On March 26th of this year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that further review in Amazon Logistics v. LIRC, 2024 WI 15, was premature. As a result, the court of appeals decision in Amazon Logistics v. LIRC, 2023 WI App 26, 407 Wis.2d 807, 992 N.W.2d 168, remained in place. Before getting to that appeals court decision and what it means, the terrain for gig workers (also called self-employed workers or independent contractors) has been in a topsy-turvy legal world. Gig workers, after all, typically include drivers for Uber, Lyft, Door Dash, and Amazon, all of whom became suddenly very impo ..read more

Jake has been on a tear with economic news for Wisconsin, and it has been too long since I provided an update on this front. So, I’m going to piggyback off of his efforts. In general, Wisconsin has seen both solid job AND wage growth the past few years. While the beginning of 2023 saw a slight slow down, the latter half of 2023 saw significant income growth in the state, especially when compared to other Midwestern states. Change in net earnings, Midwest Q4 2023 Wis. +5.0% Ohio +4.5% Ind. +4.5% Mich +4.4% Minn +3.6% Ill. +3.4% Iowa -0.1% Source: Wisconsin’s income and growth ended 2023 str ..read more

Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued its decision in Catholic Charities v. LIRC, 2024 WI 13. At issue in this case was whether the Catholic Charities entities would be exempt from paying any unemployment taxes (and their employees no longer eligible for unemployment benefits when laid off) because the Catholic Charities entities are, like churches themselves, operated for faith-based reasons. Note: Articles on the decision have appeared in the Wisconsin Examiner, WisPolitics, and Urban Milwaukee. In general, churches and their affiliated non-profit entities are exempt from income an ..read more

Help make government unemployment insurance forms easier to use — and get a $50 Visa gift card for your feedback. The US Dep’t of Labor and Nava Public Benefit Corporation are looking for individuals who are unemployed or who have recently experienced unemployment to better understand the issues people face when applying on-line for unemployment benefits and completing on-line weekly certifications. General Information If selected to participate, you will receive a $50 Visa gift card for completing a one-hour interview. Sessions will be held between February and April 2024. Nava will present ..read more

In late 2022 and early 2023, a few folks started contacting me about being disqualified or having to repay unemployment benefits they received during the Covid-19 pandemic because of their participation in lab testing studies. Then at the July 2023 Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council meeting, a coalition of lab testing companies and Rep. Gundrum asked the council to support a change in the law to exempt lab testing as covered employment. According to the minutes of that meeting: State Representative Rick Gundrum addressed the Council regarding a proposed bill to clarify the employment sta ..read more

In Colleen Koch, PUA Hearing No. 21603562MD (28 Jan. 2022), the Commission held that the Department’s notice for the PUA documentation requirement is legally defective, as the notice lacked notice language for filing the documentation late with good cause. The Department, however, has never corrected its PUA documentation notice. Accordingly, the deadline for satisfying the PUA documentation requirement has been extended indefinitely, since all notices of this requirement are legally defective. So, all claimants who have allegedly failed to satisfy the PUA documentation should be allowed to re ..read more

Unique among the states, Wisconsin implemented PUA benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic with specific restrictions that did NOT match any actual statutory or regulatory requirements. One of these was a primary income test to deny PUA benefits to part-time workers who had other sources of income outside of their pandemic-related job losses. The Commission’s argument was that the “primary income” of 20 CFR § 625.2(n) is not the same as the “principal income” in 20 CFR § 625.2(s) and (t), that the definition of self-employed individual in 20 CFR § 625.2(n) trumps the definition of ..read more

For the unemployment bills — AB147, AB149, AB150, and AB152 — recently passed by the legislature, I am urging Governor Evers to veto these bills in this letter. I understand you are busy with the budget bills recently passed by the legislature. But, the above-referenced unemployment bills recently passed by the legislature are also on your desk, and I urge you to veto them for the reasons indicated in my analysis of the bills at Legislature pushes a bunch of no-reform unemployment proposals (11 April 2023) and for the reasons noted by the Department of Workforce Development. A summary of this ..read more

Here is some updated information on the claim-filing questions in Wisconsin. You can find prior versions of these questions at this October 2020 post, which has the questions that existed as of September 2020. This info is based on the Department’s initial claim questions that are available here, and the weekly certifications questions that are available here. These web pages have been consolidated into single PDF files: Initial claims questions in English — 61 pages long Weekly certification questions in English — 82 pages long Keep in mind that you file an initial claim when you have suffe ..read more

Debt ceiling talks are focused on abstract “work requirements.” What these actually mean are not described in any detail. The unstated presumption is that people who receive government benefits do not work in some way because of those government benefits. In reality, these “work requirements” do not make any sense. Unemployment, for example, is based on being able and available for work, not missing any work offered, a willingness to accept any jobs being offered to someone, and searching for work for each week unemployment benefits are being claimed. Note: Unemployment is also not a employee ..read more