Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed legislation that would have broadened a tax credit for businesses that invested in child care services.

A “catch-all” provision in the bill would have awarded the tax credit for “any other cost or expense incurred due to a benefit provided by an employer to facilitate the provision or utilization by employees of child care services.”

The provision “invites the possibility of a business claiming various expenses only tangentially related to child care services,” Evers wrote in his veto message, signed Friday. He added that it “significantly increases the risk of fraud” and didn’t including funding to cover the increased costs for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to ensure against employers scamming the system.

Republican lawmakers introduced the legislation, SB 291 / AB 283, in 2025 as the Evers administration and child care advocates were seeking up to $480 million in the Wisconsin 2025-27 state budget to support child care workers’ wages and avert increased child care tuition for families. The final budget included about $110 million for direct payments that expire this summer. 

The GOP measure proposed expanding the state’s Business Development Tax Credit, which since 2023 has allowed employers to get a tax credit for 15% of the capital expenditures they make for child care facilities for their employees. The original tax credit had no takers.

Child care providers were critical of the expansion proposal and argued that that it wasn’t adequate to address increased costs and reduced capacity for child care in Wisconsin.

The measure passed the Senate in November 2025 on a 19-14 vote with all but one Democrat voting against it. The Assembly concurred with the Senate bill on a 63-31 vote in February, with nine Democrats joining the GOP in favor of the bill.

In his veto message, Evers noted that he signed a bill in December, permitting employers to take the tax credit if they invest in a third party that establishes a child care program or in a revolving loan fund for that purpose. That measure, 2025 Act 78, was an example of “making smart and strategic modifications” Evers wrote.

“Unfortunately , this bill fails to do the same,” he wrote. “I am vetoing this bill in its entirety because I object to the Legislature making drastic and vague expansions to tax incentive programs without providing the necessary funding for proper implementation and the clarity necessary to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse.”

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Investor-owned utility profits have soared as consumer utility bills have skyrocketed in recent years, according to a new analysis of dozens of electricity providers.

The Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group tracking fossil fuel and utility industries, analyzed financial disclosures from 110 investor-owned electric utilities between 2021 and 2024, as well as available 2025 filings. The report, published on Thursday, does not include nonprofit electric providers such as municipal utilities or rural electric cooperatives. 

Last year, state-regulated, investor-owned electric utilities kept about 15 cents of every dollar they collected as profit, the report concluded. (For a customer paying a $200 monthly electric bill, that means about $30 went to corporate profits.) The 2025 figure is up from around 13 cents on average between 2021 and 2024, it said.

The utilities examined in the analysis reported almost $186 billion in profits between 2021 and 2024, the study concluded.

“These patterns suggest that a substantial share of what customers pay for electricity is consistently flowing to investors as profit,” the report said, “a finding that is especially significant as consumers face persistently high energy costs and financial stress.” 

The analysis found regional variation in utility profits. 

Utilities in the Southeast operating outside of organized wholesale electricity markets, where electricity is sold and bought in bulk, earned higher profits. Across Alabama, Florida, Georgia and other Southeastern states, utilities retained nearly 16% of their revenue as profit between 2021 and 2024, the report said.

By contrast, utilities in the PJM Interconnection regional market serving the mid-Atlantic averaged about 11.8%, while utilities in New York and New England reported similar or lower levels. 

The report found the utilities with the highest average margin between 2021 and 2024 were MidAmerican Energy (27.22%), Florida Power & Light (23.51%), Nantucket Electric (23.24%), Empire District Electric (22.45%) and Florida Public Utilities (20.35%). 

The analysis comes as consumer utility bills continue to outpace the rate of inflation and state lawmakers of both parties increasingly scrutinize utility prices.

A February report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association found about 1 in 6 U.S. households were behind on utility bills. That organization, which represents state employees administering federal energy assistance programs, said American households were collectively behind $25 billion on electric and gas bills at the end of 2025 — up from about $23 billion the year before.

The association said home heating costs were projected to rise by 11% this winter — more than four times the rate of inflation — reaching their highest level in at least four years amid higher electricity and natural gas prices and colder-than-average weather.

Most consumers get their electricity from utilities that must seek state approval for rate changes, with appointed or elected state boards approving price structures.

While state lawmakers, governors and regulators are increasingly questioning utility prices, the Energy and Policy Institute says states can take more action to control profits.

Thursday’s report calls for states to set lower profit rates for investor-owned utilities, scrutinize the financing of new capital investments, link utility earnings to customer results and strengthen the role of consumer advocates in rate decisions.

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

Nearly one-third of the nation’s private sector workers are covered by paid leave programs as more states require employers to provide medical and family leave, according to a new analysis released this week.

Currently, the District of Columbia and 13 states have passed laws requiring paid leave for many workers, according to a report from the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit that advocates for reproductive rights, health and economic justice, and workplace equality.

“States have shifted the paradigm now that more than 46 million workers across the U.S. are covered by paid family and medical leave programs, pointing the way forward for the rest of the country,” Jessica Mason, senior policy analyst at the organization, said in a news release. 

The programs vary in design, but generally guarantee paychecks while workers take time off for illness or to care for a child or other loved one. They’re funded through employer and employee premiums similar to unemployment insurance or payroll taxes that cover a portion of employee wages when they take leave.

The report cites research showing multistate employers often respond to local paid sick leave laws by providing paid sick leave to their workers even in places without such requirements.

This year, Delaware, Maine and Minnesota began or planned to start offering benefits through new paid leave programs. And the report cites growing momentum in six more states: Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia. If those states were to implement paid leave policies, 44% of workers nationwide would have access to paid family and medical leave, according to the analysis. 

In Virginia, lawmakers in both chambers have approved bills guaranteeing up to 12 weeks of paid family leave. While previous efforts were vetoed by former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, current Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger is expected to sign a bill once a final version makes it to her desk, the Virginia Mercury reported. 

