The Supreme Court on Friday said it would take up a new religious rights case over whether a Catholic charitable organization must pay Wisconsin’s unemployment tax.
The justices will review a divided state Supreme Court ruling that refused to grant an exemption to the Catholic Charities Bureau, based in Superior, Wisconsin. The state court ruled that the work of Catholic Charities and four related organizations is primarily not religious, although it found that the motivation to help older, disabled and low-income people stems from Catholic teachings.
The case probably will be argued in the spring.
The Supreme Court in recent years has issued an unbroken string of decisions siding with churches and religious plaintiffs in disputes with states.
Lawyers for the Wisconsin groups argued to the court that the decision violates religious freedoms protected by the First Amendment. They also said the court should step in to resolve conflicting rulings by several top state courts on the same issue.
“Wisconsin is trying to make sure no good deed goes unpunished. Penalizing Catholic Charities for serving Catholics and non-Catholics alike is ridiculous and wrong,” Eric Rassbach, the lead lawyer for Catholic Charities at the Supreme Court, said in a statement.
Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul had urged the high court to stay out of the case, arguing that much of the groups’ funding comes from state and local governments, and the joint federal and state Medicaid program.
Employees don’t have to be Catholic and “people receiving services from these organizations receive no religious training or orientation,” Kaul wrote.
Catholic Charities has paid the unemployment tax since 1972, he wrote.
Wisconsin exempts church-controlled organizations from the tax if they are “operated primarily for religious purposes.” The state high court ruled that both the motivations and the activities have to be religious for organizations to avoid paying the tax.
A group of religious scholars, backing Catholic Charities, told the court that “the case involves governmental interference with religious liberty” that warrants the justices’ intervention.
Catholic, Islamic, Lutheran, Jewish and Mormon organizations also filed briefs in support of Catholic Charities.
At the state Supreme Court, the Freedom from Religion Foundation argued that a ruling for Catholic Charities would extend to religiously affiliated hospitals and some colleges across Wisconsin, potentially taking their employees out of the state unemployment insurance system.
Catholic Charities in Superior manages nonprofit organizations that run more than 60 programs designed to help older or disabled people, children with special needs, low-income families, and people suffering from disasters, regardless of their religion, according to court documents.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Boeing workers gather on a picket line near the entrance to a Boeing facility on Oct. 24 in Seattle. The strike ended with a deal in November. Those workers returning to the job factored into growth reported in the latest labor report. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)
The economy added 227,000 jobs in November, making for a strong jobs report despite a slight increase in the unemployment rate. Although the labor market has cooled this year, the Trump administration stands to inherit a fairly healthy labor market, with decent job growth across many sectors.
The number of jobs was bolstered by the return of striking workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Employment in transportation equipment manufacturing rose by 32,000 jobs. Boeing machinists who went on strike in September seeking higher pay and better retirement benefits reached a deal in November.
The agency also revised up the number of jobs added in the October and September reports by 56,000 jobs combined.
Although the unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1% to 4.2%, the economy is looking strong, particularly when you look at gross domestic product, said Louise Sheiner, with the nonpartisan Brookings Institution.
“It’s been remarkably strong. If you look at what the Congressional Budget Office projected the level of real GDP before the pandemic, it’s higher now. We’ve just had a really strong economy,” said Sheiner, who focuses on fiscal policy.
Although she said the labor market has been slowing a little, it’s still healthy.
Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said the three-month average of job growth at 173,000 jobs shows a fairly strong labor market.
Employment in health care and government, including state government employment, continued to add jobs. Leisure and hospitality added 53,000 jobs and food services and drinking places added 29,000 jobs.
Gould said she is keeping an eye on the employment-to-population ratio, a measure of workers employed versus the working-age population. The measure is down 0.6 percentage point over the year.
“Let’s pay attention to that and see where that goes,” she said. “We were at a pretty nice high this summer that has come down a bit.”
Economists will also keep an eye on demographic data changes in the next jobs report. The unemployment rate for Black men jumped from 5.7% to 6% and the unemployment rate for Black women increased from 4.9% to 6%. Economists and policy experts said that although they will be watching these numbers, they don’t think the higher unemployment rate for Black people will necessarily continue. The month-to-month data can be volatile and may not point to a broader trend, they said.
