Chapter 1: What economic challenges are immigrant families facing today?
A new kind of lockdown from Marketplace. I'm Sabri Beneshour, in for David Brancaccio. First, a divided Federal Reserve did indeed cut interest rates yesterday. But what it does at its next meeting in January is anybody's guess, as Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Genzer reports. The Fed voted 9-3 to cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point. The central bank cited a softening labor market.
The lower rates are meant to encourage businesses to borrow money and hire more workers. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell says the Fed's next move is not a foregone conclusion.
Chapter 2: How is the Federal Reserve responding to the current labor market?
We're well positioned to wait and see how the economy evolves from here. Powell says upcoming government data will factor into the Fed's coming decisions. That data is late and in some cases incomplete because of the government shutdown, though November jobs and inflation reports won't be issued until later this month. I'm Nancy Marshall-Genzer for Marketplace.
27% of people admit to stealing at self-checkout kiosks. That's according to a survey from LendingTree. That is up from 15% just two years ago. Daniel Ackerman looked into why self-checkout theft is on the rise. Yes, the machines are finicky, but most Americans say they like self-checkout. And not just because they can walk through without paying.
Matt Schultz is chief consumer finance analyst with LendingTree. They like it because it's fast. They like it because it's convenient. For respondents who did admit to stealing, the top reason cited is that things are just unaffordable these days. We're not talking about people going through the checkout counter with a diamond necklace and a Nintendo Switch.
It's much more likely to be a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk. Other consumers steal because they're fed up with user-unfriendly machines, says Craig LeClaire, an automation analyst with Forrester. You know, you would see an 80-year-old woman trying to read a four-point font on an avocado, trying to figure out how to scan it. He says retailers are investing in improving those machines with AI.
Better computer vision, for example, could mean no more fumbling for barcodes. Plus, Leclerc says they could one day have some semblance of a real conversation. They'll be able to answer questions to the consumer as they're checking out. You know, did you find everything you need to get a much better customer experience?
Retailers hope that will make shoppers less likely to steal, says Leclerc, even if price levels remain high. I'm Daniel Ackerman for Marketplace. And the Trump administration's gold card immigration program is now live. U.S. visas are available starting at a mere million dollars per person, two million for corporations.
That's in addition to a Department of Homeland Security processing fee of just $15,000. That is the gold card. A platinum card is coming soon. That one includes tax breaks for immigrants working here. The lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic are an unpleasant memory for a lot of people. But today, there are people across the country experiencing a kind of lockdown again.
They're afraid to leave their homes, to work, or to shop. We are talking about Latino immigrant families who are living under economic conditions that feel a lot like they did during the pandemic. Marketplace's Elizabeth Troval has this story in our occasional series about immigration policy changes and the American workforce called Help Not Wanted.
For a lot of people, the pandemic was an economic low point. For Fidel, the L.A. immigration raids are worse. He's in his 50s and came to the U.S. from Mexico a few decades ago. He asked not to use his real name due to immigration concerns. For years, he made a living cleaning cars, working six days, 48 hours a week. Then in June, immigration raids targeted car wash workers.
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Chapter 3: Why are self-checkout theft rates increasing?
He says you have to choose, live on the street or go without food. And Fidel isn't hopeful his economy is getting better soon. Yesterday was definitely a horrible day. Flor Melendrez is an organizer with Clean Car Wash, a worker center in L.A. We had two car washes berated, one where they took one person that was a U.S. citizen, and another one where they took six workers.
Her group has tracked at least 350 L.A. car wash workers who have been detained by ICE. She sees pandemic parallels. People are afraid to leave their homes. And as a labor organization, they're pivoting again.
I think now through COVID and through the rates, we have definitely grew into an area that we weren't expecting to, which is like direct services, helping our communities to connect to food banks, helping them connect with attorneys. Food banks are pivoting too. Mitzi Baum is CEO of Nourishing Hope, which operates in Chicago.
Many of our neighbors stopped going to work for fear of just being pulled over due to the color of their skin. They were afraid to either come to one of our food pantries, get in their vehicle and do our online markets. Nourishing Hope expanded its food delivery to nearly 200 additional families that are sheltering in place because of immigration raids.
And Baum says it's a lot of the same people needing help as during the pandemic, like Uber drivers, restaurant workers. So many of those, the service industry has been impacted again. And Texas SEIU President Elsa Flores says it's not just that families are hurting. They're also not spending. It's keeping their money saved.
It's not spending, not purchasing a car, because why would they purchase a car that they may have to leave behind? She says raids create uncertainty, and uncertainty makes consumers cautious. I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace. And in New York, I'm Sabree Beneshour with the Marketplace Morning Report. From APM American Public Media.
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