In a January address to the legislature, Spanberger said that “being pro-business and being pro-worker are not mutually exclusive.”

“We can support business growth and invest in our workforce. We can attract new companies and protect workers. … That is why we will create a statewide paid family and medical leave program.” 

Virginia is projected to spend about $116.51 million in startup costs over the 2027 and 2028 fiscal years. By 2031, the program is expected to spend $2.1 billion per year in benefits — funded by payroll tax collections. 

Opponents frequently cite the costs of paid leave programs and the burdens they place on businesses. Last month, Virginia Republican state Del. Michael Webert said large corporations may be able to afford new costs and administrative burdens, but not smaller employers. 

“The impact will not fall evenly,” he said ahead of the House vote last month.

Across much of the Midwest and South, state laws prohibit local governments from requiring employers to provide paid sick leave. In 18 states, cities are effectively stripped of the power to enact their own labor protections.

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

Two dozen states asked a federal court to block the tariffs that President Donald Trump instituted last month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his previous tariffs. 

The lawsuit, filed in the federal Court of International Trade, aims to strike down the president’s latest attempt at imposing tariffs, calling them illegal and requesting refunds to states. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump overstepped his authority implementing sweeping tariffs last year. 

Immediately after the ruling, Trump announced a new set of tariffs based on a different law. The new tariffs use Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 and set the global tariff rate at 10%, though the administration has suggested that they intend to increase it to 15%. 

“The President is using his authority granted by Congress to address fundamental international payments problems and to deal with our country’s large and serious balance-of-payments deficits,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told States Newsroom. “The Administration will vigorously defend the President’s action in court.” 

The lawsuit contends that the statute the White House is relying on has never been put into use — and the Trump administration is applying it improperly. 

“This statute has never been used ever at all in the history of this country,” Oregon AG Dan Rayfield said on a conference call with reporters about the lawsuit. Rayfield called the law “archaic,” adding that it was originally intended to be used when the country still operated on the gold standard, which the country moved away from for a fiat system. 

In their lawsuit, the 24 states said Trump’s justification for using the law “is fatally flawed” because he redefines key terms to force the statute to authorize tariffs. Specifically, they argue, the term “balance of payments” refers to a currency crisis “that was of great concern” in the early 1970s when U.S. currency was tied directly to gold — but that doesn’t apply since the nation ended the gold standard in 1976.

Since the 1974 law was crafted to deal with issues relating to the country’s economy under a different monetary system and does not address tariffs, the AGs contend that its use is wholly illegal. 

“A trade deficit is not a ‘balance of payments’ deficit. These are not the same thing at all. The president doesn’t know the difference or he doesn’t care,” Arizona AG Kris Mayes said. “Either way, he is breaking the law again.”

The lawsuit also contends that Trump’s tariffs  violate the Constitution’s separation-of-powers principle, which was a core argument in the first tariffs lawsuit — one with which the Supreme Court agreed. 

“If he had the support of Congress, he could have legally passed his tariffs by now,” Rayfield said. “But the truth is he doesn’t have the support of Congress, nor does he have the support of the American people, and he is doing an end run.”

Although the first tariffs lawsuit took nearly a year to resolve, Mayes said the AGs are confident the recent Supreme Court ruling means they will swiftly win injunctions against the implementation of Trump’s second round of tariffs. 

“We are hoping to get a quicker decision based on the very resounding, we think, victory we achieved in the Supreme Court,” she said, adding that they are hoping for a preliminary injunction against the tariffs being implemented in the near term as the case works its way through the process. 

“I think we’re pretty confident or we would not be here,” New York AG Letitia James said, letting out a small chuckle, when asked if they believe they will be successful in this second lawsuit. 

James herself has had her own personal legal battles with Trump whose Department of Justice indicted her on two counts of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. 

The indictment was thrown out and two grand juries declined separate efforts by the DOJ to bring the charges back. 

“At the end of the day for us this is not about political gamesmanship — this is about making sure our communities don’t pay the price for President Donald Trump’s inability to take an L,” California AG Rob Bonta said. 

Attorneys general from the states of Arizona, Oregon, California and New York are leading the charge on the new lawsuit. They are  joined by the AGs of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. The governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania are also part of the new lawsuit.

The national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline topped $3 Tuesday for the first time this year, and is expected to keep going up.

The average price Tuesday was $3.11, up about 11 cents from Monday, according to AAA.

“The pump reaction is not only underway — it’s accelerating,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, which tracks prices.

Increases were already on tap even before Saturday’s U.S.-Israel strikes at Iran, as warmer weather usually means more demand and refiners start producing a summer-blend product.

But the attack adds new, powerful momentum to the price surge. The war makes it tough to forecast how long any increases will last or how big they could be. Recent experience does offer some hope that any big spike won’t last.

“While oil markets continue to react to potential tensions in the Middle East, history has shown that the price increases are temporary and quickly fall back,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist and principal at the consulting firm RSM US, on his Real Economy Blog.

President Donald Trump, speaking at a news conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday, sought to justify the strikes and said any price hikes would be temporary.

“People felt it’s something that had to be done,” he said. “So if we have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before.”

Immediate market reaction

The market reaction to the Iran war so far has been swift.

Brent crude oil, considered the global standard, topped $80 a barrel early Monday, up from the low 70s last week.

Some analysts saw prices having the potential to go as high as $100 a barrel.

“The forecasts are wide-ranging from over $100/barrel to lower prices this week on new Iraqi oil hitting the market,” said Matt McCall, founder of NXT Wave Research, an investment and market analysis firm, in a tweet. “I see a spike to start the week…and then it depends on the longevity of the war. A quick war and oil does not stay elevated. What is almost certain is volatility.”

The surge in oil prices fueled an overall slide in U.S. stock markets Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down nearly 2% around midday.

