News of the Day

Major technology companies and foreign governments are rushing to respond after President Donald Trump late Friday announced plans to impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas.

The fee would apply to new H-1B applicants, not renewals or current visa holders, according to a White House official. It will first apply in the upcoming lottery cycle, and it does not apply to 2025 lottery winners, the person said. The White House also clarified that the new $100,000 fee is not an annual charge, as previously reported by several media outlets.

Amazon employed the most H-1B holders — more than 14,000 as of the end of June. Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google had over 4,000 such visas each, among the top 10 recipients for the fiscal year 2025.

A health insurance provider will stop offering individual and family coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace in 11 Wisconsin counties next year, meaning about 24,000 people will have to find a new insurer.

Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative plans to stop offering marketplace plans in Milwaukee, Kenosha, Racine, Outagamie, Winnebago, Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, Calumet, Dodge, Waushara and Waupaca counties beginning in January.

A spokesperson for CareSource, the parent company of Common Ground, said in a statement that it had made “the difficult decision to exit 11 counties.” The spokesperson said about 24,000 affected members will continue to receive coverage through 2025 but will have to look for a new health plan when open enrollment begins November 1.

Common Ground will continue to offer coverage in 13 Wisconsin counties: Brown, Door, Green Lake, Jefferson, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Marinette, Oconto, Ozaukee, Shawano, Walworth, Washington and Waukesha.

Common Ground has been offering ACA marketplace coverage in eastern Wisconsin since 2014. On its website, Common Ground said the decision to discontinue coverage in parts of the state was not related to its recent merger with CareSource.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved a widely anticipated rate cut and signaled that two more are on the way before the end of the year as concerns intensified over the U.S. labor market even as inflation is still in the air.

In an 11-to-1 vote signaling less dissent than Wall Street had anticipated, the Federal Open Market Committee lowered its benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter percentage point. The decision puts the overnight funds rate in a range between 4.00%-4.25%.

Newly installed Governor Stephen Miran was the only policymaker voting against the quarter-point move, instead advocating for a half-point cut.

In the post-meeting statement, the committee again characterized economic activity as having “moderated” but added language saying that “job gains have slowed” and noted that inflation “has moved up and remains somewhat elevated.” Lower job growth and higher inflation are in conflict with the Fed’s twin goals of stable prices and full employment.

“Uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated” the Fed statement said. “The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate and judges that downside risks to employment have risen.”

Yesterday, Governor Tony Evers encouraged Wisconsinites and local businesses affected by severe weather last month to apply for federal disaster loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). Federal disaster loans from the SBA will be available for Wisconsinites and businesses impacted by devastating storms that occurred August 9 through August 12.

Please note that the disaster loan offerings through the SBA are complementary to and separate from Individual Assistance programs offered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Businesses and residents in Milwaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties may be eligible for physical damage and economic injury assistance through SBA, while businesses in Dodge, Fond du Lac, Jefferson, Ozaukee, Racine, Sheboygan, and Walworth counties may be eligible for economic injury assistance.

Eligible applicants may apply for the following SBA disaster loans:

• Home Disaster Loans – For homeowners and renters to repair or replace damaged real estate and personal property. As noted earlier, this is a complementary and separate program from FEMA’s Individual Assistance program;
• Business Physical Disaster Loans – For businesses and private nonprofit organizations to repair or replace disaster-damaged property, including buildings, equipment, and inventory; and
• Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) – Working capital loans for small businesses and nonprofits unable to meet financial obligations due to the disaster.

The deadlines for applications are November  10, 2025, for Home Disaster and Business Physical Disaster Loans and June 11, 2026, for Economic Injury Disaster Loans. Applications for the loans can be submitted online via the MySBA Loan Portal at https://lending.sba.gov. For assistance, contact the SBA Customer Service Center:

• Phone: 1-800-659-2955
• Email: disastercustomerservice@sba.gov
• TTY: Dial 7-1-1 for relay services

Loan applicants may also be eligible for additional funds to cover mitigation improvements that protect property against future damage. SBA also offers refinancing options for qualified applicants and support for voluntary or involuntary relocation.

Setting the stage for a major ruling on presidential power, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide whether a 1977 federal law giving the president certain emergency powers allowed President Donald Trump to levy tariffs on nearly all goods imported into the United States through a series of executive orders.

In a brief order issued by the court’s Public Information Office on Tuesday afternoon, the court announced that it had granted review in two cases: Learning Resources v. Trump, in which two small businesses had asked the justices to weigh in on Trump’s power to impose the tariffs without waiting for a federal appeals court to rule on the Trump administration’s appeal; and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, in which the Trump administration had asked the court to review a ruling by a different federal appeals court striking down the tariffs. The court will fast-track the two cases, which will be argued together, and hold oral arguments in early November.

In a series of executive orders, Trump imposed tariffs that fall into two categories, which collectively cover a wide range of products from U.S. trading partners. The first category, known as the “trafficking tariffs,” apply to goods from Canada, China, and Mexico, which in Trump’s view have not done enough to halt the flow of fentanyl into the United States. The second category, known as the “reciprocal tariffs,” impose a minimum tariff of 10% (which can escalate up to 50%) on products from virtually all countries.

The law at the center of the case is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law that allows the president to take action to “deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States” if he declares a national emergency “with respect to such threat.” When he imposed the tariffs, Trump relied on IEEPA, and in particular on a provision of the law that authorizes the president, in times of national emergencies, to “regulate . . . importation” of “property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest.”

The Supreme Court instructed the Trump administration to file its opening brief on September 19, with the challengers’ briefs to follow on October 20. “The cases will be set for argument in the first week of the November 2025 argument session,” which begins on November 3.

Wholesale prices surprisingly fell slightly in August, providing breathing room for the Federal Reserve to approve an interest rate cut at its meeting this month, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Wednesday.

The producer price index, which measures input costs across a broad array of goods and services, dropped 0.1% for the month, after a downwardly revised 0.7% increase in July. On a 12-month basis, the headline PPI saw a 2.6% gain.

The core PPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also was off 0.1%. Excluding food, energy and trade, the PPI posted a 0.3% gain and was up 2.8% from a year ago.

Services prices, a key metric for the Fed when evaluating the stance of monetary policy, posted a 0.2% drop, helping drive wholesale inflation lower. A 1.7% slide in prices for trade services was the primary impetus, with margins for machinery and vehicle wholesaling tumbling 3.9%.

Goods prices did increase, but just 0.1% as core prices rose 0.3%. While final demand food costs were up 0.1%, energy was off 0.4%.

Last Thursday, the Trump Administration today announced its Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, including nearly 150 proposals under the U.S. Department of Labor’s jurisdiction.

The department advanced a set of high-priority actions designed to reduce unnecessary burdens on employers and employees, with proposals addressing issues surrounding pharmacy benefit managers, independent contractors, joint employers, and others, including:

• Improving Transparency into Pharmacy Benefit Manager Fee Disclosure: Pursuant to President Trump’s April 15 Executive Order, “Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First,” the department will look at ways to improve transparency around the direct and indirect compensation PBMs receive from employer-sponsored health plans.
• Transparency in Coverage: The department will examine ways it can improve market transparency in pricing and cost-sharing information for consumers.
• Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Retirement Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights: The department will consider the extent to which fiduciaries may prioritize environmental, social, and governance factors in investment decisions.
• Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings: The department is continuing to examine how to establish standards specifically related to heat-related injury and illness prevention.
• Joint Employer Status under the Fair Labor Standards Act: The department will look at the circumstances under which a business can be held liable as a joint employer.
• Employee or Independent Contractor Classification under the FLSA: The department will examine the circumstances under which a worker should be classified as an employee or independent contractor for the purpose of federal wage and hour requirements.
• Defining and Delimiting Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales, and Computer Employees: The department will determine whether certain salaried employees are exempt from FLSA minimum wage and overtime requirements.
• Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for the Temporary Employment of H-2A Nonimmigrants in Non-Range Occupations in the U.S.: The department will consider updates to the methodology used to calculate the prevailing wage for H-2A workers.
• H-2A Temporary Agricultural Employment of Foreign Workers in Nonimmigrant Status: The department proposes to rescind certain burdensome requirements adopted under the Biden administration, many of which are currently enjoined as unlawful, for growers using the H-2A program for agricultural labor.

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.