Brian Dake

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.

The Republican leader of the state Senate is taking another stab at a tax cut, this time focusing on families who earn up to $200,000.

At the same time, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu cast doubt on whether the Legislature will pass a bill to legalize medical marijuana in Wisconsin, saying an Assembly GOP plan that would create state-run dispensaries won’t pass without changes.

The income tax cut is at least the fourth endorsed in the past year by LeMahieu, a Republican from Oostburg. The others have either failed to pass the Legislature or were vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

While LeMahieu said he was still working on the details of the plan, he told a Wispolitics forum in Madison Thursday that it would expand the income tax bracket that currently covers family income between about $18,000 and $37,000. Families in that bracket pay taxes at a rate of 4.4 percent, the state’s second lowest rate.

Under LeMahieu’s plan, that bracket would expand several fold to cover family income up to $200,000, meaning people who earn more could still pay the lower rate. LeMahieu said Senate Republicans decided on the new approach because Democrats, namely Evers, had criticized previous GOP tax cuts as being too focused on the upper class.

“So we’re working on a plan just to address that, and that’s something that we’re confident that the governor could sign,” LeMahieu said. “A family that makes $150,000 or $200,000 is not the upper class.”

A spokesperson for Evers did not promise the plan would be vetoed but also stopped short of endorsing it, pointing to recent comments by the governor endorsing a middle class tax cut.

“When we deliver tax relief, we should do so responsibly by ensuring we can keep taxes low now and into the future — much like the tax cuts I have been proud to sign into law — and without driving our state into debt,” read a statement from Evers provided by his office.

While state government is sitting on a multi-billion dollar surplus, LeMahieu said his plan would cost the state roughly $1 billion annually, costs that would carry on to future budgets.

Yesterday, Governor Tony Ever announced that Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) Chairperson Rebecca Cameron Valcq will be leaving the Evers Administration, effective February 2.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price of everyday goods including gasoline, groceries and rent, rose 0.3% in December from the previous month, more than expected. Prices climbed 3.4% from the same time last year.

Other parts of the report indicated that inflation is continuing to retreat, albeit slowly. Core prices, which exclude the more volatile measurements of food and energy, climbed 0.3%, or 3.9% annually.

Housing costs were the biggest driver of inflation last month. Rent costs rose 0.4% for the month and are up 6.2% from the same time last year.

Other price gains also proved persistent in December. Food prices rose 0.2% over the course of the month. Grocery costs rose 0.1% last month and are up 1.3% compared with the same time last year.

Energy costs, meanwhile, climbed 0.4% in December, including a 0.2% increase in gasoline prices and a 1.3% spike in electricity.

The Federal Reserve has signaled it is closely watching the report for evidence inflation is finally subsiding as policymakers try to cool the economy with a series of interest rate hikes. Officials approved 11 rate increases in a span of just 16 months, lifting the benchmark federal funds rate from nearly zero to the highest level since 2001.

The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a final rule to help employers and workers better understand when a worker qualifies as an employee and when they may be considered an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The guidance provided by the final rule aligns with longstanding judicial precedent on which employers have previously relied to determine a worker’s status as either an employee or independent contractor. The new rule will preserve essential worker rights and provide consistency for entities covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The new “independent contractor” rule restores the multifactor analysis used by courts for decades, ensuring that all relevant factors are analyzed to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The rule addresses six factors that guide the analysis of a worker’s relationship with an employer, including any opportunity for profit or loss a worker might have; the financial stake and nature of any resources a worker has invested in the work; the degree of permanence of the work relationship; the degree of control an employer has over the person’s work; whether the work the person does is essential to the employer’s business; and a factor regarding the worker’s skill and initiative.

The rule separately rescinds the 2021 Independent Contractor Rule that the department believes is not consistent with the law and longstanding judicial precedent.

In crafting the new rule, the department’s Wage and Hour Division considered feedback provided by stakeholders at forums in the summer of 2022 and during the comment period after the proposal’s announcement in October 2022. The final rule takes effect on March 11, 2024.

Wisconsin would launch a small-scale, state-run medical marijuana program under a GOP proposal that lawmakers say will not lead to recreational usage.

The announcement comes as Wisconsin has become something of an island in the upper Midwest, where several neighboring states have legalized cannabis for full recreational usage. Nationwide, 38 states and the District of Columbia have some type of medical marijuana law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Under the proposal, the state would operate five medical dispensaries across the state, according to Rep. Jon Plumer, R-Lodi, who co-authored the plan.

Users would be limited to those with certain diagnosed medical conditions, such as cancer, seizure conditions, multiple sclerosis and severe chronic pain and nausea. State-licensed pharmacists would dispense the products, which would include edibles and oils, but not smokable products. Those products would use marijuana grown and processed by independent entities who would receive state licenses.

It’s a far cry from what many Democrats, including Gov. Tony Evers, have called for. Evers has proposed full recreational legalization in his budgets, which Republicans have called a non-starter.

Last year, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, hinted at internal divides within the Republican caucus over concerns that medical marijuana would serve as a gateway to recreational usage. In a recent interview with WISN-TV, he said the Wisconsin proposal would “probably be the most restrictive” medical marijuana program in the United States.

Vos said the GOP-held legislature does not want to build a marijuana industry similar to those in Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, which have fully legalized cannabis, and where private dispensaries function more similarly to bars.

An Evers spokesperson told WPR that the Governor “will be reviewing” the proposal, and that he “looks forward to hearing from Wisconsinites and other stakeholders as the bill moves through the legislative process.” Evers said last week that, while he supports full legalization, he can “get behind” medical proposals if they are not overly restrictive or contain unrelated provisions.

Findings published by Bankrate on Monday indicate that nearly half of credit card holders – about 49% – are carrying credit card debt from month to month. That marks a sharp increase from just two years ago, when about 39% of Americans with credit cards carried debt from month to month.

More than half of Americans carrying credit card debt have done so for over a year.

Even more concerning is that of those holding credit card debt, 10% do not think they will ever be able to pay off their bills. Another 25% expect they will pay off their debt at some point – but that it will be at least five years in the future.

The Bankrate survey comes shortly after the New York Federal Reserve reported that total credit card debt surged to $1.08 trillion in the three-month period from July to September, an increase of $48 billion, or 4.6% from the previous quarter. It marks the highest level on record in Fed data dating back to 2003 and the eighth consecutive annual increase.

The rise in credit card usage and debt is particularly concerning because interest rates are astronomically high right now. The average credit card annual percentage rate, or APR, hit a new record of 20.72% last week, according to a Bankrate database that goes back to 1985. The previous record was 19% in July 1991.