ICE raids harken back to COVID-era hardship
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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.
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. Now, he says, it's much harder to get work if you don't have immigration papers. He's lucky if he gets an hour a week. He was out of work during the pandemic, about six weeks. This time, it's been six months without a steady paycheck. He barely leaves the house and is scraping by to pay his rent, meds, food.
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