Residential and commercial development in the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake City is pictured in July 2024. A new study found Utah median household incomes increased at a higher rate than any other state over the past 50 years. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

Household incomes have grown in nearly every state over the past 50 years, but a new study concludes that growth has been uneven across the country.

An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, released Tuesday from the Urban Institute’s Center for Local Finance and Growth, found inflation-adjusted incomes in Western, mid-Atlantic and New England states have grown the most since 1970, while incomes in Midwestern states have grown the least.

Between 1970 and 2023, Utah household incomes increased at a higher rate than any other state: The median income went up 78%, an increase of $40,820 in inflation-adjusted dollars to $93,421. Utah was followed by Colorado, New Hampshire, California, Arizona and Virginia, all of which saw more than 60% growth in median household incomes adjusted for inflation.

Nationally, median household incomes grew by an average of 32%.

The study found only one state saw inflation-adjusted incomes drop over the past five decades: West Virginia’s median household income fell by 0.4%, from $56,161 to $55,948 in inflation-adjusted dollars.

West Virginia had the second-lowest household income in the study, ranking ahead of only Mississippi’s $54,203. Massachusetts ranked the highest, with a median household income of $99,858.

The Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found that rates of state sales and income taxes had no association with changes in median household income. The analysis also found states with colder temperatures and higher property taxes saw greater median income growth, despite popular notions that lower property taxes and warm temperatures can lead to more prosperity.

The factors most strongly associated with household income growth were educational attainment and increases in the percentage of immigrants in the state population, the study concluded.

“This could be because immigration leads to economic growth, immigrants seek out growing areas, or both,” the study said.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

On July 4th, in the towns and counties of rural western Wisconsin, there were celebrations like on any other Independence Day: grilling bratwurst, drinking Leinenkugel’s, fireworks showering high in the summer night. 

That very same day, a thousand miles away in Washington, DC, HR1— also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) — was signed into law. Yet for people here, the passage of the bill was a mere blip in the national headlines. It was not apparent that it would become an economic earthquake, triggering a tsunami of devastating after-effects soon to crash down on our rural communities.

The massive tax cut and spending bill is the most dramatic restructuring of federal budget priorities in six decades. The president called the OBBBA his “greatest victory” and the “most popular bill ever signed.” The White House issued only a scant 237-word press release summarizing the 900-page law; the substance of the law itself was barely mentioned. When it was enacted, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they knew “little or nothing” about what was in the bill.

When asked about his support of the bill, my own representative from Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, Derrick Van Orden, dismissed any suggestion that the White House had influenced his vote. “The president of the United States didn’t give us an assignment. We’re not a bunch of little bitches around here, OK? I’m a member of Congress, I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsinites.” 

The OBBBA permanently extends the 2017 tax cuts and locks in a historic upward transfer of wealth. The top 1% of households receive an average tax cut of $66,000. Working families earning $53,000 or less get a tax cut of just $325. Roughly $1 trillion dollars will flow to the richest households over the next decade, while Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and health coverage are drastically scaled back, pushing 15 million people off insurance. 

‘I want to be part of a strategy, something that’s actually effective’

Last August, 70 of us gathered on a Saturday in Woodville, Wisconsin, population 1,400, with the understanding that something consequential was happening in our nation, yet struggling to figure out how we can respond. We filled a community center on Main Street for six hours: teachers, farmers, retirees, retail workers, students, small business owners. People brought notebooks and coffee. The windows were open. Ceiling fans spun slowly overhead. 

“I’m tired of complaining, feeling like a victim, worried about what’s going to happen next,” one of our members put it plainly. “I want to be part of a strategy, something that’s actually effective.”

I organize with Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW). Our work has always started from a simple question: How does power move in the places we live? Since the organization began, our focus has been on local issues like housing, agriculture and rural broadband. But, at that meeting in Woodville, we were trying to name what was happening: how the political chaos in our federal government was flowing down to our families, counties, schools, cities, hospitals, town boards. And, most importantly, what we could actually do about it. 

That day in Woodville we made a plan. It did not involve protest or messaging. Our organizing has never been about reacting the fastest or shouting the loudest. Power is built methodically: identifying who makes decisions, who feels the consequences, and where solidarity can be established and strengthened before a harm is normalized and written off as inevitable. That is why we started with listening.

During the following three months we sat down face to face with nearly 100 local leaders across four counties. We met in offices, conference rooms and coffee shops. We spoke with school superintendents, sheriffs, county administrators, hospital executives, clergy, elected officials, business owners. We asked the same questions over and over: what were people experiencing in their jobs, what pressures were they under, what was keeping them up at night?

Many people we spoke with were overwhelmed by the effort required to stay focused on their jobs: the to-do lists, budgets, hiring, planning. One program director told us her job was mostly “putting out fires.” When we asked how they were reacting to federal policy changes, most people didn’t have much to say. Unless it was affecting them today, they didn’t have the luxury to worry about it. 

Each conversation made clear how county governments in rural Wisconsin are lifelines, not faceless bureaucracies. They plow snow, run elections, maintain roads, administer BadgerCare and SNAP, respond to mental health crises, operate nursing homes, and answer 911 calls. And they are already stretched thin.

Funding was the issue mentioned the most. A county administrator walked us through the elaborate gymnastics required to balance a county budget under state-imposed levy limits that make raising revenue nearly impossible: wheel taxes, bond sales, consolidating services. One-time fixes layered on top of structural gaps. Again, it came back to resources. Not culture wars, not ideology. Money.

Delaying the pain

What surprised us most was what we did not hear. Despite anxiety about shrinking budgets, very few people mentioned the One Big Beautiful Bill. It had not yet made a mark on their daily work. That is not accidental. The new law is designed to delay the pain, disperse responsibility, and conceal the damage out of public view until it feels inevitable.

We decided to look into the law’s ramifications. We did our own research, and what we learned is that rural and small-town communities in western Wisconsin are in for a slow-motion fiscal disaster, and that regular people will be the ones who pay the price. 

Starting in 2027, the federal government is scheduled to cut its share of SNAP administrative costs in half. In counties like Dunn, that shift could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in new local costs. A smaller administrative budget means fewer staff, which means slower processing, higher error rates, and federal penalties that reduce funding even further. The OBBBA seems designed to trigger countless downward spirals that degrade programs until they can be declared broken.

The repercussions for Medicaid follow the same pattern. At Golden Age Manor, the beloved county-run nursing home in Amery, where most of the services are Medicaid funded, even modest reimbursement cuts will translate into tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars lost each year. At the same time, more uninsured residents will still need care.

Across our counties, more than 10,000 people rely on ACA Marketplace coverage for their health insurance. Since federal tax credits expired at the end of 2025, families face premium increases averaging around $1,600 a year. Some will pay far more. Many will drop coverage altogether. When they do, costs will shift to county-funded behavioral health systems and other services already operating at the limits of their resources.

One sheriff described what that will look like in practice: “When someone is in a mental health crisis, our deputies already spend hours driving them across the state because there are no beds here,” he said. “If people lose coverage, those crises do not go away. They show up as 911 calls.”

We must act before the tsunami arrives

A tsunami is set in motion by a distant earthquake that no one feels. Life happens on shore while energy gathers fiercely far out at sea. Only a seismograph sounds the alarm. Once the wave arrives, entire cities are engulfed, communities washed out to sea. Trump’s massive tax cut and spending law was that earthquake. We have decided to act before the wave arrives.

Local governments will be forced to navigate what policy expert Eric Schnurer described as “fiscal and operational crises,” but few people will be able to connect what happens to a bill passed last year. “Most Americans don’t realize how dramatically state and local governments — which most directly affect their daily lives — are about to change.”

County budget hearings were held in November. They often happen with no public comment, gaveled in and gaveled out in a matter of minutes. Last year we showed up and filled the rooms. We brought letters we had drafted, breaking down projected budget impacts county by county. We delivered testimony from the podium. Our goal was not to blame our county leaders, but to signal our alignment with them. 

After one hearing, a county administrator, a self-identified fiscal conservative, met with us and said, “Every point you raised in your letter was correct. Our county government has to brace for what’s coming, and you made that clear to everyone in the room.”

The people who will be hit hardest

We know our county boards are not responsible for causing this disaster, yet they will be forced to deal with it, while we, the residents, will be the ones who feel the cuts most deeply. Our members of Congress who voted “yes” for this bill are the ones responsible for this mess. 

Letters and testimony are not enough. What we need is power. For regular people like us, there is but one path to power: organizing. That means we have to talk to those who will be most affected, inviting them to see their personal stake in this fight. The single parent in River Falls, juggling two part-time jobs and relying on SNAP to keep food on the table. The kid with asthma in Boyceville, whose parents rely on ACA coverage, now at risk of losing access to care. The retired farmer outside Balsam Lake, whose wife’s long-term care at Golden Age Manor nursing home is covered through Medicaid. 

Our long game is to begin the conversation about what it will take for Congress to repeal the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The path to repeal will be fraught with political roadblocks and fiercely opposed by the corporate class, which has been true for every consequential victory working people have ever won in this country. Repealing the law must become a defining issue in every political conversation in America – at dinner tables, at bus stops, and on Reddit threads – starting now and continuing until the law is gone. 

Cracks are already beginning to form. Earlier this month, Rep. Van Orden, along with 17 other Republicans in the House of Representatives, backpedaled on his support of the OBBBA by voting to extend ACA tax credits (more than 30,000 people are expected to lose health insurance in Van Orden’s district). However, the opposition stiffens. Shortly after the vote, in a disciplinary move, Americans For Prosperity announced it was pausing support for those who defected.

Cutting services, expanding the machinery of repression

As I write, immigration agents are spilling into western Wisconsin from Minneapolis, swarming small towns and rural communities across the region. They are driving unmarked vehicles with out-of-state plates. Some members of our organization have built rapid response networks in solidarity with immigrant-led groups. Meanwhile, our neighbors are being terrorized, taken from their homes, and families are being ripped apart. Some local Mexican restaurants and grocery stores have closed their doors. Just sixty miles west, in Minneapolis, two American citizens have been killed by ICE agents. 

This is not a coincidence. While showering billionaires with tax benefits, the OBBBA also massively expands the machinery of repression. It quadrupled the budget of ICE, expanding its force by 10,000 agents and thereby transforming the agency into one larger than most national militaries. On one hand, the administration subjects us to the cruel spectacle of paramilitary raids, disappearances and death. On the other, the administration dismantles the social safety nets that keep people alive, then redistributes public resources to the wealthiest few. A loud disruptive culture war creates a smokescreen for a quiet methodical class war. 

The fight for Congress to repeal the OBBBA will be a David versus Goliath fight. It is a fight about whether the super-rich will be able to bleed us dry and starve our local institutions. Whether our neighbors will die as wealth is extracted from above. Whether daily life for a majority of Americans will be defined by relentless top-down class war. 

