Brian Dake

Today the Federal Trade Commission launched a public inquiry to better understand the scope, prevalence, and effects of employer noncompete agreements, as well as to gather information to inform possible future enforcement actions.

A noncompete agreement is a contractual term between an employer and a worker that typically blocks the worker from working for a competing employer or starting a competing business after the end of the worker’s employment. While noncompete agreements can serve valid purposes in some circumstances, available evidence indicates that they are often subject to abuse.

Members of the public including current and former employees restricted by noncompete agreements, and employers facing hiring difficulties due to a rival’s noncompete agreements, are encouraged to share information about the use of noncompete agreements.

The public will have 60 days to submit comments at Regulations.gov, no later than November 3, 2025. Once submitted, comments will be posted to Regulations.gov. Individuals wishing to submit confidential, non-public comments should reference the alternative submission guidelines in the RFI.

A federal judge has ordered Wisconsin to give back pay to disabled workers who were denied unemployment over the past decade.

The case also found that a “blanket denial” of unemployment payments to Wisconsinite receiving Social Security disability payments violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The August order from federal Western District Court Judge William Conley requires the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to create a process for potentially thousands of residents who were denied unemployment between September 7, 2015 and July 30, 2025.

The exclusion in the state’s unemployment law dates back to laws passed in 2013 and 2015 that were signed by former Gov. Scott Walker. The 2013 law dictated that residents can’t simultaneously collect both Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, known as SSDI, and Unemployment Insurance benefits, or UI. The 2015 law added slight modifications, specifying that disabled individuals couldn’t get unemployment benefits in any week in which they also received Social Security payments.

In a statement, DWD Communications Director Haley McCoy said the agency has begun processing new unemployment claims from people who are receiving disability payments through Social Security since July of this year, when Judge Conley issued an injunction.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley will not seek reelection next spring, saying the best path in her “fight for liberty is not as a minority member of the Court.”

In a statement sent to WisPolitics, Bradley said she is seeking to “rebuild the conservative movement.”

“For years I have warned that under the control of judicial activists, the court will make itself more powerful than the legislature, more powerful than the governor,” she said. “That warning went unheeded, and Wisconsin has seen only the beginning of what is an alarming shift from thoughtful, principled judicial service toward bitter partisanship, personal attacks, and political gamesmanship that have no place in court.”

“The conservative movement needs to take stock of its failures, identify the problem, and fix it,” she added.

The decision leaves Court of Appeals Judge Chris Taylor of Madison, who is a former Democratic member of the state Assembly, without a declared opponent for the April election.

Bradley’s announcement leaves no clear contender to replace her, although conservatives have a strong bench of jurists, including Waukesha-based Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, whose name has been floated in past elections.

In a statement posted to social media on Friday, Lazar said she is “seriously considering a run,” and will make her decision in the coming weeks.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump improperly used a law to impose his sweeping retaliatory tariffs on countries around the world.

However, while an en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the basis of the Court of International Trade’s ruling against the tariffs, the judges rejected a portion of the CIT decision that would have immediately stopped the duties, giving the Trump administration an opportunity to appeal the 7-4 decision to the Supreme Court.

At issue is Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose his global tariffs.

“The Executive’s use of tariffs qualifies as a decision of vast economic and political significance, so the Government must ‘point to clear congressional authorization’ for its interpretation of IEEPA. … [W]e discern no clear congressional authorization by IEEPA for tariffs of the magnitude of the Reciprocal Tariffs and Trafficking Tariffs,” the appeals court said.

The court noted that there are “numerous statutes that do delegate to the President the power to impose tariffs; in each of these statutes that we have identified, Congress has used clear and precise terms to delegate tariff power, reciting the term ‘duties’ or one of its synonyms. In contrast, none of these statutes uses the broad term ‘regulate’ without also separately and explicitly granting the President the authority to impose tariffs.

“The absence of any such tariff language in IEEPA contrasts with statutes where Congress has affirmatively granted such power and included clear limits on that power.”

The ruling also rejected the administration’s argument that the power to “regulate” gave it the power to impose tariffs. “The power to ‘regulate’ has long been understood to be distinct from the power to ‘tax.’ In fact, the Constitution vests these authorities in Congress separately.”

The plaintiffs are a group of small businesses and states and the states of Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.

The personal consumption expenditures price index showed that core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, ran at a 2.9% seasonally adjusted annual rate, according to a Commerce Department report Friday. That was up 0.1 percentage point from the June level and the highest annual rate since February.

On a monthly basis, the core PCE index increased 0.3%, also in line with expectations. The all-items index showed the annual rate at 2.6% and the monthly gain at 0.2%.

Inflation numbers were held in check by a 2.7% annual decline in prices for energy goods and services. Food prices rose 1.9% from a year ago. The balance also tilted heavily toward services prices, which jumped 3.6%, compared with just a 0.5% increase in goods.

On a monthly basis, energy was off 1.1% and food was down 0.1%. Services prices rose 0.3%, essentially accounting for all the monthly increase as goods decreased 0.1%.

Five years after the COVID-19 national emergency was declared, gasoline demand, distillate demand, and jet fuel demand all remain less than pre-pandemic averages.

In April 2020 (the first full month following the March 13 declaration of the COVID-19 national emergency), U.S. gasoline demand fell to 5.9 million b/d, the lowest since January 1974. In April 2025, U.S. gasoline demand averaged 8.9 million barrels per day (b/d), 52% higher than it was in April 2020 but below the April 2019 average of 9.4 million b/d.

