Cents and sensitivity

Summary

Marketplace Podcast Summary: "Cents and Sensitivity"

Episode Information:

• Title: Cents and Sensitivity
• Host: Kai Ryssdal
• Release Date: January 29, 2025
• Description: Every weekday, Kai Ryssdal demystifies the day’s business and economic news, offering context through conversations with CEOs, policymakers, and everyday individuals navigating the economy.

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Federal Reserve's Current Policy Stance

The episode opens with an in-depth analysis of the Federal Reserve's current monetary policy, as articulated by Fed Chair Jay Powell during a press conference.

Key Points:

• Balanced Policy: Powell emphasized that the Fed's policy is "very well calibrated" to achieve its dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices (02:03).
• Interest Rates: The Fed has decided to maintain current interest rates, indicating satisfaction with the current economic performance. Powell stated, “We want policy to be restrictive enough to continue to foster further progress toward our 2% inflation goal” (02:03).
• Economic Uncertainty: Powell acknowledged elevated uncertainty in the economy due to significant policy shifts in tariffs, immigration, fiscal, and regulatory policies, but expects this uncertainty to "pass" and normalcy to return (02:34).

Notable Quote:

"In this economy, economic forecasting is really difficult beyond just a month or two out." — Jay Powell, Fed Chair (02:34)

Interest Rates and the Housing Market

Marketplace's Matt Levin explores the surprising dynamics between Federal Reserve interest rate cuts and mortgage rates, challenging conventional economic expectations.

Key Points:

• Unexpected Rate Movements: Despite the Fed cutting short-term rates by 100 basis points in the latter half of last year, mortgage rates paradoxically increased by the same margin (04:37).
• Factors Influencing Rates: Economist Thomas Urano notes that businesses now access private credit sources, reducing their reliance on traditional banks, which complicates the transmission of Fed policies (05:42).
• Consumer Behavior: Olusinola from Fitch Ratings highlights that affluent consumers, who represent a significant portion of spending, are less sensitive to interest rate changes, thereby moderating the overall economic impact (05:52).

Notable Quote:

“Consumers have also proven pretty interest rate resistant.” — Olusinola, Fitch Ratings (05:52)

Tariffs and Trade Uncertainty

The discussion shifts to international trade tensions, focusing on the uncertainty surrounding U.S. tariffs under President Trump’s administration.

Key Points:

• Tariff Instability: Jay Powell refrained from commenting on President Trump's calls for lower interest rates, maintaining the Fed's independence (03:20).
• Local Impact: Gretchen Blau, a customs brokerage manager at Logistics Plus in Erie, Pennsylvania, details the operational confusion and frustration caused by fluctuating tariff policies, particularly concerning steel and aluminum quotas (07:08).
• Business Adaptation: Companies are strategically placing steel in bonded warehousing to navigate quota limits, but early year closures have forced some to consider paying higher duties or exporting excess steel (07:08).

Notable Quote:

“We feel a little frustrated. People need some options.” — Gretchen Blau, Logistics Plus (07:08)

Age of Work: Demographic Shifts in Cumberland County, Tennessee

A substantial portion of the episode delves into the "Age of Work" series, examining the economic and social impacts of an aging workforce in Cumberland County, Tennessee.

Impact on Local Businesses

Melvin Davis of Save A Lot Grocery:

• Steady Business Amid Change: Melvin highlights the resilience of his community grocery store despite demographic shifts. He provides senior discounts five days a week, catering to an older clientele whose shopping habits have adapted to rising prices (11:28).

  Notable Quote:

  “Our seniors seem to get up a little earlier in this area.” — Melvin Davis, Save A Lot Grocery (11:44)

• Employee Demographics: The store employs a mix of long-term employees and younger high school workers. However, Melvin expresses concerns about retaining young talent due to slim profit margins (13:05).

  Notable Quote:

  “I wish I could keep them, but they got to go on.” — Melvin Davis (13:24)

Community Support Organizations

Miki Eldridge of Cumberland Good Samaritans:

• Service to Disaster Victims: Miki discusses the organization's role in disaster relief, specifically following Hurricane Helene, where they provided significant aid to affected rural communities (20:10).

• Addressing Diverse Needs: The organization caters to a broad spectrum of needs, from financial assistance for rent and utilities to supplying essential items like steel-toed boots for job seekers (20:34).

