Month: June 2023

Retail sales, a measure of how much consumers spent on a number of everyday goods, including cars, food and gasoline, rose 0.3% in May, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Excluding the more volatile measurements of gasoline and autos, sales climbed 0.4% last month. The figures are not adjusted for inflation.

Consumers spent more on big-ticket items like cars, furniture and home improvement projects. Gas sales slid 2.6% in May. Sales declined in just two of 13 retail categories last month.

A solid job market and big wage increases have helped to buoy consumer spending. That strong spending, however, could keep inflation elevated, adding pressure on the Fed in its quest to cool the economy and consumer prices.

“The upside for retail spending does have a downside, however, in the form of continued inflationary pressure,” said Ben Ayers, Nationwide senior economist. “Higher interest rates haven’t tamped down consumer demand enough to meaningfully slow price growth, especially on the services side of the economy. These hot trends for consumers could lead to another interest rate hike by the Fed in July.”

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday held interest rates steady for the first time in 15 months, pausing its aggressive tightening campaign to assess how the economy is faring in the face of higher borrowing costs.

The widely expected and unanimous decision left interest rates at a range of 5% to 5.25%, the highest level since 2007. But policymakers also left the door open to additional rate increases this year.

“Holding the target range steady at this meeting allows the committee to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a post-meeting statement. The Fed’s next meeting is set for July 25-26.

New economic projections laid out after the meeting show that a majority of Fed officials who participated in the meeting expect rates to rise to 5.6% by the end of 2023, suggesting two more quarter-point increases this year.

The central bank previously projected a peak rate of 5.1%, indicating that policymakers believe there is more work to be done to wrangle inflation under control.

The Labor Department’s producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose 1.1% last month from May 2022, it said Wednesday, the smallest year-over-year gain since December 2020.

On a month-to-month basis, overall producer prices have now dropped three of the last four months. In May, wholesale inflation was pulled down by a 13.8% drop in gasoline prices.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core wholesale inflation was up 0.2% last from April and 2.8% from a year earlier, the mildest gain since February 2021.

Inflation has been receding. Year-over-year increases in producer prices peaked at 11.7% in March 2022 and have fallen 11 straight months.

On Tuesday, the Labor Department said that its consumer price index rose just 0.1% last month from April and 4% from May 2022 — the lowest 12-month figure in two years and down from a 4.9% increase in April. Inflation in consumer prices is still running ahead of the Fed’s 2% year-over-year target.

Wisconsin’s craft brewers, including the maker of the popular Spotted Cow beer, large retailers like the Kwik Trip convenience store franchise and other producers, wholesalers and retailers are getting behind a rapidly moving proposal that would overhaul the state’s alcohol laws and lead to stricter enforcement efforts.

The measure, hammered out in the past five years largely between Republican lawmakers and the alcohol industry, is moving quickly through the GOP-controlled Legislature. It was introduced on Friday and was scheduled for a public hearing on Tuesday. The Legislature is expected to pass it in two weeks. Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ administration has also been involved with negotiations.

Most of the changes would not be noticeable to average alcohol consumers in the state, those who worked closely on the bill said. But the creation of a new division to oversee liquor laws could lead to the enforcement of largely ignored current laws, like a ban on the shipping of liquor or beer directly to a customer made popular through “beer of the month” clubs and nationwide mail-order catalogs that feature hard-to-get bourbon or other spirits.

The bill affects every level of the state’s alcohol industry governing the licensing, producing, selling and distribution of beer, wine and liquor. The so-called three-tier system, created in the 1930s, has been eyed for changes for years, but policy makers and the alcohol industry have been unable to reach agreement.

The three-tiered system was designed to prevent monopolies so the same entity could not produce and sell alcohol at the wholesale and retail levels. But the system has been criticized for years for not keeping up with changes in the industry, including the explosion of smaller craft breweries, the popularity of wedding barns and other innovations.