This fight will not be won by politicians, consultants, or pollsters. It will be won by regular people who have decided to build a movement town by town, county by county, state by state. The ramifications of the OBBBA are so wide and deep that a new political coalition will be necessary, one big enough to include anyone who isn’t a billionaire. Republicans, Democrats, independents, libertarians, socialists, and people who’ve lost faith in politics altogether. White people, brown people, Black people, young people, old people. The poor, the working class, the middle class. 

An unwavering commitment to big tent politics and multiracial solidarity is how we defeat the divide-and-conquer tactics this administration relies upon. Building trust and power across differences. Not reinforcing divides through purity tests or theoretical debate. Listening for common ground and shared humanity. Seeing every person as a potential ally, not an enemy to defeat. We must organize, strategize and mobilize until regular Americans have won the freedom to make ends meet, live with dignity, and have a voice in the decisions that affect us.

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CoCounsel Legal is an artificial intelligence tool that acts as a virtual assistant for legal professionals. More people in the legal field are using AI to automate repetitive tasks and save time, but hallucinations have led to fake cases and false information in legal documents. (Photo by Madyson Fitzgerald/Stateline)

Last spring, Illinois county judge Jeffrey Goffinet noticed something startling: A legal brief filed in his courtroom cited a case that did not exist.

Goffinet, an associate judge in Williamson County, looked through two legal research systems and then headed to the courthouse library — a place he hadn’t visited in years — to consult the book that purportedly listed the case. The case wasn’t in it.

The fake case, generated by artificial intelligence, came across Goffinet’s desk just a few months after the Illinois Supreme Court’s policy on the use of AI in the courts took effect. Goffinet co-chaired a task force that informed that policy, which allows the use of AI as long as it complies with existing legal and ethical standards.

“People are going to use [AI], and the courts are not going to be able to be a dam across a river that’s already flowing at flood capacity,” Goffinet said. “We have to learn how to coexist with it.”

As more false quotes, fake court cases and incorrect information appear in legal documents generated by AI, state bar associations, state court systems and national law organizations are issuing guidance on its use in the legal field. A handful of states are considering or enacting legislation to address the issue, and many courts and professional associations are focused on education for attorneys.

Federal judge mulls sanctions for attorneys who used AI in court filing

From divorce cases to discrimination lawsuits, AI-generated fake content can cause evidence to be dismissed and motions to be denied.

While some states urge attorneys to lean on existing guidance about accuracy and transparency, the new policies address AI concerns related to confidentiality, competency and costs. Most policies and opinions encourage attorneys to educate themselves and to use proprietary AI tools that prevent sensitive data from being entered into open source systems. Since AI tools could also increase efficiency, several policies advise attorneys to charge less if they spend less time on cases.

Some states, such as Ohio, also ban the use of artificial intelligence for certain legal tasks. In Ohio, courts are prohibited from using AI to translate legal forms, court orders and similar content that may affect the outcome of a case.

Several states have also advised legal professionals to adhere to the American Bar Association’s formal opinion of ethical AI use in law.

Artificial intelligence can help attorneys and law firms by automating administrative tasks, analyzing contracts and organizing documents. Generative AI can also be used to draft legal documents, including court briefs. Experts say the use of AI productivity tools can save legal professionals time and reduce the risk of human error in everyday tasks.

But law professionals nationwide have faced fines and license suspensions, among other consequences, for submitting legal documents citing false quotes, cases or information.

Many legal professionals are likely to not notice instances in which an AI system is “hallucinating,” or confidently making statements that are not true, said Rabihah Butler, the manager for enterprise content for Risk, Fraud and Government at the Thomson Reuters Institute. The institute is a research subsidiary of the Thomson Reuters company, which sells an AI system meant to help lawyers.

Courts and law organizations will need to consider education, sanctions and punitive actions to ensure law professionals are using AI appropriately, Butler said.

“AI has such confidence, and it can appear so polished, that if you’re not paying attention and doing your due diligence, the hallucination is being treated as a factual piece of information,” she said.

Since the beginning of 2025, there have been 518 documented cases in which generative AI produced hallucinated content used in U.S. courts, according to a database by Damien Charlotin, a senior research fellow at the HEC Paris business school.

“So far, if we’re looking at the institutional response, there’s not a lot because people are not very sure how to handle this kind of issue,” Charlotin said. “Everyone is aware that some lawyers are using artificial intelligence in their day-to-day work. Most people are aware that the technology is not very mature. But it’s still hard to prevent a mistake.”

State guidance

As of Jan. 23, state bar associations or similar entities have issued formal guidance on the use of AI in at least 10 states and the District of Columbia, typically in the form of an ethics opinion. Those aren’t enforceable as law, but spell out proper conduct.

In February, for example, the Professional Ethics Committee for the State Bar of Texas issued an ethics opinion that outlines issues that may arise from law professionals using AI. Texas lawyers should have a basic understanding of generative AI tools and guardrails to protect client confidentiality, it said. They should also verify any content generated by AI and refrain from charging clients for the time saved by using AI tools.

Legal professionals must be aware of their own competency with AI tools, said Brad Johnson, the executive director of the Texas Center for Legal Ethics.

“A really important takeaway from the opinion is that if a lawyer is considering using a generative AI tool in the practice of law, the lawyer has to have a reasonable and current understanding of the technology because only then can a lawyer really evaluate the risks that are associated with it,” he said.

Court systems in at least 11 states — Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia — have established policies or issued rules of conduct regarding AI use by law professionals.

Illinois, for instance, allows lawyers to use artificial intelligence and does not require disclosure. The policy also emphasizes that judges will ultimately be responsible for their decisions, regardless of “technological advancements.”

“The task force wanted to emphasize that as judges, what we bring to the table is our humanity,” said Goffinet, the associate judge. “And we cannot abdicate our humanity in favor of an AI-generated decision or opinion.”

Former lawyer seeks reinstatement after sanctions, arrest and contempt findings

Some state lawmakers have tried to address the issue through legislation. Last year, Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a measure that requires attorneys to use “reasonable diligence” to verify the authenticity of evidence, including content generated by artificial intelligence. The law also allows parties in civil cases to raise concerns about the admissibility of evidence if they suspect it was generated or altered by artificial intelligence.

California Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg also introduced legislation last year that would require attorneys to ensure confidential information is not entered into a public generative AI system. The measure, which was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, also would require attorneys to ensure that reasonable steps are taken to verify the accuracy of generative AI material.

Attorney education

It’s also important for state bar associations and law schools to provide education on artificial intelligence, said Michael Hensley, a counsel at FBT Gibbons and an advocate for the safe use of AI in California courts. AI has the ability to reduce research time just like online legal research systems, but it requires training, he said.

“I would hope the state bar would have training for this,” Hensley said. “And I think it’s absolutely imperative that law schools have a session on AI.”

In a Bloomberg Law survey conducted last spring, 51% of the more than 750 respondents said their law firms purchased or invested in generative artificial intelligence tools. Another 21% said they planned to purchase AI tools within the next year. Attorneys reported using generative AI for general legal research, drafting communications, summarizing legal narratives, reviewing legal documents and other work.

Of the law firms that were not using generative AI, attorneys cited incorrect or unreliable output, ethical issues, security risks and data privacy as the top reasons.

While attorneys and law firms have become more comfortable with AI tools, courts have been more apprehensive, said Diane Robinson, a principal court research associate at the National Center for State Courts. Robinson is also project director at the Thomson Reuters Institute/NCSC AI Policy Consortium for Law and Courts, an association of legal practitioners and researchers developing guidance and resources for the use of AI in courts.

AI has the potential to improve case processing and can allow people needing legal advice to find information by using AI chatbots, she said. But, she added, courts are still struggling with evidence altered by AI and briefs littered with hallucinations.

“Fake evidence is nothing new,” Robinson said. “People have been altering photographs as long as there were photographs. But with AI, the ability to create videos, audio and pictures has become very easy, and courts are really struggling with it.”

Charlotin, of HEC Paris, said most courts and professional associations will continue to focus on education right now.

“You cannot prevent a mistake just by telling people, ‘Don’t make a mistake,’” Charlotin said. “That doesn’t work. It’s more about setting up processes to make people aware of it, then they can set up processes to work on dealing with it.”

Stateline reporter Madyson Fitzgerald can be reached at mfitzgerald@stateline.org.

Mural depicting workers painted on windows of the Madison-Kipp Corp. by Goodman Community Center students and Madison-Kipp employees with Dane Arts Mural Arts. (Photo by Erik Gunn /Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin job growth has been slowing over the last year, new data published Thursday suggests.

Total nonfarm jobs in Wisconsin rose by 9,000 in December compared with November, the Department of Workforce Development reported. When compared with December 2024, however, the increase amounted to 6,700 — suggesting a “cooling and holding pattern” in the state’s economy, said Scott Hodek, section chief in the department’s Office of Economic Advisors, during a media briefing Thursday.

“We’ve seen it cool a little, and that’s following national trends,” Hodek said. “There’s been a fair amount of volatility and uncertainty in the national economy, and of course that impacts Wisconsin as well.”

Earlier this month Groundwork Collaborative, a Washington D.C. progressive economic policy think tank, described the national December jobs report in grim terms.

“The December report caps a year of sluggish job growth, with the fewest number of jobs added outside of a recession since 2003,” Groundwork stated in a Jan. 9 press release. “Hiring slowed sharply over the course of 2025.”

The organization’s analysis put much of the blame on tariffs imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump and the accompanying uncertainty amid federal policy gyrations.

In Wisconsin, while jobs are in decline, three-month trends in separations and layoffs have “stayed pretty stable,” Hodek said Thursday.

“People are just essentially staying in jobs longer and you’re not seeing a lot of necessarily separations, but not necessarily a lot of hiring either,” Hodek said.

Job numbers have fallen in manufacturing and some parts of the service sector. There were 1,100 fewer manufacturing jobs reported in December than in November, and 3,800 fewer than in December 2024. Professional services jobs declined in December by 3,700 compared with November, and by 6,200 compared with December 2024.

Construction jobs increased by 3,100 in December compared with November 2025 and by 5,100 compared with December 2024. Leisure and hospitality gained 4,700 jobs in December compared with November and 10,900 jobs compared with December 2024. The number of health care jobs increased by 1,700 from November to December and by 10,900 from December 2024.

Jobs numbers in the monthly report are projections drawn from a federal survey of employer payrolls.

From a separate federal survey of households that asks whether people are working or actively seeking work, DWD has projected that 65,500 fewer Wisconsin residents were employed in December 2025 compared with December 2024. The state’s unemployment rate remained even with the previous month at 3.1%

The data aren’t granular enough to establish to what extent retirements account for the decrease in the number of employees, Hodek said. But he added that the “overall aging population,” the absence of a surge in unemployment insurance claims  and some other data “would back up this assertion that a fair number of those have to be retirees.”

Organizers gather in Menomonie, Wisconsin in early December, 2025 to protest against a $1.6 billion data center proposal in their community. Residents’ concerns over data center development in rural Wisconsin revolve around lack of project transparency, water and energy usage, and financial impact on local tax bases. (Stop the Menomonie Data Center Facebook group)

This story was produced by the Daily Yonder

Blaine Halverson joked that his only exposure to data centers was from the Mission Impossible movies in the 1990s. That was, until one came to his town. Over the last seven months, Halverson’s community of Menomonie, Wisconsin, population 16,700, has become a flashpoint in a growing debate over data center development and local control in the state.

Halverson has lived in Menomonie, which is just over an hour east of Minneapolis, for most of his life. Like many others in his rural community, Halverson didn’t know much about the hyperscale data centers, built by the world’s largest technology companies, that are cropping up across the U.S. to power artificial intelligence. Then, in July 2025, Halverson was on vacation with his wife when he learned of a $1.6 billion data center proposal slated for around 320 acres of farmland on the outskirts of Menomonie.

Immediately, Halverson had questions.

“All of a sudden, I was activated,” said Halverson. “What really activated me was how far along this was, and that the public was just finding out.”

Over the next six months, Halverson and dozens of other concerned Menomonie residents coordinated a local opposition campaign that on January 5, 2026, resulted in Menomonie’s City Council revising a zoning ordinance to bar Balloonist, LLC, the developer representing an undisclosed ‘tech giant’, from moving ahead on construction. 

An attorney for Balloonist LLC did not respond to the Daily Yonder’s request for comment.

Halverson’s frustration about the project’s lack of transparency is one that has echoed throughout the state. In other rural counties and in villages sandwiched between larger cities like Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay, data center proposals in places like Beaver Dam, Port Washington, and Caledonia have been met with fierce opposition from residents. Developers eyeing land in Greenleaf, a village outside of Green Bay, and in Grant County, which borders the Mississippi River, have also faced community backlash. Commonly cited concerns revolve around project secrecy and the data centers’ projected energy usage, water needs, and financial impact on communities with small tax bases.

Beyond requiring vast amounts of power and water to keep operations running 24/7, large data center proposals in rural areas often represent a significant, if not dominant, share of the community’s tax levy. This leaves residents fearing what will happen if the planned data centers do not live up to their promises, should the stock market take a turn, the developers go bankrupt, or the technology inside the warehouse-like structures become obsolete. 

“They’re not seeing the long-term risks,” said Prescott Balch about the elected officials who push for data center development in Wisconsin’s rural communities. Balch is a retired software developer and former technology executive at U.S. Bank. He also lives in Caledonia, Wisconsin, a rural village south of Milwaukee whose residents ousted a 244-acre Microsoft data center that was slated for land zoned for agriculture in October of 2025. 

“No investment advisor, for example, would ever let you do [that] with your investment portfolio. They’d get fired for saying, ‘Put all your eggs in this one basket.’ It doesn’t matter how solid that one basket is. It’s still one basket with a lot of risk if it walks out the door,” Balch said. 

A hot spot

Over the last year, rural Wisconsin has become somewhat of a hotspot for data center developers. The allure for Big Tech companies racing to build infrastructure to train and run complex AI models comes in the form of tax incentives, low-cost land, and, in many rural communities, flexible zoning codes. 

But residents like Halverson and Balch are taking notice and starting to organize together. Opposition groups that have formed in communities faced with data center proposals are using digital tools like Facebook and Signal to connect with one another across the Badger State. Now, a growing coalition of rural residents and environmental organizations are urging state legislators to regulate data center development and, in some instances, taking legal action to improve transparency. 

The debate over Wisconsin’s data center boom is both rooted in local governance and relevant to the national conversation about rising electricity costs. In an election year, data center infrastructure has become a political issue, yet it’s one that rural coalition members insist is nonpartisan. What’s on the ballot, including a crowded gubernatorial race, could influence that. 

Why Wisconsin?

To grasp why data centers are coming to Wisconsin, you have to understand a particularly wonky part of the state’s tax code, according to Port Washington resident Michael Beaster. A resident of the rural city just north of Milwaukee, Beaster opposes the $15 billion campus being built by Vantage Data Centers to serve end-users Oracle and OpenAI as part of their $500 billion Stargate campaign to develop AI infrastructure across the U.S.

The wonky policy Beaster is talking about is a tax incremental district, or TID.

In Wisconsin, a TID lets developers pay their property taxes into a separate box from the rest of the community as a way to capture property value growth associated with new projects. During construction, a developer, like Vantage, contributes taxes to this special box to cover infrastructure costs associated with their project, like new roads and power lines. Depending on the terms of the TID, that tax money is then kept in the box until all infrastructure costs have been paid, often a period of 15-20 years.

Typically, this kind of tax policy helps small- or medium-scale developers, like new packing plants or housing developments, pay for their associated infrastructure costs over time. With hyperscale data centers, however, rural residents worry that the high costs of the developments’ power and water infrastructure will rack up for the community to pay while the developers’ taxes sit in a special box. 

“If the village decides to raise the tax levy, it comes off the backs of the current residents only, and that is completely and utterly invisible right now to most people,” said Balch, who worked to reject Microsoft’s proposed data center campus in Caledonia last fall.

In November of 2025, the city of Port Washington approved a TID that enables Vantage to pay upfront for the estimated $175 million in infrastructure costs, plus $91 million for an electrical substation and $187 million in interest, associated with their data center campus, including upgraded water and sewer mains and new power infrastructure. Port Washington will then be responsible for paying Vantage back for those infrastructure costs over time.

The TID is set up as a pool of money to remain open for up to 20 years for the city to draw from to reimburse Vantage. Some residents, including Beaster, have expressed concerns that the financing model could end up raising taxes for locals. On January 2, 2026, a Port Washington-based group of activists filed a lawsuit against the city to challenge the TID.

“People don’t want to see their communities handed over to large corporations,” Beaster said.

Port Washington Mayor Ted Neitzke did not respond to the Daily Yonder’s request for clarification on whether the city’s TID would result in higher taxes for residents.

Last summer, a bipartisan measure in Wisconsin’s legislature updated the state’s tax incremental financing policy to exempt data centers from caps on the amount of money that can be held in a TID. The act mentions both Port Washington and Beaver Dam by name and was signed into law by Democratic Governor Tony Evers on July 8, 2025. In addition to TIDs, Wisconsin also offers a sales and use tax exemption to incentivize data center development. The exemptions are offered on a ladder based on a developer’s intended investment and the host county’s population, with less populous counties requiring less investment. For rural counties, the minimum investment required to claim the exemption is $50 million. 

For Asad Ramzanali, former deputy director for strategy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under the Biden Administration, it is this kind of policy that goes against the idea that data centers should have to pay their “fair share”.

“When the largest companies, the most well-resourced companies, in the history of the world are behind these data centers, it feels particularly unfair to have states level tax breaks for construction,” Ramzanali told the Daily Yonder.

“People should not have to pay increased utility bills. People should not have to pay for transmission lines going up, [and] people shouldn’t have to deal with dirty water sources because of a data center.”

Nonpartisan, but political

With local pushback to data centers picking up steam, state legislators are taking note. Beaster said that’s a change from the attitude that some legislators had a few months ago, when his rural community members were mobilizing against the data center in Port Washington last summer and fall. 

“When we started really getting involved in trying to mobilize, we tried to write letters and emails and stuff to state legislators, and they just weren’t very responsive,” Beaster said. “It felt to us like they were more interested in bringing these things here than regulating them.” 

In early December, 2025, Democrats introduced a bill to regulate data centers and entice them to take climate-friendly steps. Under the proposed legislation, residents would be protected from footing the utility costs associated with data centers. If passed, the bill would also subject data centers to an annual fee, ranging from $2-3 million, to fund clean energy and low-income heating assistance programs. The legislation also includes a measure to hinge state tax incentives, like the sales and use tax exemption, upon data centers using at least 70% renewable energy. 

In January, 2025, Republicans introduced a data center bill of their own, with similarities including mandated reporting on water usage and restrictions on passing development-related utility costs onto families and small businesses. The Republican legislation would also mandate that data centers wanting to use renewable energy would need to build those energy sources, like solar, on the same property. 

The utility provisions in both the Democrat and Republican-backed bills come as the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) prepares to hear a case in February of 2026, from We Energies, the state’s largest utility, that will determine how much data centers will have to pay for their infrastructure, and how much gets passed onto other ratepayers. 

We Energies has requested a pay structure that holds data centers accountable for 75% of their capital costs. That request has been challenged by the Wisconsin chapter of the Sierra Club, which argues large customers like data centers should be held responsible for 100% of their associated costs.

“This is the decision for how much the largest utility is making large customers pay, and right now the proposal is really bad for an average residential customer,” said Cassie Steiner, a senior campaign coordinator at Sierra Club. The PSC is expected to hand down a decision on the 2026 rate structure in the spring. 

Even as data center regulation captures lawmakers’ attention at the state capitol in Madison, organizers in Menomonie, Port Washington, and Caledonia maintain that local opposition isn’t tied to party. 

“One of the things that has been really amazing to me about this process is that I know the people I’m standing shoulder-to-shoulder with in this group, a lot of them never vote the same way I would when we go into the into the voting booth in November,” Halverson said of his work in Menomonie. 

“If it’s your farmland and your community, you’re an extreme environmentalist, and if it’s your power bill going up, then you’re a fiscal conservative.”

State Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), shown here at a September 2025 press conference, said on the Assembly floor Tuesday that the UI bill would "take away benefits from the people who need them the most." (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

On a party-line vote, a bill changing Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance laws, which Gov. Tony Evers’ office said he will veto, passed the Assembly  Tuesday.

The bill would allow people collecting federal disability payments to remain eligible for unemployment insurance if they lose a job. But it would cut their jobless pay by half the value of their disability pay.

The bill was sent to the Legislature from the joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council, which negotiates on a proposed “agreed-upon bill” every two years.

Historically the council’s bills have enjoyed broad support and easy passage, but the current measure, AB 652, includes changes that prompted opposition from Democrats. Evers’ spokesperson told the Wisconsin Examiner on Jan. 7 that the governor will veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

The bill is the first jobless pay measure in more than a decade to raise the maximum benefit, increasing it by $25 a week to $395. Critics argue that is inadequate.

The critics also object to reducing jobless pay for people who receive Social Security Disability Income, and to the measure’s proposed new strictures on the unemployment insurance system that Evers has previously vetoed.