“The Black unemployment rate jumped to 6.4% which is the highest since March and then looking at Black women, we saw their unemployment rate jumped to 6% which is the highest that we’ve seen in 2.5 years,” said Clara Wilson, senior policy analyst at the Groundwork Collaborative, a left-of-center economic think tank. “However, the spike in Black unemployment is something to always keep a track of because if we continue to see a rise in Black unemployment that typically is a warning signal canary in the coal mine that there could be further weakening in the labor market down the line.”
Retail jobs fell by 28,000, with a loss of 15,000 in general merchandise and 4,000 in electronics and appliance retailers.
“I’m not particularly concerned about it because it can be due to the fact that it was just a late Thanksgiving this year, so that holiday hiring may not have happened during the reference period in the same way,” Gould said.
Average hourly earnings rose 0.4%, the same as October, and 4% over the past year. Although some economists say the Federal Reserve would like to see wages come down to help it meet its 2% target for inflation, Wilson said higher wages are an indication that workers are benefiting from the current economy. She said she’s worried that the Trump administration will undo some of the economic progress she said has been made from the Biden administration’s major legislation.
“It’s really important to remember that real people are behind the data and the strong labor market propels more opportunities for workers and ensures families have higher wages and that leads to a stronger economy. Policymakers should take those lessons that we’ve learned from those strong public investments and sustain that progress,” Wilson said.
Kristie Hilliard opened her new shop, Kristie Kandies, in downtown Rocky Mount, N.C., after getting tired of her factory job at the local Pfizer plant. She’s seen a steady flow of customers, but says she’s doesn’t think either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump would change her economic fortunes. (Kevin Hardy/Stateline)
Editor’s note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these “swing states” may decide the future of the country.
7 States + 5 Issues That Will Swing the 2024 Election
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — The signs on the empty historic buildings envision an urban utopia of sorts, complete with street cafes, bustling bike lanes and a grocery co-op.
“IMAGINE What Could Be Here,” gushes one sign outside the empty, Neoclassical post office. “IMAGINE! A Vibrant Downtown,” reads another mounted on the glass front of a long-ago closed drug store.
In a place like Rocky Mount, North Carolina, it’s not such a stretch: Just across the street, white-collar workers peck away at laptops and sip lattes at a bright coffee bar lined with dozens of potted tropical plants. A few blocks away, a mammoth events center routinely brings in thousands of visitors from across the country. And alongside a quiet river nearby, a meticulously redeveloped cotton mill would be the envy of any American city, with its modern breweries, restaurants and loft living.
An industrial community long in decline, Rocky Mount is slowly building itself back. But in this city of about 54,000, sharply divided by race and class, many residents struggle to cover the basic costs of groceries, housing and child care.
North Carolina reflects the duality of the American economy: Unemployment is low, jobs are increasing and businesses are opening new factories. But high housing and food costs have squeezed middle-class residents despite the gains of rising wages.
“The economy stinks,” said Tameika Horne, who owns an ice cream and dessert shop in Rocky Mount.
Her ingredient prices have skyrocketed, she said, but she can’t continuously raise prices on ice cream cones or funnel cakes. She said last month was her slowest ever, with only $2,000 in sales.
It’s not just the slow sales at her store: Only a few years ago, she paid $700 a month to rent a three-bedroom apartment. Now, her similarly sized rental home costs her $1,350 a month.
Aside from the ice cream shop, Horne also runs a cleaning business with her family and just started a job delivering packages for FedEx.
“It’s just hard right now,” she said.
The economy, a top issue for voters during any election, is particularly important this presidential cycle: Prices of necessities such as groceries aren’t rising as fast as they were, but years of post-pandemic inflation have soured voter attitudes.
And across the country, millions of families are struggling with rising housing costs. In four of the seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada — more than half of tenant families spend 30% or more of their income on rent and utilities, according to the 2023 American Community Survey.
In North Carolina, voter anxiety about the soaring rents and grocery bills could tip the scales.
