Month: February 2025

Consumers sharply curtailed their spending in January according to a Commerce Department report Friday.

Retail sales slipped 0.9% for the month from an upwardly revised 0.7% gain in December. The sales totals are adjusted for seasonality but not inflation for a month, in which prices rose 0.5%.

Excluding autos, prices fell 0.4%, also well off the consensus forecast for a 0.3% increase. A “control” measure that strips out several nonessential categories and figures directly into calculations for gross domestic product fell 0.8% after an upwardly revised increase of 0.8%.

Receipts at sporting goods, music and book stores tumbled 4.6% on the month, while online outlets reported a 1.9% decline and motor vehicles and parts spending dropped 2.8%. Gas stations along with food and drinking establishments both reported 0.9% increases.

Two Republicans who chair state legislative committees on energy and utilities say they want to bring more nuclear power online in Wisconsin in the coming years.

To start that effort, they introduced a resolution calling on the Legislature to publicly support nuclear power and fusion energy.

“The resolution, more than anything, makes a formal declaration that Wisconsin is open for business — it is open for nuclear,” said Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, who chairs the Assembly Energy and Utilities Committee.

He’s working with state Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, chair of the Senate Utilities and Tourism Committee, on the effort.

In addition to the resolution, they plan to propose a nuclear siting study to identify locations around Wisconsin that make sense as sites for nuclear power plants. They also hope to bring an international nuclear summit to the state in the coming years that would help market Wisconsin for development and research opportunities, Steffen said.

He said completing a siting study could take two years off the development time for a new nuclear plant, which can take a decade or more to bring online.

Wisconsin has one active nuclear power plant, located in Two Rivers. The Point Beach Nuclear Plant came online in the 1970s and has a generating capacity of 1,200 megawatts. In 2020, the plant’s owners applied for a license renewal with federal regulators to keep the plant running through 2050. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a decision in that case scheduled for this December.

The state already has assets that it can build on to expand investment and research around nuclear energy, Steffen said.

He said the University of Wisconsin-Madison has one of the nation’s best nuclear engineering programs, and there are several companies that have spun off from the university working on nuclear technology.

“Beyond it being a necessary part of our energy production portfolio, it can also be an incredible economic development opportunity for the state of Wisconsin,” Steffen said.

The consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.5 percent in January to hit an annual increase of 3.0 percent after advancing by 2.9 percent in December.

January is the fourth-straight month in which inflation has ticked up, rising from a 2.4 percent increase in September.

Shelter costs rose 0.4 percent on the month, climbing to a 4.4-percent annual increase and making up around 30 percent of January’s inflation over all, the Labor Department noted.

Perhaps most concerning for economists, “core” inflation – which removes the particularly volatile categories of food and energy and is seen as a more fundamental measure of price pressures in the economy – rose by 0.4 percent, its largest uptick in at least six months. Core inflation was up 3.3 percent in January on an annual basis.

While food inflation is running below the headline at a 2.5-percent annual increase, it jumped by 0.4 percent on the month, the biggest increase in at least six months.

President Trump announced Sunday that he is telling the Treasury Department to stop minting pennies, ending a 233-year run of the 1-cent coin.

For the 2024 fiscal year, the annual U.S. Mint report said that it takes about 3.7 cents to produce and distribute one penny, a 20% increase from the previous year. The increase has been partly driven by the rising costs of metals like zinc and copper, according to the report.

Rising production costs have spurred other countries to eliminate small denomination coins. Canada stopped making pennies in 2012, and Australia stopped circulating one and two-cent coins back in 1992. In the U.S., discontinuing the penny entirely may require congressional approval.

President Trump said he will announce 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum on Monday, adding that he would also kick off reciprocal tariffs in the days after.

Trump said that the steel and aluminum tariffs would impact “everybody” when asked what countries would be effected.

“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25 percent tariff — aluminum too,” Trump told reporters. “Twenty-five percent … for both.”

He added that details of the reciprocal tariffs will be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday in a news conference.

On Friday, he warned that reciprocal tariffs would also be announced early next week, adding that he thinks reciprocal as opposed to a flat-fee tariff is the fair approach.

As the state’s primary consumer protection agency, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) responded to 11,374 written consumer complaints in 2024. The resulting mediations, enforcement actions, and settlements returned over $23 million to Wisconsin consumers through refunds and restitutions directly returned to consumers, and civil forfeitures deposited into the state’s common school fund for the benefit of public education.

The top ten complaint categories of 2024 are:

​​1. Landlor​​d-Tenant Issues

With 2,525​ complaints filed in 2024, landlord-tenant issues remained DATCP’s number one consumer complaint category. The most common disputes between lan​​dlords and tenants reported to DATCP include failure to maintain the premises, security deposit returns, unauthorized entry, mold and infestation, inadequate disclosures, and unsatisfactory service.

2. ​Telemarketing​​

Telemarketing was DATCP’s second most-reported consumer complaint category of 2024, with 1,513 complaints. Issues include phishing and spoofing, imposter scams, robocalls, harassment, and Do Not Call Registry violations.

3. Home Improvement

There were 664 consumer complaints filed with DATCP in the home improvement category in 2024. Top concerns include quality of work, delays in performance, failure to provide services and materials, failure to honor warranties, deceptive and misleading representations, and failure to disclose lien rights.

4. Identity Theft

DATCP received 618 complaints of identity theft in 2024, an increase over the previous year. The top issue in this category remains online account takeovers, with many of the complaints involving compromised Facebook accounts. S

5. Telecommunications​​

In 2024, DATCP received 527 complaints from consumers about their telecommunications services. Consumers reported issues about billing disputes, customer dissatisfaction, agreed-upon terms not being followed, deceptive and misleading representations, refund and adjustment policies, and denial of cancellation requests.

6. Medical Servi​​ces

Consumers filed 439 complaints related to medical services in 2024. The top issue in this category was medical billing disputes. Other topics include unsatisfactory service and misleading representations.

7. Motor Vehicle R​epair

There were 341 motor vehicle repair complaints filed with DATCP in 2024. Consumers reported issues such as unsatisfactory quality of work, damage and loss of property, failure to honor agreements or perform work, performance delays, and charges for work not permitted by the vehicle owner.

8. Motor Vehicle Sales (New and ​​Used)

The eighth most common consumer complaint in 2024 concerned sales of both new and used motor vehicles, about which DATCP received 297 complaints. The most common issues cited in these complaints were inadequate disclosures, prize notice mailers, and untrue, deceptive and misleading representations.

9. Tr​avel

DATCP received 244 travel complaints in 2024. The travel category covers a variety of areas such as airlines, hotels and lodging, auto rentals, and travel service bundles, with common consumer complaints including billing disputes, refund and adjustment policies, failure to provide services, failure to return deposits, and unsatisfactory service.

10. ​Motor Vehicle A​​ccessories

DATCP’s tenth most common consumer complaint category of 2024, having received 141 complaints, was motor vehicle accessories. Refunds, failure to deliver produ​​cts, and deceptive and misleading representations were the top issues reported by consumers.

The U.S. goods trade deficit increased in 2024 to a record $1.2 trillion. The Commerce Department report also showed the United States ran record bilateral trade deficits with Mexico, Vietnam, India, Taiwan, South Korea and the 27-nation European Union.

U.S. goods imports in 2024 totaled $3.3 trillion, a record high, while exports were nearly $2.1 trillion, producing a 14 percent jump in the trade gap to $1.2 trillion.

The United States still runs a surplus in services trade, such as banking, travel and transportation. When that is included, the combined goods and services trade deficit totaled $918 billion in 2024, up 17 percent from 2023 and the second highest on record.

The report showed the U.S. trade deficit with China increased to $295 billion in 2024, but remained well below the record level of $418 billion set in 2018.

Job openings slid in December while hiring, voluntary quits and layoffs held steady, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

Available positions tumbled to 7.6 million, the lowest since September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The decline left the ratio of open jobs to available workers at 1.1 to 1.

Though the report runs a month behind other jobs data, the Federal Reserve watches it closely for signs of a slack or tight labor market.

While the net gain in nonfarm payrolls picked up in the month by 256,000, the level of openings fell by 556,000. As a share of the labor force, openings declined to 4.5%, or 0.4 percentage point below November.

Professional and business services saw a drop of 225,000, while private education and health services declined by 194,000, and financial activities decreased by 166,000.

Layoffs totaled 1.77 million for the month, down just 29,000, while hires nudged up to 5.46 million and quits also saw a small gain to near 3.2 million. Total separations also moved little, at 5.27 million.

President Trump agreed Monday to delay for a month the aggressive tariffs he levied on Canada and Mexico, receiving in return pledges from both trading partners to help him strengthen U.S. border security.

But China struck back against new U.S. tariffs with a targeted tit-for-tat warning.

President Trump told reporters he would speak on Monday with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, prior to imposing import tariffs on their goods. The U.S. president is expected to sign executive orders on Tuesday putting in place 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and 10% tariffs on those from China, according to the White House.

Prime Minister Trudeau responded to the planned tariffs on Saturday evening, announcing his country will implement 25% tariffs on 155 billion Canadian dollars, or about $107 billion, of U.S. goods. The prime minister said he has not talked to President Trump since his inauguration.

President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico plans on Monday to announce her country’s “Plan B” response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on imported goods.

President Trump on Sunday told reporters he was unconcerned about the potential impact of imposing tariffs on close trading partners, saying the American people would understand.

“We may have short term, some, a little pain, and people understand that, but, long term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world,” he told reporters on Sunday, as he departed Air Force One at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews.