guillermo Martinez Melgar, the event organizer, said he hopes that the culture he and his community built will continue to grow.
“I would like it if there were more of these events throughout the year,” he said in Spanish. “I invite anyone to step up and host more events like this.”
After being sent to the losers’ bracket, Madison’s Las Alebrijes climbed back into the regular bracket to defeat Quitotepec Minnesota and become women’s champions. Milwaukee’s Sierra Mixe took first place in the men’s bracket.
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Speaker 1
It’s time for Wisconsin life. As people across the globe tune in to cheer on their country’s soccer team in the World Cup this summer, one Wisconsin community is competing in a different kind of tournament. Members of Madison’s Mexican-American community recently came together for an annual basketball tournament that celebrates their indigenous roots. Reporter Jonas Tijerino has more.
Speaker 2
Scores of camping chairs and event tents surround the basketball courts at Elver Park on Madison’s west side. The smell of carne asado rides a light breeze as basketballs arc through the air against the backdrop of thick summer clouds. This is Kyotepec in Wisconsin. A basketball tournament hosted annually for more than 10 years. That’s Guillermo Martinez Melgar, one of the event’s organizers. He says while participating teams tend to be from the Midwest and sometimes as far as California, the thing that connects them all is their shared roots in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Speaker 3
Somos paisanos que radicamos in este bonito de Madison.
Speaker 2
Angélica Navarro Gomez is the captain of Madison-based team Las Alebrijges. They’ve been playing together for three years.
Speaker 4
Yeah, um it started off with the fr um one of our friends, Ixel, and her sister. There was no girls playing and she decided like hey how about we make a team And she made the offer and we decided, you know what, like let’s give it a shot. We never play basketball so we decided, hey, there’s Let’s just give it a give it an opportunity and see we can grow from there and we just never look back.
Speaker 2
Her sister Marisela Gomez Castellano says oaxaqueños are known within Mexico for their special interest in basketball The region hosts a decades-old tournament called La Copa Benito Juárez, named after Mexico’s first indigenous president. That tournament attracts teams from across Oaxaca and the Mexican diaspora in the United States. Gomez Castellano says playing basketball in Oaxaca is tied to the community’s indigenous identity. And while the community feels pride in bringing their customs to Madison, she says this year feels different. is driving Latinos to be more cautious about how they show up in the community.
Speaker 5
Gatherings and communities are just like going back to what it was before, like more underground, more like local, more low-key. And so yeah, it was like we did publicize the whole tournament but we also were, you know, a little scared like would this br you know attract other non people that we don’t want, you know, and so then um but yeah. But so far I think we’re trying our business and we’re doing our best.
Speaker 2
For Gomez Castellano, resisting looks like showing up and participating in communities in spite of what could happen.
Speaker 5
And I think that’s also beautiful and inspiring to see that regardless of all the fear, the Como the agr the violence that our community is facing, they’re still showing up and being positive about it and and I think that’s really inspiring.
Speaker 2
After six games, Madison’s Las Alebrijges defeated Kiotepec, Minnesota to become women’s champions. Milwaukee’s Sierra Mije took first place in the men’s bracket.
Speaker 1
Jonas Tijerino brought us that story about the Quiotepec in Wisconsin basketball tournament. Wisconsin Life is a co-production of Wisconsin Public Radio and PBS Wisconsin in partnership with Wisconsin Humanities. Additional support comes from Lowell and Mary Peterson of Appleton
“Wisconsin Life” is a co-production of Wisconsin Public Radio and PBS Wisconsin. The project celebrates what makes the state unique through the diverse stories of its people, places, history and culture.
WEST ALLIS (WLUK) — The Wisconsin State Fair unveiled dozens of new menu items coming to the fairgrounds for the 175th fair.
80 new food and drink options were unveiled Friday afternoon. Many of the items will feature Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery cheese curds, as they were declared the official cheese curds of the state fair. However, Door County cheese curds will be featured on the cheddar garlic longanisa lumpia, according to the list. It isn’t clear which Door County cheesemaker is supplying the cheese curds.