“In terms of its political influence, it’s not actually your personal financial situation that is important, it’s your vision of the national economy,” said Matt Grossmann, a political science professor at Michigan State University. “So if I get a raise, I tend to credit myself. If I see higher prices, I tend to blame the government or the current situation.”
Around the corner from Horne’s ice cream store in downtown Rocky Mount, Kristie Hilliard greets a steady flow of customers to her new shop, Kristie Kandies. An armed cop, a nurse in scrubs and waist-high kids trickle in to grab a sweet treat.
After getting tired of her manufacturing job at the local Pfizer plant, Hilliard started making confections at home. As her following grew, she got a concession trailer and now has a storefront selling candied grapes, plums, kiwis and pickles.
Hilliard’s treats have attracted attention on social media, causing some buyers to drive in from as far away as Pennsylvania, she said.
A Democrat, she said she still hadn’t made up her mind on the presidential race. But she doesn’t believe either a Harris or a Trump administration would drastically change much for her business.
“They ain’t doing nothing for me now,” she said. “So, what would change?”
A community divided looks to the future
About 60 miles northeast of the state capital, Rocky Mount lies between the prosperous Research Triangle area and North Carolina’s scenic beach communities.
Railroad tracks and a county line slice through the middle of downtown. On the one side is the majority Black and lower-income Edgecombe County. On the other, the more prosperous and whiter Nash County.
While some officials say long-standing attitudes centered on division are fading, the county line has for decades provided a clear delineation of class, race and politics.
Edgecombe County is a Democratic stronghold, but the more populous Nash County is a bellwether of sorts. It was among the 10 closest of North Carolina’s 100 counties in the last presidential election, and one being closely watched this cycle. With 51,774 ballots cast, President Joe Biden took Nash County by 120 votes.
Around Rocky Mount’s downtown area, stately red brick churches and banks line the wide streets. But just a few blocks away, weeds overtake vacant lots, glass is smashed out of abandoned buildings, and razor wire tops the fencing of no-credit-needed car lots and used tire shops.
While the nearby Raleigh metro area has experienced explosive suburban growth, Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson said his community has seen an erosion of its middle class with the loss of corporate headquarters and factory jobs.
But he’s optimistic.
Young business owners are investing in downtown. Industries with operations in the Raleigh area are moving east. And both Republicans and Democrats just celebrated the news that Natron Energy plans to build a $1.4 billion electric vehicle battery plant nearby that will employ more than 1,000 people.
“We’ve got a lot of great things that are happening,” the mayor said. “But the key is, how do you build and retain a middle class? Because that’s who does the living and the dying and the investing in a community.”
The mayor’s position is nonpartisan, but Roberson is a Republican who in 2022 ran in the Republican primary for a congressional seat here. This election, however, is a difficult one for him.
Roberson said the economy and his financial position were unquestionably better during Trump’s term, but the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the chaos of the last Trump presidency make him hard to support. At the same time, Roberson worries about Harris’ economic policies; he believes the current administration has accelerated inflation by pumping too much money into the economy.
“At some levels, it feels like I’m voting for somebody who wants to either be a dictator or somebody who wants to create a socialist state,” Roberson said. “And I’m not in either place.”
‘Nobody is immune’
In North Carolina and other swing states, Trump’s television ads hammer the vice president over high prices and “Bidenomics.”
Nash County Republican Party volunteer Yvonne McLeod said the economy, along with immigration, are the top concerns locally. Businesses still struggle to hire, rents have soared and food prices are still up, she said.
“Economically, we’re hurting,” she said.
Democrats must be honest about the financial pressures facing voters, said Cassandra Conover, a former Virginia prosecutor who now leads the Nash County Democratic Party. She noted that Harris ads running in North Carolina speak directly to middle-class concerns.
“Nobody is immune from what’s going on,” Conover said. “She’s telling all of us who are hurting, ‘I know, and we’re working for you.’”
Polling has shown voters are sour on the economy, with 63% saying the economy was on the wrong track in a Harvard-CAPS-Harris poll released this month. Republicans take a far dimmer view than Democrats.
“From past experience, we would expect Harris to inherit some of the blame or credit for the current economy, but so far in the polls, I would say there has been a surprising willingness of voters to not extend the blame for inflation that they had for Joe Biden onto Kamala Harris,” said Grossmann, the Michigan State University professor.