A federal judge in July 2025 ordered the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to stop enforcing a ban on unemployment compensation for SSDI recipients that was enacted in 2013. The judge ruled a year earlier that the ban violated federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

Before voting on the advisory council’s unemployment insurance bill Tuesday, Assembly Republicans voted 53-44 to block Democrats from passing a substitute amendment removing provisions they opposed and increasing the value of jobless pay. They went on to pass the unamended bill by the same 53-44 margin.

The Democratic amendment would have repealed the state’s ban on unemployment compensation for SSDI recipients, but without the financial penalty. The amendment also included a $127 increase in the maximum benefit through Jan. 2, 2027, followed by annual increases in line with the consumer price index. In addition, it increased the cap on how much income a laid-off person could make in a week while continuing to qualify for jobless pay.

“Wisconsinites deserve adequate unemployment benefits. This amendment is a step towards being able to do just that,” said Rep. Maureen McCarville (D-DeForest).

At a state Senate hearing Jan. 7, Scott Manley, a lobbyist for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and chair of the advisory council’s management caucus, defended the council bill’s jobless pay penalty for SSDI recipients, arguing that it would treat disability pay like other sources of income people get while they collect unemployment insurance.

“If you have additional income … that income is going to offset your unemployment benefits,” Manley said. “Unemployment is supposed to provide a temporary safety net of additional income for people who lose their job through no fault of their own.”

On the Assembly floor Tuesday, Rep. Chris Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) — who in the past has supported advisory council bills but came out against the council’s legislation in this session — reiterated her opposition. She said a constituent on the autism spectrum qualifies for SSDI and works part-time at a local library, allowing her to live independently.

“Without that part-time job, she could not afford to be independent,” Sinicki said. “I sure as heck do not want to be one to vote to take away benefits from the people who need them the most.”

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The Madison Social Security Administration field office. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Wisconsinites are holding rallies  across the state Wednesday to call on Congress and the Trump administration to increase funding for operations at the Social Security Administration.

Staff reductions and office closures in the last year have created bottlenecks in service for members of the public who need help from the agency, according to Jessica LaPointe, the Wisconsin-based president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 220. The union represents field operations employees for the Social Security Administration across the country.

“We’re struggling to meet the needs of the public,” LaPointe said, with more than 10,000 people a day becoming eligible for the federal retirement program.

Along with AFGE, the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans will be rallying outside Social Security offices in eight Wisconsin communities Wednesday.

“When they start closing offices, that hinders our senior citizens,” said Ross Winklbauer, president of WARA. “They call into Social Security if they have a question or to file a claim, and they’re sitting on the phone for hours because of short staffing and not getting their questions answered.”

WARA will take part in a rally starting at 12 noon outside the Social Security offices in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield along with AFGE. Rallies are also planned in Eau Claire, Madison, Racine, Rhinelander, Stevens Point, Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids. Winklbauer said WARA has about 100,000 members in the state, mostly union retirees, and about 1,000 active participants.

The rallies are part of a national day of action in anticipation of the possibility that the government will shut down at the end of January if Congress can’t agree on a budget for the rest of the year, LaPointe said.

Talks are underway between congressional Republicans and Democrats to enact the rest of the government’s spending plan for the current year by the upcoming deadline.

Nevertheless, LaPointe said the most recent shutdown that started Oct. 1 and ran for a record 43 days brought home to many field office workers in the Social Service Admin. the limits of their compensation, especially if they are furloughed.

In a report released Wednesday, the Strategic Organizing Center said its review of 36,000 Social Security workers’ pay rates showed that 54% — just over half — were paid less than what the MIT Living Wage Calculator has set as a living wage for the regions of the U.S. where they live. The developers of the calculator at the MIT Living Wage Institute define a living wage as “the rate that a full-time worker requires to cover the costs of their family’s basic needs where they live.”

“We don’t get paid enough to save for a rainy day,” LaPointe said. “We’re understaffed, we’re underpaid and we’re struggling to meet the needs of the public who are coming to us for their earned benefits.”

In January 2025, when President Donald Trump took office, the agency’s staff was at its lowest in 50 years, LaPointe said, and “the public was waiting too long for benefits and services.”

Since then, the agency instituted a buyout program, offering workers up to $25,000 to quit, and the staff dropped from 58,000 a year ago to about 50,000 now — “the largest single staffing cut in Social Security history,” LaPointe said. 

About 2,000 field staff were lost in the last year — 10% of the field operations, she said, with the number of employees at some offices falling to single digits. 

LaPointe said the agency has moved to “digital first” operations that favor online or telephone contacts instead of in-person visits. In addition, the agency has shifted to processing inquiries from the public nationally rather than at the local office she said — “where a customer out in California would be served by someone in Wisconsin, or a customer in Madison might be served by someone in New Jersey.”

In an email message, a Social Security Administration spokesperson depicted the digital shift as part of a modernization program so that “more Americans are choosing to resolve their needs online or over the phone.” The statement cited a recent audit by the Social Security Administration inspector general that found average hold times for callers had dropped to seven minutes by September 2025 from a high of 30 minutes in January.

Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano “has pledged to have the right level of staffing to operate at peak efficiency and deliver best-in-class customer service to the American people,” the spokesperson said.

The Social Security Administration “is taking action to improve workplace satisfaction, support professional development, and enhance communication across all levels of the organization,” the spokesperson added.

LaPointe, however, said there’s been “a breakdown in community based service” with the new system, and Social Security staffers are no longer the face of government in the local community.

“You now have to have an appointment to do anything with Social Security,” LaPointe said. “It’s created a bottleneck of service to where people cannot get access to apply for benefits in a timely fashion.”

Frontline workers are concerned that a move toward using artificial intelligence technology to review benefit applications will increase errors — either benefit approvals that are mistaken or unwarranted denials, she said.

“It still takes a human being to adjudicate claims — every claim, whether on the phone, online or in person,” LaPointe said.

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Interior of a modern data center. (Stock photo by Imaginima/Getty Images)

Dozens of data centers have been built in communities across Wisconsin, with more planned or in process. In many of these communities, the proposed data centers have sparked significant local opposition. 

Both Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature have proposed bills to regulate the growth of data centers as community leaders across the state have asked for more direction from the state government on the approval of what are often massive facilities. 

So far, the state has had little input on data center construction outside of a provision in the 2023-25 state budget which exempted data center construction projects from paying sales taxes. 

The Democratic bill, introduced last year by Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland), would require data centers to report the level of energy and water they’re using, fund the development of renewable energy projects and ensure the cost of increased energy demands aren’t passed on to regular consumers.

The Republican bill, introduced this month, also requires the Public Service Commission to prevent energy use and infrastructure costs from being passed on to consumers, requires the data center to use a closed-loop water cooling system to limit the amount of water needed and includes provisions that would require the data center company to cover the cost of restoring the land it’s built on if the data center is closed or unfinished. The bill also includes a provision that requires any renewable energy created to power the data center be sourced on site. 

Last year, the issue of data centers was a common theme on the campaign trail in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, as voters respond to the effects of hosting more of the centers than any other state. 

Here in Wisconsin, communities are grappling with how to make agreements with the big tech companies hoping to build the data centers, how to avoid the broken promises at the top of mind of many Wisconsinites after the Foxconn development in Mount Pleasant failed to live up to its lofty initial projections and how to manage the often huge demands the data centers make on local water supplies and energy. 

Despite those challenges, the construction of a data center can offer benefits to local governments — mostly by boosting property tax revenue from a development that won’t consume many local government services. 

Unlike many other issues, the question of data center development has not become politically polarized, with a range of positions among candidates of both parties. 

“Data centers are a new issue that has not taken on a partisan edge in the public mind,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison, said. “This is likely to change because among politicians Democrats are more skeptical about data centers and Republicans are more enthusiastic about them. If this partisan divide continues or even becomes sharper, the public is likely to begin mimicking the positions taken by party leaders. But at least for a while the issue is likely to cut across party lines.”

In Wisconsin’s crowded open race for governor, most of the candidates told the Wisconsin Examiner they were supportive of some level of statewide regulation on data centers. 

Democrat Missy Hughes’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Her public comments on the issue are included below. 

Mandela Barnes 

The former lieutenant governor said in a statement to the Examiner that it’s important that data center construction not increase utility rates, not damage the environment and use Wisconsin union labor. He also said the companies developing the centers need to meaningfully work with the communities they’re trying to build in. 

“A lot of communities feel left out of conversations about what is going on in their own backyard and that is not fair,” Barnes said. “Any development of this scale must meaningfully engage local communities and address their concerns and input throughout their proposal. We must also ensure that data center projects do not drive up utility rates for Wisconsinites or contribute to harmful pollution, and that they invest in training and hiring Wisconsin workers to staff these facilities.”

Joel Brennan 

The former secretary of the Department of Administration said in a statement from his campaign that the desire of tech companies to move fast is in opposition to the government’s need to engage the public transparently. 

“Wisconsinites shouldn’t have to foot the bill for AI or data center projects, period. At a time when affordability is a challenge in every community, taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for construction, operations, or higher utility costs. No one should have to worry about affording their heating bill because a data center has driven up energy prices,” he said. “It’s reasonable for people to have concerns about AI, and I share those concerns. The technology is moving fast, and companies often prioritize speed. Government’s responsibility is different: transparency, accountability, community engagement, and coordination with local communities who stand to be impacted by these projects. Data centers can create jobs and support local economies, but only if they’re done right — protecting taxpayers and our natural resources, and ensuring that the benefits truly serve Wisconsin communities.”

David Crowley 

At a gubernatorial candidate forum in November, Crowley was mostly supportive of data center development, saying the government shouldn’t be picking “winners and losers” and instead “make sure that this is fertile ground for entrepreneurs and businesses to either stay or move right here to the state of Wisconsin.”

In a statement to the Examiner, a campaign spokesperson said Crowley wants to encourage investment in Wisconsin’s economy while enforcing stringent environmental regulations, making sure companies pay the cost of increased energy use and giving local governments the power to say no to a data center project. 

“Growth that drives up rates or drains local resources is not innovation. It’s a bad deal,” the spokesperson said. “Communities will have clear authority to condition or deny projects based on energy and water use, demand transparency, and community benefit agreements, because the people who live with these projects deserve the final say. Crowley’s approach is simple: Wisconsin will lead in technology and economic growth without raising utility bills, without sacrificing our natural resources, and without letting Big Tech write the rules. Development will be transparent, accountable, and judged by whether or not it delivers real benefits to the people who live in Wisconsin.”

Francesca Hong

In a policy framework released last week, the Madison-area representative  to the state Assembly called for a moratorium on the construction of new data centers while the state works out how to responsibly manage their effects. Hong also wants to end sales tax and use tax exemptions for data centers, require the construction of more renewable energy sources and increase environmental protections on data centers. She is also a co-sponsor on the Democrats’ data center bill in the Legislature. 

In an interview with the Examiner, Hong said Wisconsin’s political leaders have a responsibility to listen to local opposition to data centers. 

“Our communities deserve long-term investments and contributions to their local communities,” she said. “The bipartisan opposition that is building coalitions against AI data centers means that elected officials have a responsibility to get more data on data centers, which is what informed our decision to support a moratorium on the construction of new data centers.” 

Hong said that on the campaign trail she has heard from voters who want Wisconsin to be “a hostile environment for AI data centers.” She added that it’s a bipartisan issue, which presents an opportunity to her as a Democratic socialist running for governor.

“I think there’s an opportunity here, not only for us to engage the left and bring them into electoral politics here in Wisconsin, but actually build that coalition amongst voters who are across the political spectrum and recognizing that as working class people, they’re getting screwed and they’re stressed, and they’re right to demand that their government do more to hold corporate power accountable,” she said. 

Missy Hughes 

At the November forum hosted by the Wisconsin Technology Council, Hughes, who as the former head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation was involved in efforts to build the Microsoft data center at the former Foxconn site, promoted their positive potential for the state. 

“To have some of these data centers land here in Wisconsin, provide incredible property tax and revenue for the communities that are really determining how to pay their bills, how to build new schools, how to build new fire departments, it’s an opportunity for those communities to access some of that investment and to benefit from it,” she said, adding that a data center isn’t right for every community and local pushback should be considered. 

Sara Rodriguez 

A spokesperson for the current lieutenant governor said that she would issue an executive order to freeze utility rates while state officials develop a long-term data center plan. 

That long-term plan would include ways to prevent energy costs from increasing while making sure local residents get a say. 

“Sara strongly believes data center projects should be developed collaboratively with local communities. That means early community input, clear communication, and transparent planning to reduce misinformation and ensure projects make sense locally,” the spokesperson said. “Data centers aren’t the right fit for every community, but when done right they can bring real benefits — including jobs, redevelopment of otherwise unusable land, and new revenue that can help local governments lower taxes for residents, as we’ve seen in places like Janesville.” 

The campaign added that agreements with local governments must include provisions to prevent developers from bailing out and abandoning communities. 

“Sara also believes all details must be negotiated up front in binding agreements. If utilities make grid investments or communities commit resources, developers must be on the hook if a project is delayed or canceled,” the spokesperson said. “Families and local governments shouldn’t be left holding the bag. Wisconsin can support growth and innovation, but only if it’s fair, transparent, and doesn’t raise costs for working families.” 

Kelda Roys 

The Madison-area state senator is a co-sponsor of the Democrats’ data center bill and in an interview with the Examiner, said that as governor she’d support regulation that follows a similar framework to the legislation. 

“I think there needs to be a statewide strategy with guardrails that protect our workers, our environment and our consumers from massive price increases,” she said. “I’m very skeptical of this idea that the biggest and richest and most powerful companies in the world should get to just come in and pick off local communities and local elected leaders one by one and make these sweetheart deals in the dark that screw over the public. And I think in the absence of statewide standards and transparency, that is what is happening.” 

She said the state should use its sway to insert itself as a negotiating party in agreements with data center developers in an effort to keep energy costs low, reduce environmental impact and protect Wisconsin workers. 

She also said that the state government doing something to ease the budget crunch facing local governments will put those local officials in a better position when deciding whether or not to allow a data center to be constructed. 

“Part of the reason that we’re having this problem is that we have put local governments in an impossible situation because of the fiscal mismanagement and the harm of Republican politicians,” she said. “Communities will have more bargaining power when they don’t feel like, ‘Gosh, we’re desperate for more revenue, and our hands are really tied by the state. This is the only option,’ right? They will be in a stronger negotiating position if this is a nice to have, but not a necessary to have. And that’s the position that we want communities to be in. I want Wisconsinites to be able to have a say in our communities’ future, to be able to have an open and transparent process where we can say, ‘actually, we don’t think that this site is an appropriate one for a data center.’”

Josh Schoemann

The Washington County executive said at the November candidate forum there is an “abundance of opportunity” with data centers but that the state needs to be “very, very strategic and smart about where” data centers are built. In a statement from his campaign, he said the state needs to prioritize developing nuclear power to provide enough energy for data centers and everyday Wisconsinites. 

“I have great optimism about the potential for data centers and AI for Wisconsin, but it must be people focused,” he said. “Our lack of sufficient energy supply and distribution is a real threat to strategic growth and personal property rights. Growing up in Kewaunee, we had clean and efficient nuclear power right in our community. We need to get back to nuclear energy as a large part of a diverse energy portfolio — not just for data centers, but for the multitude of new homes we need for people, as well as more innovation and industry.”

Tom Tiffany 

The Republican congressman and frontrunner in the party’s primary has often opposed the development of large solar farms in and around his northern Wisconsin district, arguing they’ve taken too much of the region’s farmland out of commission. 

In a statement from his campaign, Tiffany said the development of data centers should be handled “responsibly.” 

“As demand for internet infrastructure continues to grow, data centers present new opportunities for economic development, but like any innovation, they must be developed responsibly,” he said. “Wisconsin families and small businesses should not be left footing the bill for increased electricity demand, local residents deserve a seat at the table when decisions are made about these projects, and taxpayer subsidies should not be used to build data centers on productive farmland. Growth should be responsible and transparent, without shifting costs onto existing ratepayers.”

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Job centers help people who are looking for work, including people who must conduct work searches each week to receive unemployment benefits. A bill to change the unemployment insurance rules has divided lawmakers despite being offered by the joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

This report has been updated

A bill that would boost Wisconsin’s top weekly jobless pay while penalizing people who receive federal disability pay is heading to the Assembly floor — so far with only GOP support. 

On Wednesday, Gov. Tony Evers’ communications director said the governor will veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

The legislation, AB 652, would also impose several previously vetoed changes to the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) law. It passed the Assembly’s labor committee Tuesday on a 6-3 vote, with all committee Democrats voting no.

The bill came from the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council. With equal participation of labor and management, the council negotiates changes to the state’s unemployment insurance law every two years.

The council historically has been credited with giving neither side a lopsided advantage in revisions to the unemployment insurance system. The bill that the body offered for the current legislative session, however, has become problematic for some of the council’s staunchest advocates.

“I simply cannot vote for this particular bill as written,” said Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) at Tuesday’s vote by the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development, Labor and Integrated Employment.

The measure would increase the maximum jobless pay for the first time in 12 years — to $395 a week from $370.

It would also formally repeal a 12-year-old ban on unemployment benefits for people who receive federal Social Security Disability Income. At the same time, however, it would cut an SSDI recipient’s jobless payments by the equivalent of half their weekly disability income.

A federal judge ruled in July 2024 that Wisconsin’s ban violated federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

In 2025 the judge ordered the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to stop denying jobless pay for SSDI recipients. The department was also ordered to review the cases going back to 2015 of people denied unemployment insurance due to the ban and make payments to those who were otherwise eligible.

Sinicki has long championed the role of the UI advisory council in revising the state’s UI laws, criticizing changes Republicans have proposed that didn’t go through the joint labor-management body.

Despite that, she’s been an outspoken critic of the UI advisory council’s current bill since it was introduced in November, and reiterated her opposition Tuesday because of the SSDI penalty.

Sinicki described an autistic constituent who works “a few hours a day” at a library. “She counts on that money. If she loses that job, she’s out that money,” Sinicki said. “We’re talking about a very small amount of money. It’s not saving the state millions and millions of dollars” to claw it back.

She predicted the bill would run afoul of the court order blocking the SSDI ban.

Sinicki also criticized “the paltry $25 increase” in the maximum weekly benefit.

“When you look around at the states around us, most of them are paying out twice as much as we do here,” she said. “And I just think it’s a slap in the face.”

State Rep. Paul Melotik (R-Grafton), the committee chair, defended the legislation.

“This is increasing what people are getting when they claim [unemployment],” Melotik said. “And it also is legal based on what the agreed-upon deal has been.”

In addition to its SSDI penalty, AB 652 would write into the state’s UI law changes that were in previous bills Evers has vetoed — two of them in the current legislative session.

Those provisions would penalize unemployment insurance recipients accused of “ghosting” job interviews or failing to show up for an offered job; increase the scrutiny of recipients’ work searches; impose new requirements for applicants to prove their identities; and require DWD to follow specific steps, including checking databases that track death records, employment records, citizenship and immigration records, to confirm the identity of a UI applicant.

In vetoing previous UI-related bills, Evers has cited in part the failure to put them through the advisory council process. Asked via email Tuesday whether Evers would veto the bill if it passes both houses, Evers’ communications director, Britt Cudaback, replied Wednesday morning: “Yes.”

DWD “has a number of concerns with the UIAC agreed upon bill package,” according to written testimony the department filed with the committee at a November public hearing on the bill.

Rachel Harvey, DWD’s legislative director, wrote that the bill’s $25 increase in the top weekly benefit from the maximum set in 2013 amounts to less than 7%. The increase “remains far below the maximum weekly benefit rate in neighboring states,” she wrote.

Harvey wrote that the testimony was provided “for information only,” but showed no enthusiasm for the legislation.

“The bill package includes reductions of Ul benefits for recipients of SSDI, multiple provisions previously vetoed by Gov. Evers, costly work search audit requirements, redundant measures already in effect at DWD to ensure program integrity, and new barriers for individuals receiving benefits,” she wrote

It makes those changes, she added, “all while failing to provide adequate resources for the department to implement these provisions in their entirety.”

This report has been updated at 1/7/2026, 9:38 a.m.

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Enrique Casiano addresses a rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Sept. 4, 2025, during a strike by UAW-represented employees against Mercyhealth East Clinic in Janesville. (Photo courtesy of Enrique Casiano)

Among the Democrats running for the chance to challenge the Republican incumbent in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District are a nurse, a union leader, a working class activist and a Hispanic professional.

A fifth candidate, Enrique Casiano of Janesville, happens to check all four of those boxes. A 47-year-old registered nurse, Casiano said his decision to join the Democratic field of hopefuls for the 1st District seat arose during a four-month strike at the Mercyhealth East Clinic in Janesville, where he is a leader in United Auto Workers Local 95.

The walkout of UAW-represented nurses, physical therapists, medical assistants and maintenance employees at the clinic started July 2, centered on health care costs, wages and security for employees.

“When September came around we were still on strike,” Casiano recalled. “I was thinking to myself, What in the world is going on? Why would a company do this to their employees? Why would this even be allowed?”

He and fellow union members blamed federal labor laws. Casiano said they have “no teeth” and don’t hold employers accountable.

“That has to be changed at a national level,” Casiano said. “That’s what motivated me to get out there and run for Congress.”

The strike ended Nov. 3, when the clinic management and the union ratified a new contract. The agreement led to raises that were higher than nonunion employees received elsewhere in the Mercyhealth system, Casiano said, although still less than what the union had originally sought. Health care costs for employees will be “basically three times” what they were previously, he added.

“This was a big concession,” Casiano said. “Something I told the membership, this should be a wake-up call for everybody to vote for someone who’s going to do something about the health care crisis in our nation.”

Casiano argues that health care is a human right and government should do more to prevent health care costs from leaving people in debt or sending them into bankruptcy.

“If you have the money, you’ll get care,” he said. “If you don’t have the money, I’ve seen how many people end up being homeless or go into great debt because of their health.”

He supports Medicare for All, but also favors giving states greater freedom to regulate the health care systems. He opposes consolidation among health care groups and favors breaking up large hospital and health care systems, as well as keeping for-profit businesses, including private equity and venture capital firms, out of health care.

“The current system rewards profiting from people’s health care crisis,” Casiano said. “It is not a system of prevention and rewarding the best health care outcomes and practices.”

Casiano said that updating the 1930s-era National Labor Relations Act with laws that would strengthen the rights of workers to union representation is a top priority of his. If elected he would also seek to enact stronger federal laws against wage theft and against misclassifying workers as independent contractors with fewer protections. He said that he also wants “real tax relief to the working class” instead of the wealthy.

Casiano is one of five Democrats vying for the chance to challenge U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, the Republican incumbent in the 1st District now in his fourth term.

“I’m part of the working class. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a politician,” Casiano said — although he readily acknowledged that every other Democrat competing for the nomination could make the same claim.

“Pretty much everybody running this time around, we’re all just working class people who want to see a change in the 1st District,” he said.

The rest of the Democratic field includes ironworker Randy Bryce, emergency room nurse Mitchell Berman, Racine community activist Gage Stills and university administrator Miguel Aranda.

As he shapes his campaign, Casiano is leaning into his background as a health care professional, a union activist and also a member of the Hispanic community.

He said the Trump administration’s round-ups of immigrants — which has caught up U.S. citizens in addition to people without legal immigration status — has a personal dimension.

“It’s sad that I, when I go to Milwaukee, can be stopped [by police] just because of the way I look and the way I talk,” he said. “At the national level, we’re attacking specific [ethnic groups of] people, which we’ve never done before.”

The 1st Congressional District has been solidly Republican since the mid-1990s. Steil succeeded Paul Ryan in the office when Ryan stepped aside  in 2018 after a 20-year tenure. A corporate lawyer and former Ryan aide, Steil won with margins of 9 to 10 points in 2022 and 2024.

The Cook Political Report has rated the district as likely Republican in 2026, and gives the GOP a 2-point advantage based on past presidential elections.

Casiano contends political apathy accounts for Steil’s success. “In the last election, many of my coworkers, they just did not go out to vote,” he said. “It’s not winnable, somebody told me [because] it’s all about the money.”

He contends that 2026 can be different.

“What’s changed now is the Trump administration and how messed up everything is going,” Casiano said. “Only people that have blinders on will say everything is OK, because it’s not.”

Casiano said he knows he’s a long-shot candidate, but he believes Steil is vulnerable and that people can be motivated to vote if candidates reach out to them.

“I know he has let down a lot of his constituents,” Casiano said. “We know he’s not out there for the farmers, or some of the small businesses” in the district, he added. “That’s the big message we’ve got to bring forward.”

He believes enough people have stayed away from the polls in the past to make a difference in the outcome for 2026.

“We have to go and start talking to Black and brown people in our community and get them out to vote,” Casiano said. “This is what I’m going to be fighting for.”

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The former site of the We Energies Power Plant on Nov. 13, 2025, in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. (Photo by Joe Timmerman/Wisconsin Watch)

By some measures, the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant, once regarded locally as an “iconic industrial landmark,” had a good run.

Opened in 1980 near Lake Michigan in Kenosha County, it became Wisconsin’s largest generating plant, burning enough Wyoming coal, some 13,000 tons a day, to provide electricity for up to 1 million homes.

But over time, the plant became too expensive to operate. The owner, We Energies, shut it down after 38 years, in 2018.

We Energies customers, however, are still on the hook.

A portion of their monthly bills will continue to pay for Pleasant Prairie until 2039 — 21 years after the plant stopped producing electricity.

In fact, residential and business utility customers throughout Wisconsin owe nearly $1 billion on “stranded assets” — power plants like Pleasant Prairie that have been or will soon be shut down, a Wisconsin Watch investigation found.

That total will likely grow over the next five years with additional coal plants scheduled to cease operations.

Customers must pay not only for the debt taken on to build and upgrade the plants themselves, but also an essentially guaranteed rate of return for their utility company owners, long after the plants stop generating revenue themselves.

“We really have a hard time with utilities profiting off of dead power plants for decades,” said Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group.

The $1 billion tab looms as Wisconsin utility companies aim to generate unprecedented amounts of electricity for at least seven major high-tech data centers that are proposed, approved or under construction. By one estimate, just two of the data centers, which are being built to support the growth of artificial intelligence, would use more electricity than all Wisconsin homes combined.

All of which raises an important question in Wisconsin, where electricity rates have exceeded the Midwest average for 20 years.

What happens to residents and other ratepayers if AI and data centers don’t pan out as planned, creating a new generation of stranded assets?

How much do Wisconsin ratepayers owe on stranded assets?

Of the five major investor-owned utilities operating in Wisconsin, two — We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. — have stranded assets on the books. Both companies are subsidiaries of Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group.

As of December 2024, when the company released its most recent annual report, We Energies estimated a remaining value of more than $700 million across three power plants with recently retired units: Pleasant Prairie, Oak Creek and Presque Isle, a plant on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Wisconsin Public Service Corp.’s December 2024 report listed roughly $30 million in remaining value on recently retired units at two power plants.

In total, utilities owned by WEC Energy Group will likely have over $1 billion in recently retired assets by the end of 2026.

The company also noted a remaining value of just under $250 million for its share of units at Columbia Generating Station slated to retire in 2029, alongside a remaining value of roughly $650 million for units at Oak Creek scheduled to retire next year.

Its customers will pay off that total, plus a rate of return, for years to come.

The company estimates that closing the Pleasant Prairie plant alone saved $2.5 billion, largely by avoiding future operating and maintenance costs and additional capital investments.

Both Wisconsin Power and Light and Madison Gas and Electric also own portions of the Columbia Energy Center, and Wisconsin Power and Light also operates a unit at the Edgewater Generating Station scheduled for retirement before the end of the decade. Neither company provided estimates of the values of those facilities at time of retirement. Andrew Stoddard, a spokesman for Alliant Energy, Wisconsin Power and Light’s parent company, argued against treating plants scheduled for retirement with value on the books as future stranded assets.

How stranded assets occurred: overcommitting to coal

In 1907, Wisconsin became one of the first states to regulate public utilities. The idea was that having competing companies installing separate gas or electric lines was inefficient, but giving companies regional monopolies would require regulation.

Utility companies get permission to build or expand power plants and to raise rates from the three-member state Public Service Commission. The commissioners, appointed by the governor, are charged with protecting ratepayers as well as utility company investors.

Stranded assets have occurred across the nation, partly because of the cost of complying with pollution control regulations. But another factor is that, while other utilities around the country moved to alternative sources of energy, Wisconsin utilities and, in turn, the PSC overbet on how long coal-fired plants would operate efficiently:

• In the years before We Energies pulled the plug on Pleasant Prairie, the plant had mostly gone dark in spring and fall. Not only had coal become more expensive than natural gas and renewables, but energy consumption stayed flat. By 2016, two years before Pleasant Prairie’s closure, natural gas eclipsed coal for electricity generation nationally.

• In 2011, We Energies invested nearly $1 billion into its coal-fired Oak Creek plant south of Milwaukee to keep it running for 30 more years. The plant, which began operating in 1965 and later became one of the largest in the country, is now scheduled to completely retire in 2026 — with $650 million on the books still owed. That will cost individual ratepayers nearly $30 per year for the next 17 years, according to RMI, a think tank specializing in clean energy policy. The majority of the debt tied to those units stems from “environmental controls we were required to install to meet federal and state rules,” WEC Energy Group spokesperson Brendan Conway said.

• In 2013, to settle pollution violations, Alliant Energy announced an investment of more than $800 million in the Columbia Energy Center plant in Portage, north of Madison. But by 2021, Alliant announced plans to begin closing the plant, though now it is expected to operate until at least 2029.

Various factors encourage construction and upgrades of power plants.

Building a plant can create upwards of 1,000 construction jobs, popular with politicians. Moreover, the Public Service Commission, being a quasi-judicial body, is governed by precedent. For example, if the PSC determined it was prudent to allow construction of a utility plant, that finding would argue in favor of approving a later expansion of that plant.

The PSC allowed utility companies “to overbuild the system,” said Tom Content, executive director of the Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board, a nonprofit advocate for utility customers. “I think the mistake was that we allowed so much investment, and continuing to double down on coal when it was becoming less economic.”

Utilities “profit off of everything they build or acquire,” Stuart said, “and so there is a strong motivation to put steel in the ground and perhaps to even overbuild.”

Conway, the WEC Energy Group spokesperson, argued that the utilities’ plans to retire plants amount to a net positive for customers.

“We began our power generation reshaping plan about a decade ago,” he wrote in an email. “That includes closing older, less-efficient power plants and building new renewable energy facilities and clean, efficient natural gas plants. This plan reduces emissions and is expected to provide customers significant savings — hundreds of millions of dollars — over the life of the plan.”

Guaranteed profits add to ratepayer burden

The built-in profits that utility companies enjoy, typically 9.8%, add to the stranded assets tab.

When the Public Service Commission approves construction of a new power plant, it allows the utility company to levy electricity rates high enough to recover its investment plus the specified rate of return — even after a plant becomes a stranded asset.

“We give them this license to have a monopoly, but the challenge is there’s no incentive for them to do the least-cost option,” Content said. “So, in terms of building new plants, there’s an incentive to build more … and there’s incentive to build too much.”

When the Pleasant Prairie plant was shut down in 2018, the PSC ruled that ratepayers would continue to pay We Energies to cover the cost of the plant itself, plus the nearly 10% profit. The plant’s remaining value, initially pegged at nearly $1 billion, remained at roughly $500 million as of December 2024.

Eliminating profits on closed plants would save ratepayers $300 million on debt payments due to be made into the early 2040s, according to Content’s group.

New ‘stranded assets’ threat: data centers

As artificial intelligence pervades society, it’s hard to fathom how much more electricity will have to be generated to power all of the data centers under construction or being proposed in Wisconsin.

We Energies alone wants to add enough energy to power more than 2 million homes. That effort is largely to serve one Microsoft data center under construction in Mount Pleasant, between Milwaukee and Racine, and a data center approved north of Milwaukee in Port Washington to serve OpenAI and Oracle AI programs. Microsoft calls the Mount Pleasant facility “the world’s most powerful data center.”

Data centers are also proposed for Beaver Dam, Dane County, Janesville, Kenosha and Menomonie.

The energy demand raises the risk of more stranded assets, should the data centers turn out to be a bubble rather than boom.

“The great fear is, you build all these power plants and transmission lines and then one of these data centers only is there for a couple years, or isn’t as big as promised, and then everybody’s left holding the bag,” Stuart said.

In an October Marquette Law School poll, 55% of those surveyed said the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. Environmental groups have called for a pause on all data center approvals. Democratic and Republican leaders are calling for data centers to pay their own way and not rely on utility ratepayers or taxpayers to pay for their electricity needs.

Opposition in one community led nearly 10,000 people to become members of the Stop the Menomonie Data Center group on Facebook. In Janesville, voters are trying to require referendums for data centers. In Port Washington, opposition to the data center there led to three arrests during a city council meeting.

Utilities are scheduled in early 2026 to request permission from the Public Service Commission to build new power plants or expand existing plants to accommodate data centers.

Some states, such as Minnesota, have adopted laws prohibiting the costs of stranded assets from data centers being passed onto ratepayers.

Wisconsin has no such laws.

Shifting cost burden to utility companies

Currently, ratepayers are on the hook for paying off the full debt of stranded assets — unless a financial tool called securitization reduces the burden on ratepayers.

Securitization is similar to refinancing a mortgage. With the state’s permission, utilities can convert a stranded asset — which isn’t typically a tradeable financial product — into a specialized bond.

Utility customers must still pay back the bond. But the interest rate on the bond is lower than the utility’s standard profit margin, meaning customers save money.

A 2024 National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners report noted that utilities’ shareholders may prefer a “status quo” scenario in which customers pay stranded asset debts and the standard rate of return. Persuading utilities to agree to securitization can require incentives from regulators or lawmakers, the report added.

In some states, utilities can securitize the remaining value of an entire power plant. Michigan utility Consumers Energy, for instance, securitized two coal generating units retired in 2023, saving its customers more than $120 million.

In Wisconsin, however, utilities can securitize only the cost of pollution control equipment on power plants — added to older coal plants during the Obama administration, when utilities opted to retrofit existing plants rather than switching to new power sources.

In 2023, two Republican state senators, Robert Cowles of Green Bay and Duey Stroebel of Saukville, introduced legislation to allow the Public Service Commission to order securitization and allow securitization to be used to refinance all debt on stranded assets. The bill attracted some Democratic cosponsors, but was opposed by the Wisconsin Utilities Association and did not get a hearing.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed additional securitization in his 2025-27 budget, but the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee later scrapped the provision.

Even Wisconsin’s narrow approach to securitization is optional, however, and most utilities have chosen not to use it.

We Energies was the first Wisconsin utility to do so, opting in 2020 to securitize the costs of pollution control equipment at the Pleasant Prairie plant. Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission approved the request, saving an estimated $40 million. “We will continue to explore that option in the future,” Conway said.

But the PSC expressed “disappointment” in 2024 when We Energies “was not willing to pursue securitization” to save customers $117.5 million on its soon-to-retire Oak Creek coal plant. The utility noted state law doesn’t require securitization.

Stuart said that if utilities won’t agree to more securitization, they should accept a lower profit rate once an asset becomes stranded.

“It would be nice to ease that burden,” he said. “Just to say, hey, consumers got to suck it up and deal with it, that doesn’t sound right. The issue of stranded assets, like cost overruns, is certainly ripe for investigation.”

Comprehensive planning required elsewhere — but not Wisconsin

Avoiding future stranded assets could require a level of planning impossible under Wisconsin’s current regulatory structure.

When the state’s utilities propose new power plants, PSC rules require the commission to consider each new plant alone, rather than in the context of other proposed new plants and the state’s future energy needs. Operating without what is known as an integrated resource plan, or IRP, opened the PSC to overbuilding and creating more stranded assets. IRPs are touted as an orderly way to plan for future energy needs.

“There’s no real comprehensive look in Wisconsin,” Stuart said. “We’re one of the few regulated states that really doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for our utilities.

”We’ve been doing some of these projects kind of piecemeal, without looking at the bigger picture.”

Structured planning tools like IRPs date back to the 1980s, when concerns about cost overruns, fuel price volatility and overbuilding prompted regulators to step in. Minnesota and Michigan require utilities to file IRPs, as do a majority of states nationwide.

Evers proposed IRPs in his 2025-27 state budget, but Republican lawmakers removed that provision because it was a nonfiscal policy issue.

Northern States Power Company, which operates in Wisconsin and four other Midwestern states, is required by both Michigan and Minnesota to develop IRPs. “Because of these rules, we create a multi-state IRP every few years,” said Chris Ouellette, a spokesperson for Xcel Energy, the utility’s parent company.

Madison Gas and Electric, which only operates in Wisconsin, argued that its current planning process is superior to the IRP requirements in neighboring states. “A formal IRP mandate would add process without improving outcomes,” spokesperson Steve Schultz said. “Wisconsin’s current framework allows us to move quickly, maintain industry-leading reliability and protect customer costs during a period of rapid change.”

How to influence decisions relating to stranded assets

The devil will be in the details on whether the Public Service Commission adopts strong policies to prevent the expected wave of new power plant capacity from becoming stranded assets, consumer advocates say.

The current members, all appointed by Evers, are: chairperson Summer Strand, Kristy Nieto and Marcus Hawkins.

The public can comment on pending cases before the PSC via its website, by mail or at a public hearing. The commission posts notices of its public hearings, which can be streamed via YouTube.

Among the upcoming hearings on requests by utilities to generate more electricity for data centers:

Feb. 12: We Energies’ request to service data centers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington. We Energies says the fees it proposes, known as tariffs, will prevent costs from being shifted from the data centers to other customers. The “party” hearing is not for public comment, but for interaction between PSC staff and parties in the case, such as We Energies and public interest groups.

Feb. 26: Another party hearing for a case in which Alliant Energy also said its proposed tariffs won’t benefit the data center in Beaver Dam at the expense of other customers.

To keep abreast of case developments, the PSC offers email notifications for document filings and meetings of the commission.

The PSC would not provide an official to be interviewed for this article. It issued a statement noting that utilities can opt to do securitization to ease the financial burden on ratepayers, adding:

“Beyond that, the commission has a limited set of tools provided under state law to protect customers from costs that arise from early power plant retirements. It would be up to the state Legislature to make changes to state law that would provide the commission with additional tools.”

On Nov. 6, state Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay, and Rep. Angela Stroud, D-Ashland, announced wide-ranging data center legislation. One provision of their proposal aims to ensure that data centers don’t push electricity costs onto other ratepayers.

But there is no provision on stranded assets.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To republish, go to the original and consult the Wisconsin Watch republishing guidelines.

President Donald Trump addresses the nation in an address from the Diplomatic Room of the White House on Dec. 17, 2025. (Photo by Doug Mills - Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — As Americans continue to face rising prices ahead of year-end holidays, President Donald Trump blamed inflation and health care costs on his predecessor during a prime-time speech Wednesday in which he also claimed to have fixed the issues.

Trump “inherited a mess” and has turned the United States into the “envy of the entire globe” by imposing an immigration crackdown, tariffs and tax breaks, he said. 

“Over the past 11 months, we have brought more positive change to Washington than any administration in American history. There’s never been anything like it, and I think most would agree I was elected in a landslide,” Trump said.

Standing before a backdrop of Christmas decorations, Trump also promised $1,776 checks would arrive for members of the United States military by Christmas.

And he continued to blame Democrats for health care costs that are projected to skyrocket next month when tax credits for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans expire.

Nearly a year into his second term, Trump remains fixated on blaming former President Joe Biden even as his own approval ratings sink, according to numerous recent polls.

A plaque below Biden’s photo in Trump’s newly installed “Presidential Walk of Fame” display reads “Sleepy Joe Biden,” according to reports from journalists present at the White House Wednesday.

“When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans. This happened during a Democrat administration, and it’s when we first began hearing the word ‘affordability,’” Trump said.

Consumer price index data released Thursday for September through November show the overall cost of goods rose 2.7% over the past 12 months, after rising 3% for the 12 months recorded at the end of September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Trump took office in January 2025, it was 3% over the previous 12 months. The bureau did not analyze data for October 2025 because of the government shutdown.

In recent weeks, Trump has said “affordability” is a “hoax.”

Yet the bulk of Trump’s somewhat hastily scheduled address — the White House announced it Tuesday — focused on lowering costs for housing, electricity and health care.

Trump announced he will send a $1,776 “warrior dividend” to every U.S. servicemember. The amount is in honor of the year of the country’s  founding, Trump said. Checks are “already on the way,” he said.

That could add up to as much as $2.6 billion, according to a White House estimate Wednesday night that 1.45 million service members would receive the payment.

Health care costs

He also touted trumprx.gov, where he said Americans can find “unprecedented price reductions” on prescription drugs starting in January.

“These big price cuts will greatly reduce the cost of health care,” Trump said.

He boosted a Republican plan on Capitol Hill to fund individual health savings accounts, or HSAs, in annual amounts of $1,000 to $1,500 depending on age and poverty level. An HSA is not health insurance.

“I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own health care. You’ll get much better health care at a much lower price,” Trump said.

Four House Republicans defected Wednesday to sign a Democrat-led petition to bypass Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and force a floor vote in January on extending health insurance premium subsidies for people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

‘My favorite word’

Trump spent several minutes addressing the economy, stating that prices on groceries and fuel are coming down. Both claims are false, according to government data.

“I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down fast,” Trump said.

The latest consumer price index for September showed gasoline prices rose 4.1% over the past 12 months, and “was the largest factor in the all items monthly increase,” increasing 1.5% over the previous month.

Food prices rose faster than overall inflation in recent months, according to the government’s latest data. Food prices in August were 3.2% higher than a year ago, according to the data.

Still, Trump claimed an economic turnaround that he credited to his international trade policy.

“Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs — my favorite word ‘tariffs’ — which for many decades have been used successfully by other countries against us, but not anymore,” he said.

The U.S. ended fiscal year 2025 with a deficit reaching nearly $1.8 trillion, or roughly 6% of the domestic economy’s gross domestic product.

Trump unilaterally imposed a global 10% tariff on all foreign goods in April, plus higher tariffs on many major trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether Trump’s emergency tariffs are legal.

The U.S. collected nearly $195 billion in customs duties in fiscal year 2025, up from $77 billion in fiscal 2024, according to the U.S. Treasury’s monthly statement.”

Americans have lost faith in Trump’s ability to handle the economy, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll published Wednesday.

Trump received a 36% approval rating on his economic strategy, the lowest rating over the past six years that the survey has asked voters the question.

A Fox News poll released Nov. 19 found 76% of respondents saw the economy negatively. Of all voters polled, 41% approved and 58% disapproved of Trump’s performance. That’s down from the conservative news network’s poll of Biden’s approval ratings during the same point in his presidency, which the network says was 44%.

Mum on Venezuela

The president did not spend much time addressing his military campaign off the coast of Venezuela, despite declaring just 24 hours beforehand that the U.S. had formed a “blockade” in the Caribbean Sea.

Trump posted on his own social media platform Truth Social Tuesday night that Venezuela is “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America.”

The campaign, which has become top of mind for many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, is about preventing drug smuggling to the U.S., Trump and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly said.

Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration to release unedited footage of a Sept. 2 strike that killed two shipwrecked individuals who were clinging to what was left of a boat after an initial strike.

Recruiters discuss jobs with students at a July 2024 jobs fair at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. A new jobs report shows jobs nationwide rebounded after October losses, with a 64,000 gain in November. (Photo Courtesy of St. Edward’s University)

A shutdown-delayed jobs report released Dec. 16 showed an increase of 64,000 jobs in November, rebounding from a large loss of 105,000 jobs in October. Unemployment ticked higher to 4.6%, the highest since September 2021.

The October loss was the largest since December 2020, during a COVID-19 surge when jobs dropped by 183,000, according to a Stateline analysis of federal records.

The most recent report shows health care and construction added jobs in November — 46,000 and 28,000 jobs, respectively — while transportation and entertainment lost the most.

Transportation lost almost 18,000 jobs, mostly couriers and messengers, while entertainment and recreation lost 12,000 jobs, mostly in the amusement, gambling and recreation industries. The federal government dropped 6,000 jobs, while state governments gained 3,000 jobs.

State-by-state unemployment for November will be released Jan. 7 in the shutdown-affected schedule. October unemployment reports were canceled; the numbers for September showed rates rising in 25 states and falling in 21 compared with last year.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court declined Monday to throw out Wisconsin’s religious exemption from the state’s unemployment insurance system and affirmed that Catholic Charities organizations in Wisconsin are exempt.

The state’s highest court acted in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June reversing the Wisconsin Court’s decision in 2024, which found the organizations didn’t qualify for the state law’s UI religious exemption.

Monday’s unsigned order made no statements for or against any of the numerous briefs that were filed with the Wisconsin Court after the Supreme Court ruling.

In a 4-3 ruling in March 2024, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that Catholic Charities’ work was secular rather than religious, and that the organization therefore was not entitled to an exemption in Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance law.

The religious exemption is reserved for employees of churches, their parent organizations, employees of organizations “operated primarily for religious purposes” and controlled by churches or church associations, church ministers or members of a religious order.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously June 5, 2025, that the Wisconsin Court’s ruling “grants a denominational preference by explicitly differentiating between religions based on theological practices” and therefore violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s religious freedom provision.

After that ruling, both Catholic Charities and the Wisconsin Department of Justice filed proposed remedies with the Wisconsin Court. The Wisconsin DOJ called on the court to throw out the state law’s religious exemption to restore “equal treatment.”

Catholic Charities rejected that proposal, declaring it showed “animus” toward the charity, and urged the court instead to affirm the exemption.

In the decision Monday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sent the case back to Douglas County Circuit Court. The order directs the lower court to vacate earlier Labor and Industry Review Commission decisions denying the religious exemption and to direct LIRC to declare Catholic Charities “eligible for the religious purposes exemption to unemployment taxation.”

Victor Forberger, a Wisconsin unemployment lawyer who has written about the case on his blog, told the Wisconsin Examiner that the state high court’s action Monday was not a surprise in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The federal ruling, however, did not address calls by outside groups seeking a more sweeping religious exemption, Forberger said. “How this is going to play out with other entities and their claim for religious exemptions are all to be determined,” he added.

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A billboard advertises an artificial intelligence company in San Francisco in September. California is among the states leading the way on AI regulations, but an executive order signed by President Donald Trump seeks to override state laws on the technology. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

State lawmakers of both parties said they plan to keep passing laws regulating artificial intelligence despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop them.

Trump signed an executive order Thursday evening that aims to override state artificial intelligence laws. He said his administration must work with Congress to develop a national AI policy, but that in the meantime, it will crack down on state laws.

The order comes after several other Trump administration efforts to rein in state AI laws and loosen restrictions for developers and technology companies.

But despite those moves, state lawmakers are continuing to prefile legislation related to artificial intelligence in preparation for their 2026 legislative sessions. Opponents are also skeptical about — and likely to sue over — Trump’s proposed national framework and his ability to restrict states from passing legislation.

“I agree on not overregulating, but I don’t believe the federal government has the right to take away my right to protect my constituents if there’s an issue with AI,” said South Carolina Republican state Rep. Brandon Guffey, who penned a letter to Congress opposing legislation that would curtail state AI laws.

The letter, signed by 280 state lawmakers from across the country, shows that state legislators from both parties want to retain their ability to craft their own AI legislation, said South Dakota Democratic state Sen. Liz Larson, who co-wrote the letter.

Earlier this year, South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed the state’s first artificial intelligence law, authored by Larson, prohibiting the use of a deepfake — a digitally altered photo or video that can make someone appear to be doing just about anything — to influence an election.

South Dakota and other states with more comprehensive AI laws, such as California and Colorado, would see their efforts overruled by Trump’s order, Larson said.

“To take away all of this work in a heartbeat and then prevent states from learning those lessons, without providing any alternative framework at the federal level, is just irresponsible,” she said. “It takes power away from the states.”

Trump’s efforts

Thursday’s executive order will establish an AI Litigation Task Force to bring court challenges against states with AI-related laws, with exceptions for a few issues such as child safety protections and data center infrastructure.

The order also directs the secretary of commerce to notify states that they could lose certain funds under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program if their laws conflict with national AI policy priorities.

Trump said the order would help the United States beat China in dominating the burgeoning AI industry, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping did not have similar restraints.

“This will not be successful unless they have one source of approval or disapproval,” he said. “It’s got to be one source. They can’t go to 50 different sources.”

In July, the Trump administration released the AI Action Plan, an initiative aimed at reducing regulatory barriers and accelerating the growth of AI infrastructure, including data centers. Trump also has revoked Biden-era AI safety and anti-discrimination policies.

The tech industry had lobbied for Trump’s order.

“This executive order is an important step towards ensuring that smart, unified federal policy — not bureaucratic red tape — secures America’s AI dominance for generations to come,” said Amy Bos, vice president of government affairs for NetChoice, a technology trade association, in a statement to Stateline.

As the administration looks to address increasing threats to national defense and cybersecurity, a centralized, national approach to AI policy is best, said Paul Lekas, the executive vice president for global public policy and government affairs at the Software & Information Industry Association.

“The White House is very motivated to ensure that there aren’t barriers to innovation and that we can continue to move forward,” he said. “And the White House is concerned that there is state legislation that may be purporting to regulate interstate commerce. We would be creating a patchwork that would be very hard for innovation.”

Congressional Republicans tried twice this year to pass moratoriums on state AI laws, but both efforts failed.

In the absence of a comprehensive federal artificial intelligence policy, state lawmakers have worked to regulate the rapid development of AI systems and protect consumers from potential harms.

Trump’s executive order could cause concern among lawmakers who fear possible blowback from the administration for their efforts, said Travis Hall, the director for state engagement at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression.

“I can’t imagine that state legislators aren’t going to continue to try to engage with these technologies in order to help protect and respond to the concerns of their constituents,” Hall said. “However, there’s no doubt that the intent of this executive order is to chill any actual oversight, accountability or regulation.”

State rules

This year, 38 states adopted or enacted measures related to artificial intelligence, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures database. Numerous state lawmakers have also prefiled legislation for 2026.

But tensions have grown over the past few months as Trump has pushed for deregulation and states have continued to create guardrails.

In 2024, Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the nation’s first comprehensive artificial intelligence framework into law. Under the law, developers of AI systems will be required to protect consumers from potential algorithmic discrimination.

But implementation of the law was postponed a few months until June 2026 after negotiations stalled during a special legislative session this summer aiming to ensure the law did not hinder technological innovation. And a spokesperson for Polis told Bloomberg in May that the governor supported a U.S. House GOP proposal that would impose a moratorium on state AI laws.

Trump’s executive order, which mentions the Colorado law as an example of legislation the administration may challenge, has caused uncertainty among some state lawmakers focused on regulating AI. But Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone and state Sen. Robert Rodriguez, Democratic sponsors of the law, said they will continue their work.

Unless Congress passes legislation to restrict states from passing AI laws, Trump’s executive order can easily be challenged and overturned in court, she said.

“This is just a bunch of hot air,” Titone said. “It doesn’t hold any water and it doesn’t have any teeth because the president doesn’t have the authority to supersede state law. We will continue to do what we need to do for the people in our state, just like we always have, unless there is an actual preemption in federal law.”

California and Illinois also have been at the forefront of artificial intelligence legislation over the past few years. In September, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the nation’s first law establishing a comprehensive legal framework for developers of the most advanced, large-scale artificial intelligence models, known as frontier artificial intelligence models. Those efforts are aimed at preventing AI models from causing catastrophic harm involving dozens of casualties or billion-dollar damages.

California officials have said they are considering a legal challenge over Trump’s order, and other states and groups are likely to sue as well.

Republican officials and GOP-led states, including some Trump allies, also are pushing forward with AI regulations. Efforts to protect consumers from AI harms are being proposed in Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

Earlier this month, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis also unveiled a proposal for an AI Bill of Rights. The proposal aims to strengthen consumer protections related to AI and to address the growing impact data centers are having on local communities.

In South Carolina, Guffey said he plans to introduce a bill in January that would place rules on AI chatbots. Chatbots that use artificial intelligence are able to simulate conversations with users, but raise privacy and safety concerns.

Artificial intelligence is developing fast, Guffey noted. State lawmakers have been working on making sure the technology is safe to use — and they’ll keep doing that to protect their constituents, he said.

“The problem is that it’s not treated like a product — it’s treated like a service,” Guffey said. “If it was treated like a product, we have consumer protection laws where things could be recalled and adjusted and then put back out there once they’re safe. But that is not the case with any of this technology.”

Stateline reporter Madyson Fitzgerald can be reached at mfitzgerald@stateline.org.