Here are all the new items coming to the fair:
- Al Pastor Pizza
- Bayou Crunch Cup
- Big Pat’s Pit Stop Punch
- Birria Flamin’ Bombs
- Biscoff Hot Fudge Cup
- Bloody Mary Mac Daddy
- Blue Ribbon Watermelon Mint Julep
- Bourbon Deep-Fried Pecan Pie
- Bugged Out Frozen Cheesecake On-a-Stick
- Bunzel’s Hungarian Sausage Sandwich
- Candied Bacon Cheese Curds
- Caramel Apple Cheese Curd Tacos
- Cevapcici – Croatian Sausage Sandwich
- Cheddar Garlic Longanisa Lumpia with Banana Ketchup
- Chicken Cordon Bleu Sausage
- Chimi-Brat-Changa
- Chocolate Covered Strawberry Sipper
- Churro Dog
- Circus Peanut Spritz
- Cold Foam Berry Blast
- Color-Changing Swamp Juice
- Cookie Butter Coffee Float
- Cosmic Funnel Cake
- Cranberry Dream Bar
- Cream City Cone
- Cuban Fries
- Deep Fried Horchata Balls
- Deep-Fried Ranch
- Deep-Fried Top The Tater
- Bloody Mary Pickles & Dill-icious Pickles
- Dill-uxe Pickle Fries
- Egg Roll A-la-Mode
- Ellsworth Fresh Cheese Curds
- Freedom Brat
- Freeze Dried Cheese Curds
- French Onion Cheese Pull
- Fruit Roll-Up Remix
- Gluten-Free Chimichurri Cheese Curds
- Guac This Way Tots
- Hawaiian Pizza Slush
- Hot Honey Bacon Corn Dog
- Hot Honey Chicken Lemonade
- Hot Honey Heatwave Fries
- Ice Cream Nachos
- Lemon-Lime Spritz
- Little Smokies Campfire Meal
- Monkey Bread
- Monster Blue Hawaiian Dirty Soda
- Nitro Cheesy Puffs
- Orange Creamsicle Lemonade
- Patriotic Punch
- Peach Beary Boba
- Peaches n’ Cream Whipped Frozen Lemonade
- Peachy Keen Cooler
- Pineapple Pop Paradise
- Pop’s Kettle Me Squeeze
- Porky Puff
- Potato Chip Sundae
- Ranch BLT Dog
- Red, White, & Berry
- Redneck Brat
- Smoked Pork Pierogi Sliders
- Soft Serve Beer
- Spam Jerky Sampler
- Star-Spangled Bomb Pop
- Sweet Lemon Berry Cheese Curds
- Tanghulu
- The Blue Moo Lagoon
- The Dirty Dog
- The Wisconsinite Slush
- Tilt-a-Spritz
- Tinga Tango Chicharrones
- Toffee Tumble
- Triple Chocolate Mini Donuts
- Tropical Tide
- Vegan Cheesesteak Eggrolls
- Waffle Cone S’mores
- Why Not Tots
- Wild Grape Dirty Soda
- Wisco Short Rid Corn Dog
- Wisconsin Chocolate Barnyard Float
- Southwestern Chorizo Pasty
In addition, a few new vendors are joining the Wisconsin State Fair. All Family Concessions will be found on the Back Forty. Dale Z’s On Tour will be on Grandstand Avenue and Second Street. Lulu Tanghulu will be in the expo center. And the Yuengling Beer House will be on Central Avenue and Benno’s Micro Alley.
The original cream puff and the chocolate cream puff will be offered at the 2026 Wisconsin State Fair. The new ‘Fair-aschino Cherry Cream Puff’ will be available while supplies last each day. Unlike the original and chocolate puffs, they won’t be available for pre-order.
Some of the new food offerings at the fair are also up for the Sporkies and Drinkies awards. The options up for the awarded are bolded in the list above.
The Wisconsin State Fair runs August 6 through August 16.
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