The bill would require venues that sell or allow alcohol at special events, known generally as wedding barns, to either get a permit or alcohol license to operate legally. The measure would also allow for craft breweries to sell products from other out-of-state breweries. Wineries could open earlier in the morning, at the same time as bars, to sell their products. The bill would also create new guidance for contract brewing, winemaking and distilling, a growing segment of the industry.

Perhaps the biggest change is creating a new division within the state Department of Revenue to regulate and oversee regulating the alcohol industry and enforcing the law. One of the loudest targets of criticism under the current system was the lack of a dedicated state office to interpret and enforce regulations.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Jack Daniel’s in a dispute over a dog toy that parodies its iconic liquor bottle, ruling that a lower court erred when it said the toy was covered by the First Amendment’s free speech protections.

The unanimous opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan allows the liquor maker to revive its trademark lawsuit against VIP Products in lower courts. In the meantime, the “Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker” toy remains on the market.

At the center of the case is the toy created by VIP Products that is strikingly similar to Jack Daniel’s bottles. The distiller sued the company over the toy claiming it violated federal trademark law, which usually centers around how likely a consumer is to confuse an alleged infringement with something produced by the true owner of the mark.

Though the court’s decision is a win for Jack Daniel’s – which argued that an appeals court made a mistake when it said the toy was “non-commercial” and therefore enjoyed constitutional protection – the justices declined to grant the distiller’s request to completely throw out the test an appeals court used when it ruled in favor of the toy, a move that would have given trademark holders wide latitude to sue companies that parody their marks on consumer goods.

“Today’s opinion is narrow. We do not decide whether the Rogers test is ever appropriate, or how far the ‘noncommercial use’ exclusion goes,” Kagan wrote, adding: “The use of a mark does not count as noncommercial just because it parodies, or otherwise comments on, another’s products.”

“We hold only that it is not appropriate when the accused infringer has used a trademark to designate the source of its own goods – in other words, has used a trademark as a trademark. That kind of use falls within the heartland of trademark law, and does not receive special First Amendment protection,” she said.

A Republican bill to ax a disliked and obscure portion of Wisconsin’s tax code got a public hearing Thursday, with lawmakers hopeful that this attempt will successfully be passed into law after a similar bill was vetoed by Governor Tony Evers in the last legislative session.

At a press conference Thursday, Republican legislative leaders said the personal property tax repeal is part of an agreement on shared revenue they struck Wednesday night with Evers.

The personal property tax has been a part of Wisconsin’s code since the state’s founding. While it initially covered all household and business property, the tax has been whittled away over the past 175 years. The application to households fell off the tax rolls with the introduction of the state income tax in 1911 and business exemptions have been continually added over the last century.

In 1974, manufacturing machinery and equipment were removed from the tax and in 1999, computers and electronic business equipment were exempted.

Under current law, only furniture, watercraft and a few other items remain covered by the tax while most of Wisconsin’s neighboring states have already fully repealed their own versions of the tax.

Republican lawmakers said at the hearing that the tax adds an onerous and time-consuming administrative task to small business owners who remain liable for paying the tax, which often isn’t that high for individual taxpayers, and for the municipal government staff responsible for assessing and collecting the taxes.

“To small business it sometimes can be more of a time strain than financial strain, the time to catalog your inventory or personal property, so furnishings, fixtures, and the list goes on,” Sen. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown) said. “But that time and effort is very time-consuming, and probably costs more than the final check that you’re writing to the local community or you’re paying your accountant to do work. You’re paying more money out that way than you are in the actual tax bill. The benefits to the local government, and I have met with all my local governments over the years, they’re to the point where, ‘please just make our compliance efforts go away, and we’d be thrilled just to take the check from the state and move along with our business.’”

The Wisconsin Assembly passed a package of bills Wednesday designed to help improve the system of issuing professional licenses to everyone from tattoo artists to doctors and nurses that has been plagued with delays since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The state Department of Safety and Professional Services, which processes license applications, objects to doubling the length of a licensing, telling lawmakers in submitted testimony in May that it could lead to “abuse that would threaten public safety.”

In particular, the department’s lobbyist Mike Tierney warned, license holders who have serious issues could continue to work for years before arrests or convictions were revealed.