  Notable Quote:

  “We look at how we can change their circumstance or situation.” — Miki Eldridge, Cumberland Good Samaritans (21:02)

Retirees and Economic Paradox

• Retiree Influx: The migration of retirees to areas like Fairfield Glade has both positive and negative effects. While retirees contribute to the local economy through time, money, and volunteerism, their presence has driven up the cost of living, creating affordability challenges for long-term residents (23:40).

• Job Creation vs. Cost of Living: Retirees have spurred job creation and supported nonprofits, but paradoxically, they have also made housing less attainable for existing residents, exemplifying the complex interplay between different demographic groups (23:53).

  Notable Quote:

  “Retirees moving in have driven up the cost of living for the people already here.” — Narration (23:53)

Personal Stories: Aging Workers

Interview with Kathleen:

• Personal Experience: Kathleen, a soon-to-be 77-year-old employee at Save A Lot, shares her reasons for continuing to work, primarily to cover living and medical expenses. Her dedication underscores the broader economic pressures faced by older workers (25:03).

  Notable Quote:

  “You can't live on Social Security.” — Kathleen (25:50)

Market Performance Snapshot

Towards the end of the episode, Kai provides a brief overview of the stock market and bond performances:

• Stock Market: Dow Industrials fell by 136 points, NASDAQ by 101 points, and the S&P 500 by 28 points.
• Notable Movers: T-Mobile saw a significant rise of over 6% due to strong earnings, while Rivian experienced a 2.3% decline amid profit concerns (15:11).

Notable Quote:

“Rivian seems to be years away from making a profit. That cannot be good.” — Bernstein Research (16:24)

Conclusion

"Cents and Sensitivity" intricately weaves together national economic policies and their local ramifications, particularly highlighting the challenges and opportunities presented by an aging workforce. Through expert analysis and personal narratives, the episode sheds light on how demographic shifts are reshaping communities, influencing business operations, and altering the economic landscape.

Final Thoughts: Kai emphasizes that the demographic changes in Cumberland County are a microcosm of broader national trends, urging listeners to contemplate the widespread implications of an aging economy (27:25).

Notable Quote:

“Demographic changes brought on by the aging U.S. economy have created both opportunities and challenges in Cumberland County.” — Narration (26:30)

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections to focus solely on the episode's substantive discussions and insights.

Transcript

[Kai Rysdal]

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[Kai Rysdal]

On the program today. Interest rates and older workers between them Honestly, pretty much the future of this economy. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace in Los Angeles. I'm Kai Rysdal. It is Wednesday today 2029 January. Good as always to have you along everybody. We are going to go back to Tennessee. Our series the Age of Work about the changing and aging demographics of this economy in the second half of the program. But we begin today in the halls of monetary policy power in Washington, D.C. fed Chair Jay Powell's press conference.

[Jay Powell]

I think our policy stance is very well calibrated, as I mentioned, to balance the achievement of our two of our two goals.

[Kai Rysdal]

Policy stance in Fed speak of course means interest rates. Two goals means maximum employment and stable prices.

[Jay Powell]

We want to policy to be restrictive enough to continue to foster further further progress. Sort of 2% inflation goal. @ the same time, we don't need to see further weakening in the labor market to achieve that goal.

[Kai Rysdal]

Cutting to the chase, reading between the lines, pick your metaphor. No change in interest rates today. Powell says the economy is doing fine. They're going to want to see more data before they decide when or to be clear whether to cut interest rates again. Now, about this particular moment.

[Jay Powell]

In this economy, economic forecasting is really difficult beyond just a month or two out. So in the current situation there's probably some elevated uncertainty because of, you know, significant policy shifts in those four areas that I mentioned, tariffs, tariffs, immigration, fiscal policy, and regulatory policy. So there's probably some additional uncertainty, but that should be passing. We should go through that and then we'll be back to the regular amount of uncertainty.

[Kai Rysdal]

Yes, the regular amount of uncertain. It should be Noted here that question number one to the Fed chair today was about President Trump and his demand. That's the President's word the other day for lower interest rates. Powell was not interested.

[Jay Powell]

I'm not going to have any response or comment whatsoever on what the President said. It's not appropriate for me to do so.

[Kai Rysdal]

He has not heard directly from the President. The Fed chair said Wall street on this Wednesday, traders, honestly, they were a little cranky even before Powell started talking. We will have the details when we do the numbers. Jay Powell told me once in an interview, if I could name drop here for just a second, that one of his rules to live by is to control the controllable, which is to say set aside as best you can that which you cannot control. And fiscal policy, things that Congress and the White House are in charge of, tariffs, immigration, deficits. That falls squarely in the Fed's no control category. What the Fed does control is monetary policy and specifically the federal funds rate. How the economy actually responds to that rate though, and interest rates generally, that's a little more complicated. Marketplace's Matt Levin is on the interest rate sensitivity beat for us today.

[Matt Levin]

Housing is supposed to be the most interest rate sensitive sector of all the sectors. So when the Fed cuts interest rates, people expect mortgage rates to also go down. But when the Fed did cut its rate three times over the second half of last year, mortgage rates went up. Fed cut short term rates by 100 basis points and longer term rates like mortgage rates went up 100 basis points. You look historically, that's not typically what happened. Michael Fratten Tony is an economist with the Mortgage Bankers Association. Housing wasn't all that sensitive to the Fed, partly because mortgage rates are tied to what the federal government pays to borrow money and those rates are going up. Global bond investors getting honestly concerned about deficits, debt. It's not just bond vigilantes harshing J pal's mellow. When the Fed sets rates, it's really setting the interest rates. Banks pay to borrow from one another and those rates ripple through the rest of the economy. But Thomas Urano at Sage Advisory says nowadays businesses don't have to go to banks. They can go to private credit or private equity.

[Kai Rysdal]

The number of people who are willing.

[Neela Richardson]

To extend loans right outside of the.

[Kai Rysdal]

Banking system that has seen prolific growth over the last five years.

[Matt Levin]

Consumers have also proven pretty interest rate resistant. Olusinola at Fitch Ratings says that since the pandemic, the big spenders are rich enough to avoid borrowing money to buy stuff. When you think about the sensitivity of high income households and they do the bulk of his spending. Not much this time around, to be clear. Sonola says the economy overall is still sensitive to the Fed, just not as sensitive as he thought it was. I'm Matt Levin for Marketplace.

[Kai Rysdal]

Tariffs came up in Jay Powell's press conference today. And as he usually does, the Fed chair steered well, there are, after all, a great many unknowns about what President Trump is going to do until he does it. Canada, Mexico, China, they've all been in the tariff mix. Tariffs were threatened against Colombia over the weekend and then they weren't. Uncertainty is one way to put all that. So we got our tariff regular on the phone. Gretchen Blau, she's a customs brokerage manager at Logistics plus in Erie, Pennsylvania. To hear how things are going.

[Gretchen Blau]

Just a lot of wait and see, a little bit of confusion mixed in. A lot of answering questions for customers that we really can't answer. Just kind of trying to, you know, reassure them that we're all in the same boat, no pun intended, but just it's kind of frustration on our part because we like helping people and when we don't have answers, we feel a little frustrated. People need some options. One thing we run into already is the quotas for steel and aluminum. They're on a quarterly basis. After so many kilograms of steel from the UK, Japan and the EU are in the US the quota shuts down and then the 25% steel tariff kicks in. Well, since there was so much anticipation of the confusion in January, people put a lot of their steel in bonded warehousing. So when they took it out at the beginning of January, it's caused the quota to be closed already three weeks into the first quarter of the year. Depending on how desperate they are for this steel, they might have to pay the 25% duty or possibly export it back out of the US and explore their options from there. I'm considering turning off the notifications on my phone because it gets a little stressful here and there. But that's not really an option because we do have to try to keep up with what's going on from a practical sense that we need to be able to tell people, you know, what, what to do, how to make plans if it's possible. Once there's any kind of policy as to the tariffs, we're going to be, you know, really jumping in and helping out our customers because that's what we're going to need to do.

[Kai Rysdal]

Gretchen blau, Logistics plus Erie, Pennsylvania we're going to pick up now where we left off yesterday with our new series the Age of Work, about what it's like to live in an economy that is getting older. The US Population, as you probably know, is on the cusp of a massive demographic change. The share of working age people shrinking compared to the wave of retiring baby boomers. Neela Richardson, chief economist at adp, joined me in Cumberland County, Tennessee, this past fall to see what that looks like in a place where the change is already well underway.

[Neela Richardson]

Economists love to say this demographics are destiny. And so what Cumberland represents is that tension between an aging population and a workforce who is struggling to keep up.

[Kai Rysdal]

Cumberland county has one of the oldest labor forces in the country. That's according to ADP's data. But it's happening for maybe not the reasons you'd think. Yes, the local population is aging, but it's also a retirement destination for people looking to escape northern winters. A lot of those people moved to a retirement community in Cumberland county called Fairfield Glade. We've talked about that. Today, though, we're going to look at two companies in Crossville, the town next door, very much aimed at the local population. Save A Lot. Save A Lot is a very community, community grocery store.

[Melvin Davis]

Nice to meet you.

[Kai Rysdal]

Nice to meet you. Kai.

[Melvin Davis]

Kai, I'm Bill.

[Kai Rysdal]

How are you?

[Melvin Davis]

Nice to meet you, sir.

[Kai Rysdal]

Owner Melvin Davis is standing by the bread racks and the shopping baskets when we get there.

[Melvin Davis]

I've been a grocer for 40 years. Time's just flying by.

[Kai Rysdal]

The place isn't huge. Just four check stands and pretty narrow aisles compared to some of the big grocery chains. How's business? Good, I imagine.

[Melvin Davis]

It's steady. It's steady. We just had Good Samaritans here and picked up $3,500 worth of product right off the shelves to take to North.

[Neela Richardson]

Carolina in the morning to help with the rebuilding efforts there. That is great.

[Kai Rysdal]

You're going to hear from Cumberland Good Samaritans, that organization he mentioned a little bit later in the program. But the main reason we came here to Melvin's grocery store is because of the service that he provides five days a week, senior discount day, 7am to noon. You see a lot of that traffic?

[Melvin Davis]

We do. We do. Our seniors seem to get up a little earlier in this area. We needed to have something for them to do. Yeah, they joke about not buying green bananas, but they're steady shoppers.

[Kai Rysdal]

You have to think about that one for a second and you're like, oh, that's really dark.

[Neela Richardson]

So inflation, how has that affected your client base, your seniors and Are they noticing that prices aren't going up as fast? Okay, they've noticed the price increase. Have they noticed the fact that it's not going up quite as much, or are they focused still on the price increase?

[Melvin Davis]

In my. I mean, I started out as a bag boy, and so I've been doing it a long, long time. And, you know, I've sold a box of crackers for 49 cents for four decades. That box of crackers, almost $2. I make less money at $2 than I did at 49 cents, you know, so I watch my customers come in. They're very, very careful what they shop for. They're like, what they're buying. You know, they'll go buy the meat case, and they're like, I'd like to have that roast, but I'm not gonna spend the money.

[Neela Richardson]

So those crackers are not going to be under 50 cents ever again.

[Melvin Davis]

Probably not.

[Kai Rysdal]

Yeah.

[Melvin Davis]

So your.

[Kai Rysdal]

Your clientele that's coming here, right? I mean, we've been spending some time over in Fairfield Glade with some retirees who have some disposable income. You seeing them come and share that, Some of that with you?

[Melvin Davis]

We have a great mix. This program is set up for low income and fixed income, but we're servicing a little bit of everybo.

[Kai Rysdal]

Melvin's got about 22 employees, some of whom have been with him for 40 years. The youngest are high school kids making minimum wage, $7.25 an hour.

[Melvin Davis]

I've always felt like most small towns are letting their biggest resource slip away from them. You've got graduating classes of 200, 300 seniors, and they just disappear. And I think you should grab them at their freshman year and start taking them around and showing them all the business in town. Forklift drivers, mechanics, technicians. And show them that there's work here in my business. The downside is the margins are so lean that once they finish working for me, I wish I could keep them, but they got to go on.

[Kai Rysdal]

I think he wants a basket. There we go. Sorry about that. The people who work and shop in this store are facing the same economic forces all of us have been dealing with the past couple of years. Higher prices and labor shortages. But there is something else happening here, specifically demographic changes, both from the local population aging and the new people moving in.

[Melvin Davis]

Now. Would you like to walk through the store there?

[Kai Rysdal]

Yeah, let's do that. All right, show us what's going on.

[Melvin Davis]

I want to introduce you to Ms. Teresa.

[Kai Rysdal]

Hi, Teresa. How are you?

[Melvin Davis]

I'm good.

[Kai Rysdal]

That's all Right.

[Miki Eldridge]

How are you?

[Kai Rysdal]

Nice to meet you.

[Neela Richardson]

I'm Neela. Good to meet you.

[Kai Rysdal]

How long you been here?

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40 years.

[Kai Rysdal]

Is that right?

[Miki Eldridge]

40 long years.

[Kai Rysdal]

You weren't kidding, were you?

[Miki Eldridge]

Yeah.

[Kai Rysdal]

Why'd you stick around?

[Miki Eldridge]

I love doing what I do.

[Melvin Davis]

Now as you go through the store, what happens is you find a family of workers and you drill down. So not only have Teresa, Teresa's sister Teresa's mama's in here and we've worked all the nieces and the nephews, all the grandkids, all the sons, all the labor pool.