Housing anxiety
Housing costs have outstripped income gains in the past two decades, but those challenges have intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand increased, construction costs soared and interest rates spiked.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a buyer or a renter,” said Molly Boesel, an economist at CoreLogic, a financial services information company. “You’re seeing your housing costs increase.”
Affordability is “the No. 1 issue” among voters in Nevada this year, said Mario Arias, the Nevada director of the Forward Party, a centrist political party founded by former Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang.
A resident of the Las Vegas area, 30-year-old Arias said housing is his biggest financial concern. Throngs of Californians have moved into Nevada to lower their housing costs, but it’s driven up costs for everyone else, he said.
“If you want to get out of being a renter, you have to be in not just a good financial situation, but in a very stable financial situation,” he said.
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates last week for the first time in four years, whichcouldopen the housing market to more homebuyers as mortgage rates ease in the coming months.
The Biden administration has proposed several housing-related policies, including incentives to loosen zoning regulations and capping rent increases from corporate landlords. Harris has announced a proposal to provide up to $25,000 in housing assistance for a down payment to some potential first-time homeowners and promised tax incentives that she say’s would lead to 3 million more housing units by the end of her first term, if she’s elected.
Trump has not waded far into the details of how he would address the affordability issue in a second term. He has said he plans to bring down prices by barring immigrants in the country without legal authorization from getting mortgages. But his proposed immigration policies could further reduce the labor force for building homes. Previously, Trump’s administration talked about trying to cut state and local housing regulations, and it suspended federal regulations on fair housing.
In North Carolina, more than a quarter of the state’s households are cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs. It’s particularly challenging for renters, nearly half of which are cost burdened, according to the North Carolina Housing Coalition, a nonprofit affordable housing organization.
Stephanie Watkins-Cruz, housing policy director at the coalition, noted that the federal government’s calculation of fair market rent in North Carolina has shot up 14% in just one year — and 38% over the past five years.
“So unless everybody and their mama’s getting 14 to 20 to 38% raises, the math begins to not math,” she said.
It’s a familiar challenge in every swing state.
Wendy Winston, a middle school math teacher in Grand Rapids Michigan, said that though no one political candidate is responsible for the state of the economy, the cost of groceries and housing is hard to ignore.
“I don’t think the economy is terrible. It is sometimes difficult to make ends meet,” Winston said. “I don’t believe that it’s the fault of the government or policies of the government. I feel like it’s the individual corporations trying to make profit off the backs of the middle class.”
The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Grand Rapids is about $1,550 a month, according to rental site Apartments.com. Though Michigan ranks fairly average compared with other states for rent prices, the state saw some of the steepest rent increases in the country in recent years, and wages have not kept up. Residents unable to rent new, “luxury” apartments find themselves short of options for places they can afford.
“It’s not just cost, it’s availability,” Winston said. “There are a lot of new housing developments. Apartments and condos and things are being built, but I’m priced out of them. And I have a college degree, so I don’t think that’s helping our families.”
Hoping for revival
Back in North Carolina, near the banks of the Tar River, Rocky Mount Mills has a healthy waiting list for the apartments and the revamped homes it rents.
A former cotton mill built and once operated by slave labor, the campus closed in 1996, reopened in 2015 after a $75 million renovation, and is now home to breweries, restaurants and dozens of high-end apartments.
Chapel Hill native and entrepreneur Cameron Schulz never had Rocky Mount on his radar. But the development’s brewery incubator helped him launch HopFly Brewing Co., now one of the state’s largest self-distributing breweries.
After outgrowing its original space, HopFly relocated to Charlotte, but still operates a taproom in Rocky Mount. The Mills project has reinvigorated the city, Schulz said.
“Rocky Mount’s got one of the most beautiful, quintessential downtown strips that I’ve ever seen anywhere,” he said. “We’ve just got to fill it up with cool places to go, and people to go into those places.”
Main Street suffered for decades after the arrival of malls and a highway bypass. Over at Davis Furniture Company, two employees keep watch over an empty storeroom of sofas, beds and home decor.
