>> Reporting from Presque le in Dane County. I'm
Murv Seymour for here now. >> Monday was Labor Day,
and while most families used the holiday as a
vacation, it's a good time to check in on the state of
the average worker. And for that, we turn to Laura
Dresser, associate director of UW Madison's High Road
Strategy Center and the author of the State of
Working Wisconsin Report. anks for being here.
>> I'm so glad to be here. >> Thank you. So your most
recent report says the median wage has reached an
all time high of $25 an hour. But obviously,
federal policies are some chaos. As you
say in the most recent jobs report shows that it's not
looking good. s right. It's
a very there was there's been a very strong recovery
from the pandemic shutdowns five years ago. But we were
really beginning to see, especially in those monthly
job numbers, troubling signs about the economy,
because I think of the federal uncertainty,
tariffs and immigration policies.
>> So the numbers show that June was revised down to
nothing and slight, very low anemic job reports
since then. Right. >> Yeah. The 2025 job
growth month over month is is and revised down, like
you said, to a negative in June a week, a week, July.
Those numbers are running less than half the 2024
jobs production numbers. So it's a substantial cooling,
really troubling sign in the labor market, both at
the national level and most of that showing up in
sin, too. >> So for a few months this
year, it felt like we couldn't figure out what
tariffs were actually in place or just being
threatened. They were on pause or hold.
Can we relate some of the owdowns to tariffs? Are
those already being felt? >> I mean, there's two
aspects to what what what's going on with tariffs right
now. There's a lot of uncertainty. Like you said,
it's hard to tell. And I think it's hard for
businesses, domestic es and
international businesses to plan when the regime is not
clear when what is our tariff policy going to be
still emerging? Chaotic giant leaps. So partly the
uncertainty cools off. Business investment
decisions just puts people back on their heels. And
the the At producer levels. And then also when the
tariffs land and they're beginning to land, they
increase prices. They do. They're a tax on imported
goods and that means imported and domestic goods
in those market prices will go up. And so I think
there's real concerns I think very some signs that
tariffs are beginning to hit but more like concern
and the uncertainty really dominating the news right
now. >> So the Pew Research
Center recently estimated the number of immigrants in
the workforce went down by 1.2 million nationally in
just the first six months of the year. What what
impact does that have on the workforce? We saw
unemployment tick up as well.
we see a cooling labor market,
but we also know that in especially in specific
industries and some very important industries in
Wisconsin, agriculture, hotels, food service,
ants are a big construction. Immigrants
are a big share of the workforce. And the fact
that they are often staying home or nervous or not
coming to the country again. This tightens the ability
of businesses to grow, and is another kind of wet
blanket on the economy. >> We've only got a few
seconds left, but historically, fewer workers
typically means rising wages, competition from.
Will that happen this time? >> It it it may I mean
there's a lot to see what what washes out. We've got
that kind of impact although there's also. So
ah we'll just have to wait and see. There's a lot
going on price changes because of tariffs, labor
impact, demand because of the immigration systems.
And what's going on in the broader economy will
probably dominate. >> And finally, just sorry
the last few seconds. Union membership in Wisconsin is
dropping at ten. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is
going to take a look at it. Will we see a change if
they overturn act ten? >> Changes will be slow. I
think it unemployment. I'm sorry. Unionization rates
fell in half from 2011 to 2024. In the state of
Wisconsin, they won't double in a day or two to
get back to where we were, or even to get back to the
national average will take years. But act ten and what
we call what is so-called right to work, you know,
the the policy around private sector unionization
would have to go to get would have to go to get