Brian Dake

The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday held interest rates steady for the fourth straight time and cracked open the door to reducing rates later this year if inflation continues to subside. The widely expected decision left interest rates unchanged at a range of 5.25% to 5.5%, the highest level in 22 years.

Policymakers also made substantial changes to their post-meeting statement, softening some of its hawkish language. Officials dropped a sentence that suggested additional hikes may be warranted and swapped in more neutral language about the path of monetary policy in coming months.

The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee acknowledged that the “risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are moving into better balance” but cautioned that rate cuts are not imminent.

“In considering any adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks,” the statement said. “The Committee does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent.”

If the economy evolves broadly as expected, it will likely be appropriate to begin dialing back policy restraint at some point this year,” Chair Jerome Powell told reporters during a post-meeting press conference in Washington, D.C. “But the economy has surprised forecasters in many ways since the pandemic, and ongoing progress toward our 2% inflation objective is not assured.”

“Based on the meeting today, I would tell you that I don’t think it’s likely that the committee will reach a level of confidence by the time of the March meeting to identify March as the time to do that. But that’s to be seen,” Powell said.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday that 3.4 million people quit their jobs in December, way down from the 4.5 million who did so back in April 2022. The so-called “quits rate,” or the number of people quitting their jobs as a percentage of overall employment, fell to 2.2%.

Though the gap between number of job openings and quits is growing -there were 9 million availabilities in December, up two months in a row after a long skid – a lot of workers still feel wary about US economic prospects. People don’t like switching jobs as much when they’re skittish about the state of the world.

UK-based research group Capital Economicspointed especially to the service sector, where labor shortages were blamed for rising prices. For instance: The “accommodation and food services” quit rate, where turnover is typically very high, fell 0.7 percentage points, to 4.5%, in December.

“The bigger news was the sharp decline in the leisure and hospitality job openings rate to slightly below its average level in 2019,” wrote Andrew Hunter, the firm’s deputy chief US economist. “That is the sector where shortages were previously most acute and where labor market conditions probably have the most direct pass-through to inflation.”

Remote work has declined in Wisconsin after spiking during the COVID-19 pandemic, but office vacancies remain elevated in the state’s largest city and its suburbs.

From 2021 to 2022, the state saw an 11 percent decrease in the number of people working remotely, from 437,295 to 387,700, according to a recent study from LLC.org.

Both Madison and Milwaukee have seen about a 20 percent decline in the number of people working from home, according to the report. Madison’s remote workforce declined by 22 percent from 40,253 to 31,385 people. Milwaukee’s has declined by 19 percent from 40,265 to 32,627.

Despite the decrease, remote work nationally remains higher than it was before the pandemic. In September 2023, the average U.S. worker reported spending 3.8 days each month doing their job remotely, down from 5.8 days in 2020 but up from 2.4 days in 2019, according to Gallup.

As of 2023, Forbes reported that 12.7 percent of full-time employees worked from home, while 28.2 percent worked a hybrid model.

Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce President Zach Brandon said the decline in remote workers noted in the LLC.org report isn’t surprising, but he doesn’t expect remote work to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon.

While remote work has decreased in Wisconsin, it hasn’t necessarily led to offices brimming with activity in the greater Milwaukee area.

From the final three months of 2021 to the same period in 2022, office vacancies in southeast Wisconsin increased slightly from 15.3 percent to 15.8 percent, according to reports from the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin. By the end of 2023, office vacancies in southeast Wisconsin increased to 17.7 percent.

Wisconsin’s budget surplus will be less than what was projected six months ago.  The state is predicted to have a surplus of $3.25 billion by the end of the current budget cycle, according to a new estimate of the state’s general fund from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The state is projected to collect less tax revenue while spending has increased. The fiscal bureau is now expecting the state will collect $422 million less than previously expected from both individuals and corporations.

This estimate from the bureau included spending that has passed since June, as well as bills currently working their way through the legislature. That includes $423 million for building projects on University of Wisconsin system campuses and other items.

Republican leaders said the new estimates show there is still enough of a surplus to deliver more tax cuts.

“These estimates are consistent with what we expected when we crafted our budget. We created a responsible budget that protects taxpayer resources, while making important investments in our state,” Sen. Howard Marklein and Rep. Mark Born wrote in a statement. “With over $3 billion in the bank and $1.8 billion in the state’s rainy day fund, it is critical for us to return a portion of these funds to the people of Wisconsin.”

When asked for a response to the revised estimate, a spokesperson for Evers pointed to this week’s State of the State address. In that speech, Evers called for funding a variety of programs, including child care, expanded Medicaid coverage for new mothers and investing in education.

Officials announced Monday that the U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded nearly $1.06 billion in federal funding to replace the aging John A. Blatnik Bridge between Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin.

The bridge is an important freight and commercial connection between the Duluth-Superior Twin Ports and serves more than 33,000 vehicles per day, according to the statement. It is jointly owned and managed by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

For more than 60 years, the bridge has linked Duluth and Superior via Interstate 535 and US 53.

The total cost for rebuilding the bridge is estimated to be $1.8 billion, according to the statement. Each state committed $400 million toward the project last year. Design work for the project, which will determine specifications and the shape the final project, is expected to begin this year. Once a final design is selected, construction could begin as early as next year.

Consumer sentiment rose in January to its highest level since July 2021, according to the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers released Friday. Preliminary readings showed sentiment jumped to 78.8 from 69.7 percent last month, marking the second straight month of strong increases.

The index has now rebounded nearly 60% after plumbing record lows in June 2022. It is now just 7% shy of the historical average since 1978.

The House Committee on Small Business is urging the Department of Labor to reconsider the agency’s new rules for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor, saying the regulations will disproportionately impact smaller entities.

In a letter sent to Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su on Tuesday, Committee Chair Roger Williams (R, Texas), expressed concern over the changes, saying “[i]t seems that the DOL failed to properly consider small entities in this rule.” He said businesses in the construction, trucking and health care industries will be affected most.

The new rule, titled “Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standard Act,” was finalized last week. It repeals a Trump-era contractor test implemented in 2021 and returns to a six-factor “economic realities” test, which makes it more difficult for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors.

Williams noted in his letter that the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy said the rule threatens the livelihoods of many entrepreneurs by re-implementing a confusing method for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee. The result, he said, is that businesses will be less likely to hire gig workers due to fears of being sued for misclassifying them.

What’s more, he argues, the change impacts over 22 million independent contractors and their status, many of whom will be forced to re-classify as employees and no longer be able to operate as their own small business.

Several trade groups and business organizations have also sounded alarms over the DOL’s new rule, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Supreme Court’s conservatives appeared inclined to cut back the regulatory power of federal agencies, with several justices during a pair of arguments Wednesday seeming ready to overrule a legal doctrine that has bolstered agencies’ authority for decades.

Over more than three hours of argument, the justices put the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer on defense as she sought to preserve Chevron deference, which instructs courts to defer to agencies’ interpretation of federal law if it could have multiple meanings.

The practice has strengthened presidential administrations’ ability to regulate wide aspects of daily life. The range of examples referenced at the arguments revealed the breadth of Chevron’s impact: artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, environmental protections and more.

Although several conservative justices railed against the precedent during Wednesday’s arguments, it remains unclear whether a majority is willing to outright overrule Chevron, which would mark a major legal victory for business and anti-regulatory interests. The court could instead narrow the doctrine’s scope without explicitly disavowing it.

In particular, three members of the high court’s conservative wing — Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — reiterated their long-publicized concerns about the precedent’s viability.

The court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, meanwhile, expressed opposition to overturning Chevron. They emphasized a desire to defer to subject-matter experts at agencies when ambiguous, complicated policy issues arise, rather than having a judge attempt to draw the line.

Decisions in the cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, are expected by the end of June

Retail sales grew 0.6% in December, according to Census Bureau data.

Nine of the 13 categories highlighted in the release saw increases from a month ago.

Sales for clothing and clothing accessories, as well as non-store retailers, increased 1.5%. Meanwhile, sales at health and personal stores care dipped 1.4%, while sales at gasoline stations fell 1.3%.

For the full year, retail sales excluding auto and gas increased 4.9%. Sales at food services and drinking places rose 11.3% for the year, pacing the gains, while spending at gasoline stations declined 11.5% as gasoline prices dipped lower throughout 2023.

“Retail sales beat expectations yet again in December,” Nationwide Financial Markets economist Oren Klachkin wrote in a research note on Wednesday. “Consumers were willing to spend during the holidays and will remain inclined to do so as long as real income gains more than offset the drag from elevated interest rates and tight lending standards.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced changes to Occupational Safety and Health Administration civil penalty amounts based on cost-of-living adjustments for 2024.

In 2015, Congress passed the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act to advance the effectiveness of civil monetary penalties and to maintain their deterrent effect. Under the Act, agencies are required to publish “catch-up” rules that adjust the level of civil monetary penalties and make subsequent annual adjustments for inflation no later than January 15 of each year. This year, January 15 falls on a federal holiday. Therefore, new OSHA penalty amounts will become effective January 16, 2024.

OSHA’s maximum penalties for serious and other-than-serious violations will increase from $15,625 per violation to $16,131 per violation. The maximum penalty for willful or repeated violations will increase from $156,259 per violation to $161,323 per violation.