Co-owner Melanie Davis said business has been good, though she believes customers are anxious about the presidential election.Pointing down the sidewalk to new restaurants and some loft apartments overlooking the railroad tracks, Davis said she’s bullish on the trajectory of downtown.
“I do feel like we’re on an upswing,” she said.
Michigan Advance’s Anna Liz Nichols contributed reporting.
A new report finds that even with Wisconsin's record employment growth, the boom hasn't benefited all parts of the state. A mural depicting workers is painted on windows of the Madison-Kipp Corp. The artwork was created by Goodman Community Center students and Madison-Kipp employees with Dane Arts Mural Arts. (Erik Gunn | Wisconsin Examiner)
Four years after a brief but stark crash in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wisconsin employment has made a strong comeback — but the recovery has been uneven across the state, according to a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Employment in the state now stands at more than 2.92 million jobs — 1.2% higher than its peak in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic,according to the report, which was released Friday.
In more than half of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, however, employment in 2023 remains lower than it was in 2019.
“There are quite a few very positive indicators here when you look at the overall picture,” said Joseph Peterangelo, Wisconsin Policy Forum research director and author of the report. Those positives are accentuated in contrast to the sharp employment drop-off in the pandemic’s early months.
In the long recovery unemployment has remained low, at or below 3%, and wages have kept up with inflation, according to federal data.
“But when you get into the details, it’s a very mixed picture,” Peterangelo said.
In more than half of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, jobs in 2023 haven’t yet caught up with 2019.
“The improvement also has been inconsistent across the economy, with most sectors having fully rebounded by 2023 but several remaining down by thousands of jobs,” the report states.
Employment grew fastest from 2019 to 2023 in a varied group of rural and urban counties. Counties near the metro areas of Chicago and Minnesota’s Twin Cities were among those with the strongest employment growth, according to the report.
Employment has fallen short of 2019 levels in a variety of counties as well — from the state’s most urban, Milwaukee County, to many of its most rural areas.
Milwaukee County, also the state’s most populous, saw the largest decline in the number of jobs in 2023 compared to 2019 — a drop of 19,140, or 4%. The county’s working-age population (ages 15-64) was also down 3.9% in 2023 from 2019, data that Peterangelo provided showed.
But not all counties where employment was lower in 2023 than in 2019 lost working-age residents. Some counties saw employment rise despite a shrinking population, while in others employment fell even as the working-age population increased.
“It could be there’s different stories going on in different communities,” said Peterangelo.
Kenosha County’s working-age population for example, was 2.4% less in 2023 than 2019, according to the report. But it “is among the Wisconsin counties that added jobs the fastest” — with 5,700 more jobs, an 8.5% increase.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, a higher percentage of workers commute either into Kenosha County or from the county to jobs elsewhere “than many other counties in Wisconsin,” the report states.
Dane County had the largest employment gain in the 2019-2023 period, more than 8,800 jobs.
The largest growth in Wisconsin jobs over the 2019-2023 period was in construction, according to the report — an increase of 12,000. Professional, scientific and technical service jobs rose by almost as much in that time, and transportation and warehousing jobs by more than 11,000.
Statewide there were almost 9,000 fewer jobs in manufacturing in 2023 than in 2019, according to the report. But within the overall manufacturing sector, there were dramatic differences.
The paper industry, for instance, has steadily lost jobs over the five-year period, Peterangelo said. Meanwhile, fabricated metal manufacturing jobs fell from more than 77,000 to 71,000 early in the pandemic, but have since rebounded to more than 75,000 — a marked improvement but still short of its earlier peak.
While the net loss of manufacturing jobs may prompt concern, the report states, “the state’s strong overall employment and wage growth figures perhaps suggest that our economy is diversifying, which could be a strength if it means greater resilience during future economic downturns.”
Demographic challenges remain for Wisconsin, however. From 2010 to 2023, the Wisconsin population in prime working years (25 to 54) fell by 133,000 or 5.8%, the report states. Nationally that age group grew by 2.8% in the same period.
The state’s “aging population, low birth rate, and weak net migration figures have resulted in a shrinking working-age population, which could affect the state’s ability to attract and retain employers,” the report states.
Login