Gasoline demand gradually increased in the months following the emergency declaration. On an annual basis, between 2016 and 2019, U.S. gasoline demand averaged 9.3 million b/d. In 2020, it fell to 8.0 million b/d before averaging 8.9 million b/d in 2023 and 2024.

Increased vehicle efficiency has offset increased driving activity, measured as vehicle miles traveled (VMT). U.S. VMT reached an all-time high in 2024, at 9.0 billion miles per day, which was higher than the 2016–19 average of 8.8 billion VMT/d. However, increased fuel efficiency and electrification of the vehicle fleet has resulted in less gasoline consumption despite increased driving activity.

In May 2025, petroleum distillate fuel oil demand was 3.8 million b/d, 10% (0.3 million b/d) more than in May 2020, when demand for distillate fell to its lowest point following the COVID-19 declaration. Because distillate fuel oil is largely used in shipping goods and other economic activity, distillate consumption was less affected by COVID-19 mitigation efforts than gasoline and jet fuel, which are more closely tied to commuting and personal travel.

In 2024, petroleum distillate demand averaged 3.8 million b/d, less than the 4.1 million b/d consumed in 2019. The primary cause for this decline was substitution of petroleum diesel with biofuels, namely renewable diesel, which has gained a larger market share of the diesel pool due to clean-fuel programs that provide incentives for biofuels. In 2019, only 110,000 b/d of renewable diesel and biodiesel were consumed as product, whereas in 2024, 310,000 b/d were consumed. Including biodiesel and renewable diesel, total distillate demand in 2024 was closest to pre-pandemic levels, at only 1% below 2019 distillate demand.

The U.S. government’s budget deficits are now projected to worsen throughout the next decade when compared with earlier forecasts this year, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).

CRFB published an updated budget baseline as of August 2025 that incorporates the enactment of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) along with the Trump administration’s new framework for tariffs to account for legislative and administrative changes, though it doesn’t include economic changes.

Under the updated baseline, CRFB projects that the national debt held by the public will rise from about 100% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 to 120% of GDP by 2035. In dollar terms, that would see the debt held by the public rise from $30 trillion today to $53 trillion in 2035.

In that timeframe, annual budget deficits are expected to rise from $1.7 trillion in 2025, or 5.6% of GDP; to $2.6 trillion, or 5.9% of GDP, in 2035. Overall, deficits are expected to total $22.7 trillion over the decade, averaging 6.1% of GDP in that period.

Higher interest costs on the national debt account for a significant portion of the increase, as net interest payments are expected to rise from $1 trillion in 2025 to $1.8 trillion in 2035, rising from 3.2% of GDP to about 4.1% of GDP.

Over the next decade, federal spending is projected to total $88 trillion, or 23.6% of GDP, while tax revenue will be over $65 trillion, or 17.5% of GDP.

Statewide home sales in July dipped 0.3% over the year as home prices and total listings increased over the same period, the Wisconsin Realtors Association reports.

The group’s July report shows 6,820 homes were sold in Wisconsin last month, down slightly from 6,843 in July 2024. At the same time, year-to-date home sales are 0.5% higher than during the same period of 2024, WRA says.

While sales last month were “relatively flat,” total listings were on the rise. The number of listings in the state increased 7.3% over the year, from 21,452 in July 2024 to 23,109 last month.

“All of our measures of inventory improved in July, which continues a general trend we’ve seen since April,” WRA Board of Directors Chair Chris DeVincentis said in the report. “Addressing the inventory shortage is key to improving sales and moderating the rapid appreciation of prices.”

That higher inventory level led to better sales growth in rural parts of the state, the report shows, as inventory growth in the state’s northern region rose 13% to 6.1 months of supply while closed sales also increased 12% over last year.

Wisconsin’s median home price rose 4.5% over the year from $322,500 to $337,125 last month.

Wisconsin state lawmakers are debating a proposal to eliminate taxes on income earned through tips.

At a hearing of the Assembly’s Ways and Means committee on Thursday, lawmakers took public testimony about the GOP bill, which would offer a state tax deduction for both cash and credit card tips up to $25,000 per year, phased out for higher-earning households.

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s estimate about the cost of the bill looked at an earlier version that did not include the $25,000 cap and only applied to cash tips. That estimate said exempting all tips from income tax would reduce state revenue by $33.7 million per year. It is unclear what the cost would be when the cap is applied.

According to the Department of Revenue, tips made up about 0.51 percent of all reported income in Wisconsin in 2021. That number has likely increased since restaurants returned to full strength following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The White House unveiled details for its trade deal with the European Union (EU) on Thursday.

The Trump administration said its EU counterparts have agreed to eliminate all tariffs on industrial goods imported from the U.S. and to widen preferential market access to U.S. seafood and agricultural products.

In exchange, most EU exports — notably pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber — will be taxed at 15 percent. The group of 27 member nations also agreed to ensure its companies invest $600 billion in the U.S. and to purchase at least $750 billion worth of U.S. energy over the next three years, according to the White House.

Under the agreement detailed Thursday, the EU has agreed to purchase at least $40 billion worth of U.S. artificial intelligence chips for its computing centers. It also allows for the 15 percent tariff on pharmaceuticals from European nations to be capped and not combined with other tariffs.

After the EU follows through on lowering tariffs on American goods, U.S. tariffs on cars and car parts will be lowered to 15 percent. Additional products expected to be subject to the 15 percent rate starting Sept. 1 include aircraft and aircraft parts, as well as chemical precursors.