Marketplace: News Archives

Thursday, December 19, 2002
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It's Thursday, the 19th of December. I'm David Brancaccio.

The nicest present I could get for you this time of year is an indication the economy could get better in the New Year. About the best that I can do is today's Index of Leading Indicators: it's up seven-tenths of a percent, the biggest jump in more than a year. This, despite weakness in manufacturing. This is consistent with other data suggesting the economy is expanding in fits and starts, but I wouldn't advise you put in a buy order with your stockbroker tonight based on this alone.

In the interests of the long-term view, I won't mention the fact that the Dow fell 82 points, or one percent, today or that the NASDAQ fell 7 points, or half a percent. Investors tell us that concern about the Middle East after Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement that Iraq is in "material breech" of the U.N. disarmament resolution outweighed the positive economic news.

Newton, Mississippi, along U.S. Highway 80, was hit by a tornado today. At least 40 injuries are reported at the town's Wal-Mart store.

A federal jury in Portland, Oregon, today found that Wal-Mart broke the law by forcing employees in the mid-to-late-‘90s to work overtime with no pay. This case involves 400 workers in Oregon, but similar cases are pending in courts elsewhere in the country. Among the accusations in the suit: that Wal-Mart made employees clean up stores after clocking out, removed hours from time cards, and reprimanded workers for claiming overtime. The Wal-Mart attorney had no immediate comment.

No group in America is more isolated from job opportunities than African-Americans. In every major city -- except one -- the distance between where people work and where they live is much greater for blacks than for whites. For years, researchers have suspected this helps explain why unemployment is consistently higher for blacks in America. A study released today from the Brookings institution found the gap is closing. Marketplace's Stephen Henn has more.

Henn: "If you want to know why blacks often have a harder time finding work close to home, blame the beltway."

Stewart Schwartz: "I mean, most people have seen it around any small town in America -- where the bypass highway kills the downtown main street."

Henn: "Stewart Schwartz is the executive director of DC-based Coalition for Smarter Growth."

Schwartz: "Well, the same is true around the effect of major beltways -- they have a major effect of shifting jobs and investment outward."

Henn: "With predominantly African-American neighborhoods more likely to be located near urban centers, that means the jobs move away. In the last decade, this trend slowed a bit -- but not because the jobs came back but -- because across America, more and more black families moved to the suburbs.

There was one exception: Charlotte, North Carolina, is the only city in the country were blacks and whites are equally likely to live close to the places they work."

Tom Warshauer: "Charlotte is also pretty fortunate in the way our freeway system is laid out."

Henn: "Tom Warshauer is Charlotte’s director of neighborhood redevelopment."

Warshauer: "The areas that have been traditionally African-American areas are really well served by freeways and have been really desirable locations for business and industry."

Henn: "Charlotte’s city planners also made a conscious decision a little over a decade ago to preserve jobs in the city’s older core. They promoted mixed-use development and decided to invest heavily in transit.

Those decisions are paying dividends."

Warshauer: "A couple of years ago, there was a study that was on disparity in wealth -- the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Charlotte was one of the few cities where that did not happen."

Henn: "Today, Warshauer thinks he might know why.

In Washington, Stephen Henn for Marketplace."

The Bush administration is considering a treaty that would permit tens of thousands of Mexican citizens working in the U.S. to receive Social Security benefits, freeing up millions of dollars in unpaid claims. Marketplace's Sam Eaton reports.

Eaton: "They work in the U.S. on legal work permits and pay Social Security tax like any other workers, but U.S. immigration law bars foreign citizens from receiving social security benefits, unless treaties with their home countries permit it. That means tens of thousands of Mexican citizens never see their U.S. Social Security benefits. That could change soon if this country signs an agreement with Mexico to align the two national social security systems. Maria Blanco with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund says it’s about time."

Blanco: "If anything, right now it’s a windfall for the SS administration to have that money there that’s basically unclaimed, even though people have paid into it and have now retired."

Eaton: "If the agreement is approved it could cost an estimated billion dollars more a year in Social Security payments. Mark Krikorian with the Center for Immigration Studies says allowing the Mexicans in would set a dangerous precedent."

Krikorian: "It’s a kind of a baby step toward a broader amnesty."

Eaton: "Krikorian says Social Security agreements may already be common with countries of similar economic standing, but that’s because the U.S. has little to lose. In the case of Mexico, he says, all the demands fall on the U.S. system. Dean Baker with the Center for Economic Policy and Research agrees. But, he says, those demands would be small in the context of $372 billion in Social Security payments made every year."

Baker: "You’re talking about two-tenths, maybe three-tenths, of a percent of what gets paid out each year. You wouldn’t even have to change the projections."

Eaton: "The government is also looking into extending benefits for illegal workers who paid into the Social Security system with false numbers.

In New York, I’m Sam Eaton for Marketplace."

The government is threatening to jail workers who don't return to their jobs tomorrow. Businesses both large and small and unions accuse the government of Hugo Chavez of wrecking the economy -- and they want a change. A barrel of crude got 12 cents more expensive today, closing in New York at $30.56.

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Rundown

Good Providers
You know the stereotype: The workaholic Dad who leaves the house at the crack of dawn and comes home long after his kids have gone to sleep. These days, the "good provider" could be either gender, but in these tough economic times, do our opinions about these kinds of parents change? After all, isn’t economic provision a significant form of parental involvement? Sarah Gardner has the story.

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Music Bridge: Little Drummer Boy - Jeff Linsky
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Movie to TV
It used to be that television was considered just a little low-rent in the entertainment world. Sure, many television producers got rich, but prestige? That belonged to the moviemakers. Just consider, would you rather win an Oscar or an Emmy? See the difference? But all that’s changing -- and fast. Kim Masters has this report.

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Look Ahead:
We’re rounding up this week on Wall Street with Dallas stockbroker David Johnson.