But the Wisconsin Hospitals Association, one of several health care organizations that supports the change, told lawmakers that it would ease the renewal burden on license holders, give the state more flexibility and reduce workload by allowing it to stagger renewal dates.

Other bills that were passed would allow those seeking a business license, such as accountants, to work immediately in Wisconsin if they have a license in good standing from another state. A 2021 law allowed for health care professionals from another state to begin working in Wisconsin while their Wisconsin applications were pending.

Another proposal would require the licensing department to update the processing time on its website monthly and post information about whether other states’ credentials for health care professions would qualify a person to obtain a reciprocal health care credential in Wisconsin.

Other measures would require the department to provide more processing data to the Legislature and another would streamline the required review of an applicant’s criminal history, with the goal of speeding up the process.

The bills now head to the Senate, which Republicans also control. Evers would have to sign them into law before they could take effect.

Leaders at the state Department of Safety and Professional Services have said applications are being processed about twice as quickly now as they were in 2021, when wait times were as long as 80 days.

Governor Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Department of Tourism Secretary Anne Sayers announced a record-breaking year in 2022 for Wisconsin’s tourism industry. The total economic impact was $23.7 billion. The previous record was set in 2019 with $22.2 billion.

Last year, tourism helped with 174,000 jobs in various counties and produced $1.5 billion in state and local tax revenue. 2022 brought in 111.1 million visits to Wisconsin. Of those visits, 45.4 million were overnight, a 13.8 percent increase from 2021.

“Tourism is vital to the economic health of local communities, businesses, and workers across our state, and I’m proud of our work to support this critical industry and its success over these past few years,” Governor Evers said. “We must continue to make key investments in Wisconsin tourism to ensure it continues to be a key part of our economy for generations.”

“Aided by strategic marketing, Wisconsin convinced more visitors to stay the night so they could add more activities to their itinerary, delivering a deeper economic impact,” Secretary Sayers said. “I congratulate the entire industry on an incredible record-breaking year.”

A bit more than a year into the covid-19 pandemic, management professor Anthony Klotz spoke to Bloomberg News and warned of a coming “Great Resignation.” For a time, it looked like an excellent call.

During the initial spread of Covid, switching jobs was rare. But coming out of the pandemic, with employers and households still flush with cash, the job market recovered at a record pace. Better jobs (and better-paying jobs) were created, workers took those jobs, and the overall employment situation in the U.S. improved.

As a result, the quits rate in the US, which is the percentage of employed people voluntarily leaving their jobs, rose to a record high in November 2021, according to a data series that started in December 2000. But it never got above 3%, which means the quits rate in fact wasn’t particularly great. According to research from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, there have been six other episodes in the 20th century where workers switched jobs at similar rates.

Now the rate is even less great. As of April 2023, it has fallen to 2.4%, in line with the quits rate that existed in 2019.

Republicans on the Legislature’s budget committee voted for a $2.4 billion capital budget Thursday, the largest of any state building program in years but was about $1.4 billion smaller than the $3.8 billion capital budget proposed by Governor Evers.

The University of Wisconsin played a major role in both Evers’ building plan and the one passed by Republicans. But while Evers’ budget called for $1.8 billion in UW building projects, Republicans approved $950 million, or about half. They included:

• $285 million for a Camp Randall Sports Center replacement at the UW-Madison.
• $231 million for a UW-Eau Claire science building.
• $58 million for residence halls at the UW-Oshkosh.
• $139 million for renovations to the UW-Stout’s Heritage Hall

Other projects funded by Republicans include $160 million for a new Wisconsin Historical Society Museum and almost $11 million for upgrades to the Marquette University School of Dentistry. Those projects, like others approved Thursday, will be built with a combination of state funding and private gifts.

Typically when the state funds building projects, it issues bonds, or borrows. But the motion Republicans passed Thursday would pay for many of the projects in cash. Overall, Republicans would set aside $1.2 billion in state funding for buildings. They’d also spend another $400 million to pay down old debt.

The building projects approved Thursday still need to clear the full Legislature before they’re sent to the governor’s desk.