Prices up across states

The increases were felt in state after state Tuesday, according to the AAA gasoline price survey.

The nation’s lowest gasoline prices tend to be in the South, from roughly Mississippi to Texas.

The price of a gallon of regular in Oklahoma, the least expensive of any state, was $2.62 Tuesday, up from about $2.47 Monday.

Other changes in the lowest price states:

• Mississippi: $2.64 Tuesday, $2.55 Monday.
• Kansas: $2.70 Tuesday, $2.57 Monday.
• Arkansas: $2.70 Tuesday, $2.61 Monday.
• Louisiana: $2.72 Tuesday, $2.58 Monday.
• Tennessee: $2.72 Tuesday, $2.61 Monday.
• Kentucky: $2.73 Tuesday, $2.63 Monday.
• Texas: $2.74 Tuesday, $2.62 Monday.

The highest-priced gasoline tended to be in Western states. California has in recent years topped the price chart, and did again Tuesday at $4.67 per gallon, up about 1.7 cents a gallon from Monday.

California’s higher prices are the result of several special factors. It has tough environmental standards, and the state has more trouble compensating for refinery shutdown from interstate pipelines.

It’s more difficult for California to make up refinery shortages from interstate pipelines because of its location.

Other Western states have localized reasons prices stay high, and they tended to be less volatile because of the strikes. Some of the higher state averages Tuesday:

• Hawaii: $4.40 Tuesday, $4.38 Monday.
• Washington: $4.38 Tuesday, $4.37 Monday.
• Oregon: $3.95 Tuesday, $3.92 Monday.
• Nevada: $3.73 Tuesday, $3.70 Monday.

Future prices uncertain

The future path of prices depends on some huge unknowns. The biggest could involve the fate of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Iranians can exercise control. One-fifth of the world’s oil passed through there in 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The strait is “one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints,” EIA said. Iranian officials said Tuesday the strait is closed, CNBC reported.

Most Iranian oil goes to China. Canada is the top importer of U.S. oil, followed by Mexico and Saudi Arabia, according to EIA. The U.S. sells more oil than it imports.

A prolonged change in Strait of Hormuz activity, or even the threat of change, is arguably already affecting oil prices. 

“Even without a sustained blockade, the new risk of closure is already changing behavior,” De Haan said. He listed ship rerouting, war-risk insurance premiums going up and “freight markets bracing for significant cost increases.”

Bottom line, he said: “Most drivers should prepare for gradual increases this week.”

Gov. Tony Evers has written to the White House, demanding that President Donald Trump release $29 million Wisconsin was promised to complete an upgrade of the state’s unemployment insurance system.

Evers’ letter to Trump, sent Tuesday, repeatedly leans into the upgrade project as a tool for “preventing fraud, waste, and abuse in our unemployment insurance system.”

The terminated grants “were being used to efficiently and effectively reduce fraud and ensure correct payment of benefits,” Evers wrote. Referring to the justification stated in the U.S. Department of Labor’s letter in May canceling the grants, Evers added: “Notably, Wisconsin was informed that, apparently, those grants no longer effectuate the priorities of the U.S. DOL.”

Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance system upgrade was launched after major snags in the unemployment system in 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when business shutdowns spiked unemployment claims in the state. There were widespread complaints about the system, and Evers fired his first Department of Workforce Development cabinet secretary over the delays.

The Evers administration blamed the state’s computer system used for processing claims, which was based on decades-old technology, and in 2021 lawmakers authorized a major overhaul of the system.

With an $80 million grant from the federal government, part of the American Rescue Plan Act pandemic relief measure enacted in the first months of President Joe Biden’s administration, DWD proceeded with the upgrades.

“We upgraded the entire claimant portal,” DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview in August. Among a number of improvements, the upgrade made it possible for people filing an unemployment claim to send photos or digital document files to the agency, she said.

“Since modernizing the claimant portal, DWD has consistently paid 88% of regular UI claims within three days or less of the claim being filed,” states the latest quarterly report on the upgrade project. The report, under the signatures of Pechacek and Department of Administration Secretary-designee Kathy Blumenfeld, was filed with the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee Jan. 30.

Starting in September 2021, the Department of Labor awarded DWD four additional ARPA grants totaling $29 million. That included $11.25 million to modernize the UI system portal for employers; $6.3 million for fraud prevention and deduction and related modifications; $6.8 million for improved communications for UI users and $4.5 million in identity authentication and proofing and other improvements.

“The modern employer portal would improve communication between DWD and its customers for tax and wage reporting, employer information and support, responding to submitted unemployment insurance claims verification, and appeal activities all in a secure setting,” Pechacek and Blumenfeld wrote in the Jan. 30 report.

The Trump administration notified Wisconsin May 22 that the $29 million was being terminated. The letter left open the possibility of future grants

“Vendors working on UI modernization had to end their work before the product was complete,” Pechacek and Blumenfeld wrote in their report. “The Trump Administration’s decision to pull funding from UI modernization projects turned partially completed software contracts into sunk costs, effectively wasting many months and hundreds of millions of dollars nationally.”

DWD asked the Labor Department in June and July to reverse its decision, but the request was denied. In August, Evers wrote U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and again urged reinstatement of the grants.

“To be clear, if the Trump Administration does not reverse course and provide the $29 million Wisconsin expected to receive, the state will not be able to complete its UI system modernization project, which is designed to use innovative tools to help efficiently and effectively prevent benefit fraud and abuse,” Evers declared in the August letter.

Wisconsin’s appeals to the Labor Department to reconsider “have largely gone ignored,” Evers told Trump in his letter this week, with no “formal decision” from the department, nor any new grants to modernize UI systems.

“If fighting fraud is truly and earnestly a meaningful commitment of you and your administration, funding for states’ unemployment modernization projects must be restored,” Evers wrote.

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Democratic lawmakers have drafted legislation to more than double Wisconsin’s minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25  for nearly two decades.

The proposed legislation, announced Tuesday by Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and Rep. Angelina Cruz (D-Racine), would raise the wage to $15, then ramp up the minimum to $20 in four years and automatically increase the wage thereafter to keep pace with cost of living, the lawmakers said at a press conference in the Wisconsin state Capitol Tuesday.

“I ran for office to make sure working people have a voice in this Capitol,” said Cruz, a first-term member of the Assembly. “This bill is about dignity. It’s about fairness and it’s about building an economy where if you work hard in Wisconsin, you can afford to live in Wisconsin.”

With the Legislature’s current two-year session just about finished, Tuesday’s announcement was also aimed at sending a signal to voters in November about the Democrats’ policy priorities.

“We’re going to continue working for this bill, but even if it doesn’t pass this session, we know that elected officials will be held accountable this fall,” said Roys — who, in addition to being a lawmaker, is one of more than a half-dozen Democrats seeking the party’s nomination to run for governor.

17 years since last increase

The state minimum wage was raised to $7.25 17 years ago, when Roys was a first-term member of the Assembly. The bill aims to make the minimum wage a “living wage” — “the amount of money that a single person needs to earn to cover the basics of their life, housing, utilities, food, transportation and health care,” Roys said.

Based on the numbers produced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology living wage calculator, “a million Wisconsin workers earn less than a living wage,” she said, adding that even the legislation’s initial boost to $15 an hour is less than a living wage in all 72 Wisconsin counties.

“So, this bill is not only long overdue, it’s actually pretty modest compared to what people actually need to thrive,” Roys said.

The legislation would push the state minimum to $15 per hour on enactment; increase the minimum in stages to $20 per hour by 2030; and index the new minimum to the consumer price index starting in 2030, “so as the cost of living increases, people’s wages will increase with it,” Roys said.

For small businesses with 50 or fewer employees, the $20 wage would be phased in by 2035.  

“We believe in supporting workers and respecting the realities facing small businesses,” Cruz said. “Economic justice and small business stability can and must go hand-in-hand.”

The bill would also move the subminimum wage for tipped workers — now $2.33 — to $7.50 immediately and then phase it up to $10 by 2030, after which it would be tied to half the standard minimum wage, Cruz said.

In addition, the bill would repeal a Wisconsin law that currently bars local municipalities from enacting local minimum wage ordinances.

“Communities know their costs, so they should have the freedom to respond,” Cruz said.

‘Backbone of our communities’

About 800,000 Wisconsin workers are paid less than $20 an hour, Cruz said — as “home health care providers, early childhood educators, grocery workers, nursing assistants — the backbone of our communities.”

Wisconsin’s low-wage workers “are essential workers that make our society run,” Roys said. “And nowhere is a living wage more urgently needed than in rural Wisconsin, where many communities have limited employment opportunities. A handful of employers, often massive multinational corporations, can suppress wages because workers have so few alternatives.”

She argued that increasing the minimum wage will strengthen local economies by boosting the average person’s buying power

“Because when a worker in Ladysmith gets a raise, that money’s going to stay in the community in Wisconsin,” Roys said. “But when a national corporation suppresses wages in Ladysmith, those profits go to shareholders in Arkansas or the Cayman Islands. This legislation is an economic development bill for Wisconsin.”

 The band of Democratic lawmakers who joined the news conference were outnumbered by a crowd of service workers in red shirts, most of them members of the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers union — MASH.

“This bill is about making sure that there’s some more power in the market for workers so we all can make a living wage,” said Troy Brewer, a lead cook at the Fiserv Forum sports arena in Milwaukee and a MASH union steward.

Service workers across the state “are withheld access to economic security, while our jobs continue to act as the backbone to our economy,” said Sabrina Prochaska, a shift leader at Anodyne Coffee in Milwaukee, where the union is negotiating its first contract. “The problem is not our jobs, but rather these jobs do not pay a livable wage. It’s not right and we’re done accepting it.”

The legislation also has the backing of a wide range of unions and allied groups. Many of the same organizations joined with MASH at an event in September to launch their demand for a $20 minimum wage.

Rebuilding the New Deal

Peter Rickman, the president and business agent for MASH, said the legislation is part of a larger mission — to reverse the erosion of the New Deal reforms that were enacted in the 1930s.

Rickman said in that era, a coalition that was led by Democrats but included some Republicans helped build the American middle class by fostering collective bargaining and union rights, and by setting a minimum wage.

The minimum wage was intended as a wage floor that would allow people to make a living, he said.

“It was never intended to be a poverty pay for those folks. It was intended to move the whole labor market. That is how we gave birth to the world’s first middle class,” Rickman said. “We built it with public policy. Politicians took the side of working people and said, ‘We are going to make this labor market work for the working class.’”

He said those policies have been dismantled by “another bipartisan coalition — too many Democrats but mostly Republicans,” which pushed wealth up instead of spreading it among workers.

“The greatest redistribution in the history of the world happened: $79 trillion dollars from worker paychecks went to corporate profits,” Rickman said, citing a Rand Corp. study.

The bill was unveiled days after the Wisconsin Assembly concluded its active lawmaking for the Legislature’s current two-year period. The state Senate is expected to follow suit in a few weeks.

Roys, however, appeared unperturbed by the suggestion that the timing would make its enactment this year unlikely. She noted that the impending wrap-up was the work of the Legislature’s Republican leaders, not a requirement

“Republicans choosing to go home and take a 10-month vacation so that they campaign for re-election is a choice that they are making,” Roys said. “They don’t have to. We could come to work every single day for the rest of the year, just like the workers that are standing up here do.”

She said the session’s end won’t stop proponents from talking up the bill. “Maybe this is the last bill of 2025,” Roys said. “And maybe it’s the first law of 2027.”

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Staff members at two Wisconsin mental health clinics are seeking union representation after what some employees describe as policy changes that have increased client caseloads and reduced one-on-one care for clients.

The clinics — one in Madison and one in West Allis — are owned by Wisconsin-based Rogers Behavioral Health. The Oconomowoc-based nonprofit organization operates a network of mental health hospitals, residential treatment clinics and outpatient clinics in 10 states.

Starting Monday, officials with the National Labor Relations Board will hold a hearing in Milwaukee to set union election dates for 63 employees in West Allis and 35 in Madison.

The hearing is expected to take up to three days, according to documents filed with the NLRB by a lawyer representing Rogers. The case will entail “extensive testimonial and documentary evidence” about which employees at each location should be included in the vote, the attorney stated in a motion to schedule the hearing and reserve the dates.

Workers at the West Allis and Madison locations want to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The California-based NUHW already represents Rogers employees at three locations in California as well as one in Pennsylvania.

Three employees at the West Allis clinic have been fired, according to the union, which has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB. The union is accusing Rogers of violating federal labor law by retaliating against the terminated health professionals for supporting the union.

The Wisconsin Examiner sent email messages to Rogers Friday morning, Feb. 20, seeking comment about the union drive, and at the invitation of the organization’s communications office sent five questions Friday afternoon. Rogers has not responded; this report will be updated with comments Rogers supplies.

Clinic employees cite increased caseloads

Employees involved in the union drive said in interviews that they and their colleagues enjoyed their jobs and caring for their patients. But recent changes, they said, have made their work more difficult and didn’t benefit patients.

“When I first started, people were pretty happy and satisfied with their roles,” said T’Anna Holst, a therapist who works at the West Allis clinic. “As time goes on, caseloads kept increasing for therapists.”

Other program changes reduced patients’ ability to have individual time with their clinicians, which “was really unfortunate for us, but also for the patients, who were expecting that when they come to our program,” Holst said.

“All of the changes were about increasing the number of patients that were coming into the building,” said Stephanie Lohman, a nurse practitioner. “It did not seem to have a cohesive plan and no plan would be communicated.”

Lohman said she is one of the three employees fired from the West Allis clinic, and that her termination came the Monday after she and nearly a dozen other coworkers had presented a petition seeking union recognition. When she directly asked the upper level executive who fired her, she said, she was explicitly told  she was being dismissed “without cause.”

“Our local leaders, including my direct boss, were not aware this was happening,” Lohman said, adding that she was not given time to prepare notes in order to transfer coverage for the patients in her care.

Patient advocacy

At the Madison clinic, Erin Quinlan is a behavioral specialist whose job includes assisting therapists and helping to conduct group therapy sessions.

“The people that I work with are incredible,” Quinlan said. “They care very, very deeply about the work that they do and having a positive impact on the lives of patients.”

After she was hired in July 2024, “Caseloads increased and individual time with patients was decreasing,” Quinlan said. “I just became concerned about how that was impacting our being able to support those patients.”

Coworkers shared those concerns, she said.

Employees said they were left with the impression that the changes that concerned them were coming from higher up in the organization’s hierarchy, not their local managers.

Lohman said that in measuring staff productivity, the organization moved to relying on “metrics like visits per day.” That replaced a system that took into account that some patients needed more time than others, she said.

Increased caseloads were presented as ways to increase the number of patients being served, Lohman said, but instead, employees were working “to their maximum capacity, ignoring actual patient or worker needs.”

At the clinic level, “Rogers is run by caring professionals,” she said. “Despite the corporate push to do metric care, patient-centered care continues to be done.”

All three employees said they and their coworkers believed forming a union and being able to bargain collectively would give them a stronger voice as advocates for their patients.

“I take being an advocate and speaking up as a very important part of my job,” Quinlan said. She added that she routinely sought to raise concerns with “anyone who would listen, including management.”

She said she got no response, however. “It was because I didn’t really see any return communication, that was when I made the decision to go to the union,” Quinlan said.

Both the Madison and West Allis groups initially petitioned for Rogers to voluntarily recognize the union, citing large majorities of supporters. The organization rejected those requests, and union supporters then sent petitions for elections to the NLRB.

Union represents other Rogers workers

The NUHW grew out of a California health care union that was founded in the 1930s and subsequently joined what would later become the Service Employees International Union. After an acrimonious split from SEIU in 2009, the National Union of Healthcare Workers formed as an independent union.

An unsigned memo from the organization urging employees to vote against the union was briefly posted at the Madison clinic in the days after members petitioned for union representation Jan. 23. The Wisconsin Examiner obtained a photograph of the memo, which employees said was later taken down.

The memo describes the union as having “no experience or connection in Wisconsin.” It does not state that Rogers employees in four other U.S. clinics are now represented by the union.

Employees at a Rogers mental health and addiction services clinic in Walnut Creek, California, voted for the union to represent them in 2023 and settled a first contract in 2024.

“It’s an excellent contract,” said NUHW’s communications director, Matt Artz, and included “substantial salary increases and caseload limits,” according to the union’s website.

After employees at Rogers clinics in Los Angeles and San Diego petitioned for union representation, the union was recognized voluntarily at those locations, which then negotiated contracts similar to the agreement at Walnut Creek, Artz said. In December 2025, a Rogers clinic in Philadelphia also voluntarily recognized the union after being petitioned by employees there. 

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U.S. jobs increased by 130,000 in January, buoyed by hires in health care, social assistance and construction.

But in another sign of anemic hiring last year, estimates for 2025 were revised down by more than a million jobs to a level of low growth rarely seen outside of recessions. 

The revisions show the United States added only 181,000 jobs last year — the first year of the new Trump administration — one of the lowest increases ever outside recessions. 

Jobs dropped in 2020 at the height of the pandemic and in 2008-2009 in the Great Recession, but otherwise the last time was a lower increase in jobs was in 2003, when they rose 124,000 after two years of decreases, during a period labeled a “jobless recovery” by economists.  

Economist Claudia Sahm, who had predicted 2025 would be “a year without jobs, but no recession” before the annual revisions based on more complete data, said Wednesday that “the downward revisions are huge” in an X post.

The new revisions changed the most for January 2025, which went from a gain of 111,000 to a loss of 48,000 jobs. Only one month, October, saw an upward revision: A reported loss of 173,000 jobs was trimmed to a loss of 140,000 jobs. There are now four months of job losses reported last year, up from three. 

Overall, the number of total U.S. jobs at the end of the year was revised down by 1,029,000, from a little more than 159.5 million to a little less than 158.5 million. 

State by state jobs estimates for January are not yet available. 

There have been about 29,000 layoffs announced so far in 2026,according to notices tracked by WARN Tracker. They include 7,705 layoffs in California, 6,109 in New Jersey, 3,999 in Pennsylvania, 3,483 in Washington state and 2,607 in Texas. 

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

A child labor investigation that uncovered more than 1,600 violations of Wisconsin law at more than 100 Burger King restaurants was probably the largest case of its kind in the state’s history, according to the head of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. 

DWD has ordered Chicago-based Cave Enterprises to pay more than 600 Wisconsin teens back pay as well as damages totaling $237,436. The company owes the state an additional $828,000, according to DWD — $500 for every one of the 1,656 violations uncovered in an extensive audit of the company’s payroll and employment records.

The company has until Feb. 25 to pay the back wages and penalties, although it also has the option of challenging DWD’s actions in court. 

Cave Enterprises has not responded to requests for comment about DWD’s audit findings, which the department announced Friday.

State alleges child labor violations at more than 100 Wisconsin Burger Kings owned by one firm

Amy Pechacek, the department’s secretary-designee, said in an interview after the agency announced the results of its investigation that the case was the largest one DWD could document. 

“Since the records are somewhat limited in terms of going back several decades, we just chose to be safe and said this was the largest violation we have in modern history,” Pechacek said. 

Cave Enterprises received a formal letter notifying it of the investigation findings on Thursday, according to DWD. But in the months before, there were repeated communications between DWD auditors and management personnel for the company, Pechacek told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The investigation was triggered by a series of complaints DWD’s Equal Rights Division received in 2024, Pechacek said. The division’s responsibilities include enforcing Wisconsin’s child labor and wage laws. 

Pattern of company behavior

The complaints in 2024 prompted investigators to look back through department records. Investigators turned up 33 previous complaints in the years since 2020. Pechacek said those complaints were resolved individually.

The number of complaints, however, showed investigators a disturbing pattern in “how this employer interacts with its minor-age workforce,” Pechacek said. “And due to that, they then said, this warrants a very deep-dive, intensive audit about their practices as it relates to employing minors here in the state of Wisconsin.”

DWD has 25 auditors who review workforce practices in response to complaints, eight of them focusing on minors. 

“So this was a large undertaking,” Pechacek said of the Cave Enterprises review. “They poured their heart and soul into this, and we’re just really proud of that work and what this means in terms of making sure our youth can engage and work in a meaningful and safe way in our state.”

The audit showed that the problems weren’t confined to just a handful of the more than 100 Burger King locations that Cave owned between 2023 and 2025, the audit’s time span. There were violations found at 103 of the company’s stores, according to DWD. 

Work permits underscore child labor rules

In the letter to Cave detailing the audit findings, DWD reported that 593 14- and 15-year-olds started work without required work permits — 84% of the company’s employees in that age group, according to the agency. At a Green Bay Burger King, one teen started working at the age of 13, auditors reported — too young for that work under Wisconsin law.

In 2024, Republican majorities in both houses of the state Legislature passed bills that would have repealed Wisconsin’s work-permit requirement for 14- and 15-year-olds. Supporters of the repeal argued they amounted to a needless bureaucratic roadblock and discouraged young people from working. 

Democrats opposed the bill and Gov. Tony Evers vetoed it. Pechacek said cases like the audit of Cave Enterprises demonstrate the value of the work permit requirement. 

“Every time a permit is even requested for a minor child, there is an explanation of obligations that are sent to the employer as it relates to child labor laws,” Pechacek said. Those informational documents list Wisconsin’s wage and hour laws, the requirements for breaks and the restrictions on what machines minors can operate under state law. The parents, who must sign the work permit, get the same information.

“We want to be able to allow youth to participate in a safe manner that doesn’t impact or impair their ability to still go to school and still be children, but also help out our local economies and our businesses,” Pechacek said. “These duties of the employer and the rights of the minor-aged worker are continually enforced and communicated throughout the process.” 

The widespread lack of work permits at the Cave Burger Kings means that neither the employer nor the teenage workers would have received that communication at hiring. Despite that, each of the previous 33 complaints would have resulted “in another explanation of the law throughout the complaint process,” Pechacek said. “So there are many opportunities for this employer — and for every employer — to get it right.”

The audit also found 627 workers 17 or younger — 45% of the company’s minor employees — who worked longer than six hours without a required 30-minute meal break. 

“All minor employees under the age of 18 must have a 30-minute, duty-free break during shifts of six or more consecutive hours,” states the DWD audit report sent to Cave management. “Multiple shorter breaks totaling 30 minutes are not a lawful substitute for the required 30-minute break.”

Breaks that are less than 30 minutes must be paid under Wisconsin law, regardless of the worker’s age, the DWD report states. Unpaid breaks must be at least 30 minutes, with no duties during that time and with the employee free to leave the worksite.

“We found multiple instances of employees taking unpaid breaks of less than 30 minutes in length,” the DWD letter states — one of the reasons for back pay owed to teen workers. 

Large Wisconsin footprint

The Cave Enterprises website states the company currently owns 100 Wisconsin restaurants and that it has the largest number of Burger King franchises under a single owner in the country. The company also operates 77 Burger King franchises in seven other states. 

The company’s list of Wisconsin locations has 105 restaurants, but internet search results for three of them — two in Milwaukee and one in Waukesha — describe them as permanently closed. 

The Wisconsin Examiner’s review Friday of a job portal on the company website showed 379 openings at the company’s Wisconsin Burger King locations. 

Pechacek acknowledged that filling job openings has been a stiff challenge for employers for years.

“We know that youth are a very important part of our workforce, especially during worker shortages,” Pechacek said. “There is no excuse ever to violate labor laws — especially when it comes to protecting our youth, but for any worker.”

DWD has an outreach operation and can send personnel to help train employers about the ins and outs of state and federal child labor regulations. The department has videos available online along with other information in plain language, she said.

“We aren’t here just to be a compliance arm. We would rather have this conversation before any type of laws are violated and before anybody’s rights are infringed on,” Pechacek said.

“So there are many opportunities for education and compliance before forfeitures and penalties even come into play — or large-scale audits. And we are always available to have those conversations with any employer and any minor-aged child or parent who is unclear about what the rules are.”

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Democrats hoping to end GOP control of the state Legislature and Congress are stepping up their argument that the administration of President Donald Trump along with Republican majorities in both the U.S. and Wisconsin capitols have driven up costs for average members of the public.

On Monday, an advocacy group that opposes the Trump administration released a six-page document that focuses on Wisconsin examples of higher costs across the board, from groceries to utilities to health care. The report, from Defend America Action, draws on news reports, government data and polling to argue that federal policies “are ripping away Wisconsinites’ economic security.”

The opening page of the document — signed by five state Senate Democrats and Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski — declares, “Between his massive cuts to government spending, the Trump-GOP Big, Ugly Bill, and his disastrous tariff regime, Trump’s agenda is hurting the local economy in all areas, stoking a dire affordability crisis as food prices, energy bills, health care costs, and housing costs spike.”

“What I am hearing in the district every day is that ‘Everything is getting more expensive. I am working more and I am getting less in return,’” state Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), one of the signers, told the Wisconsin Examiner via email.

“The common theme here is who is looking out for them,” Drake said. “Trump and the Republican Party are praising higher stocks, but that investment is not trickling down to working families, and they are paying the price.”

Combining the answers of people who are “very concerned” and “somewhat concerned,” the report cites the finding that 89% of people who answered a Marquette Law School poll released Oct. 29, 2025, were worried about the state of the economy. The poll also found 95% of those surveyed were concerned about inflation.

The same poll found that 80% of Wisconsin voters surveyed were concerned about housing affordability, including 53% who answered that they were “very concerned.”

The October poll was the most recent from Marquette Law School focusing on Wisconsin’s 2026 elections and voter issues. (Two subsequent Marquette poll reports, in early November and late January, surveyed national samples on national issues, focusing on the U.S. Supreme Court.)

The report marshals data from across nearly all sectors of the economy. It cites the persistence of higher grocery prices and increases in health insurance premiums, particularly for people who buy their own coverage through the HealthCare.gov marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act.

Enhanced subsidies to lower the cost of those premiums expired at the end of 2025. A bill to extend them for another three years has passed the U.S. House but has been stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska), who also signed the report, said in an interview that he recently heard from a farmer in his district whose insurance through the marketplace, which used to cost $50 per month last year, is now $500 per month due to the loss of the subsidies.

“It went from $600 a year, I guess, to $6,000,” Pfaff said. Referring to the federal government’s decision to end enhanced subsidies, he added, “When we are telling the self-employed and those at small businesses that purchase their health insurance though the marketplace that, you know what, we’re not going to do that anymore because of partisan politics, that causes real consternation.”

The report also cites recent data showing a cooling job market and cuts to clean energy projects that had been initiated under President Joe Biden. It blames agricultural economic turmoil on see-sawing tariffs as well as, in some sectors, the Trump administration’s focus on deporting immigrants.

Farmers “are being squeezed on both ends,” Pfaff said, with the rising costs for seed, fertilizer, machinery repairs and other inputs.

“When farmers need certainty, you add on top of that the fact that they continue to struggle to move their crop commodities in the marketplace because of this ping pong that’s being played at the national level by the White House when it comes to trade policy,” Pfaff said. “When you have a situation in which grocery prices are rising, but yet farmers struggle in order to put a crop in the ground, there’s something wrong.”

The Defend America Action report pins responsibility for other impending cost increases on the 2025 federal tax- and spending-cut bill that Republicans in Congress passed and Trump signed in July. The bill rolled back clean energy tax credits enacted in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and also made changes to Medicaid and to the federal Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP).

A clean energy advocacy organization has estimated that canceling clean energy tax credits will raise utility costs for Wisconsin consumers by 13% to 22%. Gov  Tony Evers has projected Medicaid changes could cost Wisconsin $284 million.

A separate report Feb. 3 from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that overall the megabill — referred to by Trump and Republican authors as  the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — “will redistribute trillions of dollars upward over the next decade, making it harder for families with modest incomes to meet their basic needs while helping those at the top accumulate more wealth.”

The bill cuts taxes by $4.5 trillion, primarily benefiting the wealthiest households, the CBBP reported. The bottom 20% of households by income “will lose more from the cuts in health coverage, food assistance, and other programs than they will gain in tax cuts,” the CBPP said, citing Congressional Budget Office data. 

For the bottom 10% of earners, average household incomes will fall by $1,200, or 3.1%, the report said, and the top 10% of earners  will see their household incomes rise by $13,600 on average, or 2.7%.

Drake told the Wisconsin Examiner that she believes the Trump administration’s actions attacking democracy and targeting immigrants are aimed at distracting people from policies that redistribute wealth upwards.

“Affordability is the underlying issue affecting everyone regardless of who you are,” said Drake. “Instead of helping people and holding those with the most power accountable, he wants Americans to blame our neighbors and communities of different backgrounds for the reasoning behind their struggles.” 

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A Madison Burger King owned by Cave Enterprises of Chicago. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development has found more than 1,600 violations of state child labor laws by Cave, which owns 100 Burger King outlets in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

This report has been updated.

The owner of more than 100 Wisconsin Burger King franchises will be required to pay more than $1 million after Wisconsin’s labor department found more than 1,600 violations of state child labor and wage laws, officials said Friday.

The violations took place during a two-year period ending in January 2025, the state Department of Workforce Development reported. The case involves the largest number of child labor and wage payment violations identified by the department “in modern Wisconsin history,” according to the office of Gov. Tony Evers.

“We have a responsibility to make sure kids who are working are protected from exploitation, predatory employer practices, and being subjected to hazardous or illegal working conditions, and that’s a responsibility we must take seriously,” Evers said in a statement released Friday.

The franchise owner, Chicago-based Cave Enterprises, operates Burger King locations in eight states, according to the Cave Enterprises website. Wisconsin has 100 of those restaurants currently — more than any of the other states.

On Thursday, DWD informed Cave that investigators reviewed records from the company from January 2023 to January 2025.

A  letter from DWD to Cave states that the company:

• Employed 593 14- and 15-year-olds who started work without required work permits;
• Failed to provide a required 30-minute meal break for 627 minors who worked at least one shift of six hours or longer without a break;
• Failed to pay required overtime to 67 workers who were 16 or 17 and who worked at least one shift longer than 10 hours — after which state law requires payment at time and a half;
• Violated state requirements on permitted work hours for 369 minors. 

DWD “counted violations of Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws by counting only one violation per child per type of violation found,” the department stated in a cover letter accompanying the notification of violations. By that count, “Employer violated Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws and related regulations at least 1,656 times during the investigative period.”

DWD told Cave the company owes the employees a total of $3,498 in back wages, $1,994 in unpaid overtime wages, and $231,944 in wage penalties — liquidated damages amounting to 200% of the wage shortfall. 

Cave also must “immediately change its business practices to ensure that it is no longer in violation of Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws and related regulations which were found to be violated,” the investigation report states.

The cover letter states Cave also must pay DWD a direct penalty of $828,000 — $500 for each of the 1,656 violations, according to the department. The company must make the payments within 20 days to resolve the case.

Cave has not replied to an email message from the Wisconsin Examiner sent Friday to the company’s human resources manager seeking comment on the DWD’s findings.

DWD launched the investigation after receiving several complaints in 2024 and subsequently reviewing department records, which produced 33 previous complaints against the business for wage payment and child labor violations from 2020 through 2023.

Those complaints were resolved individually, DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview Friday.

But they also pointed to a larger pattern in “how this employer interacts with its minor-aged workforce,” Pechacek said. Investigators decided that “this warrants a very deep-dive, intensive audit about their practices as it relates to employing minors here in the state of Wisconsin.”

On Jan. 23, 2025, DWD requested records from Cave on the company’s employment of minors younger than 18 going back to Jan. 1, 2023. The records started coming in on March 4, 2025, with the last batch received Nov. 11, 2025, according to DWD.

DWD’s auditors “literally reviewed thousands and thousands and thousands of records for months,” Pechaeck said.

The DWD letters to the company state that both the payments for the employees, which must be made with individual checks for each worker, and the penalty that is owed to the state must be sent to DWD’s Equal Rights Division, which investigates child labor  and other workplace violations.

In 2024, Evers vetoed a bill passed by Republicans in the Legislature that would have eliminated a requirement that 14- and 15-year-olds in Wisconsin have a work permit approved by their parents in order to take a job.

The legislation was supported by Wisconsin Independent Business and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, according to lobbying records posted by the Wisconsin Ethics Commission.

It was also promoted by the Opportunity Solutions Project, the lobbying arm of the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, which Wisconsin Watch reported had gotten “attention for its successful drive to relax child labor restrictions in Iowa and Arkansas.”

“After years of Republican lawmakers working to get rid of Wisconsin’s basic child labor law protections, I’m proud my administration is working to do the opposite by making sure bad actors are held accountable for taking advantage of kids in the workplace,” Evers said Friday.

When DWD issues work permits, it also sends employers letters informing them about the details of Wisconsin’s child labor regulations, including the limits on hours of work and requirements such as the one for paid meal breaks after six hours of work. 

“It’s just not in the best interest of the youth, our families, or even the business to be using workers and youth workers in a way that again is really going to potentially impact their success in other areas that we want them to be protected in,” Pechacek said. 

“We have to put some guard rails around utilizing youth workforce so that we can protect them,” she added. “That also protects the businesses. These kids are going to school all day. They need breaks. They need to be able to focus on also being a kid.”

Cave was founded in 1999 by Adam Velarde with a Burger King outlet in Lemont, Illinois, and grew to be the largest group of Burger King franchises with a single owner, according to the company website.

“The majority of Cave’s growth has been through purchasing distressed restaurants and improving the value of the location and brand through hard work, smart decisions and dedication to the guests,” the company states. “We pride ourselves on being leaders in the Burger King Brand in traffic and profit growth.”

While the investigation found minors employed at 104 Wisconsin locations that Cave owned, the company’s current list of 100 locations would appear to suggest that Cave closed or divested at least four restaurants sometime in the last three years.

Cave also operates four locations in Iowa, 28 in Illinois, one in Indiana, eight in  Michigan, 13 in Minnesota, one in Nebraska and 22 in South Dakota. 

This report was updated Friday following an interview with DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek.