Last Thursday, the United States . Departments of Labor and Treasury today announced a new data-sharing partnership, the latest effort to support a multi-layered approach to fraud prevention by providing states with controls, tools and strategies to identify and combat unemployment insurance fraud.

The data-sharing partnership provides state unemployment agencies with access to Do Not Pay Working System data sources and services through the UI Integrity Data Hub. Maintained by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies’ UI Integrity Center, the hub is a centralized, multistate data-matching system used by state unemployment agencies to aid fraud prevention and improper payment reduction efforts.

Administered by the Office of Management and Budget and operated by Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s Office of Payment Integrity, the Do Not Pay Working System provides a no-cost service for federal agencies and federally funded state-administered programs to verify claim eligibility and prevent fraud and improper payments.

The department’s Employment and Training Administration oversees the nation’s unemployment insurance system through federal-state partnerships. Providing state agencies with access to additional payment integrity data sources is one of ETA’s key antifraud strategies.

“To mitigate fraud risks and reduce improper payments, state unemployment agencies need access to the best controls,” explained Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training José Javier Rodríguez. “This partnership will allow states to access critical Do Not Pay data sources, which means they will be able to use existing infrastructure like the UI Integrity Data Hub more effectively to ensure the accuracy of unemployment payments.”

UI agencies in all 53 states and territories participate in the UI Integrity Data Hub. The Department of Labor oversees the UI Integrity Center’s operations and activities, including the management and maintenance of the UI Integrity Data Hub, and recently invested American Rescue Plan funding to support the integration of this new data source.

A federal appeals court this week lifted a court order that would have temporarily blocked the final phase of a controversial transmission project.

In March, U.S. District Court Judge William Conley granted a request by conservation groups to temporarily block a proposed land swap. That order prevented the Cardinal Hickory Creek transmission project from crossing through a Mississippi River wildlife refuge.

The utilities behind the project appealed that decision in the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel on the Chicago appeals court said the injunction blocking the land swap was not justified.

The appeals court said Conley needed to show that the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Driftless Area Land Conservancy and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation were likely to succeed in their lawsuit challenging the project. The court said he failed to do so.

“Instead the district court expressed concern that private parties might begin to build a transmission line before the court could address the merits,” the appeals court wrote.

The Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line runs more than 100 miles from Dane County to Dubuque County in Iowa. The first half of the project came online in December 2023.

ITC Midwest and Dairyland Power Cooperative, the co-owners of the Cardinal Hickory Creek line, said in a statement they were pleased with the appeals court’s decision.

They said the district court has stalled the line’s completion by blocking the utilities from exchanging land with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They said the land exchange was needed to finish a 1.1 mile segment near the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.

“The key effect of the appeals court order is that the government and utilities are now free to complete the land exchange,” the utilities said in a statement.

The U.S. Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday and signaled it is still leaning towards eventual reductions in borrowing costs, but put a red flag on recent disappointing inflation readings that could make those rate cuts a while in coming.

Indeed, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that after starting 2024 with three months of faster-than-expected price increases, it “will take longer than previously expected” for policymakers to become comfortable that inflation will resume the decline towards 2% that had cheered them through much of last year.

That steady progress has stalled for now, and while Powell said rate increases remained unlikely, he set the stage for a potentially extended hold of the benchmark policy rate in the 5.25%-5.50% range that has been in place since July.

U.S. central bankers still believe the current policy rate is putting enough pressure on economic activity to bring inflation under control, Powell said, and they would be content to wait as long as needed for that to become apparent – even if inflation is simply “moving sideways” in the meantime.

The Fed’s preferred inflation measure – the personal consumption expenditures price index – increased at a 2.7% annual rate in March, an acceleration from the prior month.

“Inflation is still too high,” Powell said in a press conference after the end of the Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day policy meeting. “Further progress in bringing it down is not assured and the path forward is uncertain.”

Last week, a Dane County court overturned a 2022 decision by the Public Service Commission that would have allowed family in Stevens Point to use third-party financing to install solar on their home.

Under that agreement, the family would lease the system from North Wind Renewable Energy Cooperative. Similar lease agreements are common in other states, but utilities have opposed their use in Wisconsin, saying they are not allowed under existing state law.

The family in Stevens Point sold their home and did not move forward with the project, according to North Wind Founder Josh Stolzenburg.

Even so, the Wisconsin Utilities Association last year challenged the PSC’s decision in Dane County Circuit Court.

Last Friday, the court sided with the utility association, sending the issue back to the Public Service Commission. The court said the PSC incorrectly interpreted what constitutes a “public utility” in its decision because it focused on the singular project and not North Wind’s activities as a whole.

State law defines a “public utility” as any entity owns, operates, manages or controls equipment used for the “transmission, delivery or furnishing of heat, light, water or power either directly or indirectly, to or for the public.”

Utilities are largely opposed to third-party financing for solar installations, saying it violates state law by allowing installers to act as a utility without being regulated as one.

“We’re pleased with the decision of the court affirming our position that if you provide energy to the public, either directly or indirectly, you must be regulated as a public utility,” Bill Skewes, executive director for the Wisconsin Utilities Association, said in an email.

Employee compensation costs jumped more than expected to start the year, providing another danger sign about persistent inflation. The employment cost index, which measures worker salaries and benefits, gained 1.2% in the first quarter, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

On a year-over-year basis, compensation costs for civilian workers increased 4.2%, still above a level the Fed feels is consistent with its 2% inflation goal, though down from 4.8% a year ago. Wages and salaries rose 4.4% while benefits costs increased 3.7%.

State and local government workers saw their compensation costs rise 4.8%, down just narrowly from the same period in 2023. The bigger increase likely was attributable to the high level of that group belonging to unions, which saw compensation costs increase 5.3%, compared to just a 3.9% gain for nonunion workers.

The Fed watches the ECI as a significant measure of underlying inflation pressures.

The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting Tuesday. Markets have priced in virtually no chance that the FOMC will change the target for its overnight borrowing rate from the current range of 5.25%-5.5%.

The Universities of Wisconsin will vacate a former two-year college in Richland County this summer, despite months of discussions with local officials who once hoped to save the former two-year college. County leaders say they’re now facing a potential “economic crisis.”

Classes at the campus known by locals as UW-Richland ended in July 2023 after enrollment fell to around 60 students. Initially, UW administrators stopped short of saying the campus would close, holding several meetings with county leaders with a goal of redefining the former college.

One of the questions during those discussions was what to do about a 75-year memorandum of agreement that outlines the county’s role in maintaining the county-owned campus buildings and property in exchange for the UW branch campus “to provide an adequate instructional and administrative staff.” That lease is not set to expire until 2042.

Over the past year, some Richland County board members have argued the UW should have to reimburse the county for maintenance costs and lost economic opportunities caused by the closing. The loss estimates ranged from $1.5 million to tens of millions of dollars.

On Tuesday, county officials received a letter from Universities of Wisconsin Vice President for University Relations Jeff Buhrandt, notifying them that UW-Platteville, which oversees the Richland campus, “will completely vacate the Richland County Campus by July 1.”

“While we are disappointed that we were unable to find a path forward, we also know this change can provide significant new opportunities in Richland County,” Buhrandt said.

The letter also notified the county that recent legislation offering $2 million grants to counties where branch campuses are closed was the state’s final offer.

“This potential investment by the State of Wisconsin represents the full consideration of the costs expressed by Richland County,” Buhrandt wrote.

U.S. economic growth was much weaker than expected to start the year, and prices rose at a faster pace, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services produced in the January-through-March period, increased at a 1.6% annualized pace when adjusted for seasonality and inflation, according to the department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Consumer spending increased 2.5% in the period, down from a 3.3% gain in the fourth quarter. Fixed investment and government spending at the state and local level helped keep GDP positive on the quarter, while a decline in private inventory investment and an increase in imports subtracted. Net exports subtracted 0.86 percentage points from the growth rate while consumer spending contributed 1.68 percentage points.

Spending patterns also shifted in the quarter. Spending on goods declined 0.4%, in large part to a 1.2% slide in bigger-ticket purchases for long-lasting items classified as durable goods. Services spending increased 4%, its highest quarterly level since the third quarter of 2021.

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new rule that would make millions of white-collar workers newly eligible for overtime pay.

Starting July 1, the rule would increase the threshold at which executive, administrative and professional employees are exempt from overtime pay to $43,888 from the current $35,568. That change would make an additional 1 million workers eligible to receive time-and-a-half wages for each hour they put in beyond a 40-hour week.

On January 1, the threshold would rise further to $58,656, covering another 3 million workers.

While hourly workers are generally entitled to overtime pay, salaried workers are not if they earn above a certain pay level and supervise other workers, use professional expertise or judgment or hire and fire workers, among other duties.

The new standard could be legally challenged by industry groups that have argued that excessively raising the standard exceeds Labor’s authority and adds heavy regulatory and financial burdens or compliance costs.

Some companies could lift workers’ base pay to the new threshold to avoid paying overtime or convert salaried workers to hourly employees who need to punch a clock. Others could instruct salaried employees to work no more than 40 hours a week, bringing on part-time workers to pick up the slack. Still others may reduce employees’ base pay to offset the overtime, effectively sidestepping the new requirement.