Affordability and small businesses’ economic woes feature heavily in the House race for Wisconsin’s third district
After 18 years in business, Erin Klaus is closing her storefront, a handmade artisan market in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin, at the end of the year.
She opened Tangled Up in Hue amid a recession, during a time when downtown was “kind of a ghost town”, weathering construction and the pandemic. But the current economic crisis proved too much. She’s seen a downward trend in sales for two years, and was dipping into her own pocket from her other job, as the executive director of business non-profit Downtown Eau Claire Inc, to pay staff.