[Kai Rysdal]

Man, your family is like a whole labor pool in and of itself.

[Neela Richardson]

This is an extended family business.

[Miki Eldridge]

My mom is the 79 year old back there and she said a while ago, I have to leave to go to the doctor. And I said, that's okay, seniors go to the doctor.

[Kai Rysdal]

So she has to leave.

[Neela Richardson]

So you gave your mom time off to get to the very.

[Kai Rysdal]

Yes.

[Miki Eldridge]

She'll be leaving here in a few minutes.

[Kai Rysdal]

We did run into Teresa's mom Eula a little bit later as she was unloading produce. Keeps me young, I was just gonna say. Can I ask you how old you are? 79. And in this family business, a lot of things still get done the old fashioned way. They use a buzzer system to call bag boys instead of the intercom. Workers get paid with actual physical paychecks. No direct deposit here, thank you very much.

[Melvin Davis]

There's something special about walking in and getting your paycheck.

[Kai Rysdal]

But as much as things have stayed the same in this community grocery store, the community around them is changing. That's after the break, but first let's do the numbers. Dows industrials off 136 points today. 3, 10% closed at 44,713. The NASDAQ shed 101 points about a half percent. 19,632. The S&P 500 slid 28 points again about a half percent. 6,039. T Mobile climbed six and a third percent a day on better than expected fourth quarter earnings and revenue. The telecommunications company also issued optimistic full year guidance as it reported strong customer growth. Figures AT&T gave back about 7.10 of 1%. The electric vehicle maker Rivian slowed 2.3%. Research firm Bernstein initiated coverage of the company with an underperform rating. Bernstein said the automaker seems to be years away from making a profit. That cannot be good. Bonds rose Yield on the 10 year T note down 4.53%. You're listening to Marketplace.

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[Neela Richardson]

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[Miki Eldridge]

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[Neela Richardson]

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[Kai Rysdal]

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[Kai Rysdal]

O O.com this is Marketplace. I'm Kai Rysdal. We're continuing with our reporting this week from Cumberland County, Tennessee, a place with a high concentration of older workers because a lot of retirees are moving to the area and that is changing the local economy. But the demographic changes happening here are eventually coming for all of us.

[Miki Eldridge]

Hi, guys.

[Neela Richardson]

Hi.

[Miki Eldridge]

How are you doing?

[Kai Rysdal]

That's Miki Eldridge. She's the executive director of Cumberland Good Samaritans, a social services organization that's been around for 45 years. She has been running it for 25. You remember how earlier Melvin Davis at Save a Lot grocery said somebody had picked up $3,500 worth of goods for hurricane victims in North Carolina. Well, here it is over here.

[Miki Eldridge]

We just purged this. We're sending a lot of food right now. We're buying a lot of stuff. Heading out to hurricane victims.

[Kai Rysdal]

When a big disaster hits Cumberland, Good Samaritans collects and distributes donations. And in the months after hurricane Helene, they sent two to three trailers a week to people in affected rural communities. Their main focus though obviously is closer to home.

[Miki Eldridge]

When a client comes in to Good Samaritans, they're just telling us what their needs are. They don't walk in the door unless they're having trouble either paying their rent or utilities or if they've gotten a job, maybe they need help getting steel toed boots or you know, a uniform. They're not going to have a paycheck for a while and so they need help getting squared around until. But then we look at the bigger picture and ask what else do you need?

[Kai Rysdal]

Would you do me a favor and characterize need in this place as broadly as you want to define it?

[Miki Eldridge]

Well, need depends on the person that walks in the door. What we do is take them and look at how we change their circumstance or situation. I have job developers. If somebody needs more income or just income, period, if they're job searching, it may be that it's a single parent or grandparents that have taken on raising grandchildren. We have a lot of grandparents that we work with.

[Kai Rysdal]

They fund all this work through donations and revenue from a thrift store.

[Miki Eldridge]

I have 25 employees and about 100 volunteers. We have a lot of programs, but most of my volunteers are seniors and most of them just want to continue to be productive and make a difference in retirement.

[Neela Richardson]

I was wondering, you talked about you see a lot of grandparents coming in trying to make ends meet. How did they become grandparents who were raising their children? Can you fill out that story for us?

[Miki Eldridge]

Well, you're in an area and it's not uncommon, I don't think to the rest of Tennessee or any other state in the nation. We have a lot of people that have struggled with drug or alcohol abuse and grandparents have to step up and take over. And so for the most part those grandparents are already living on fixed incomes. And you know, Social Security was never intended to be your retirement. But for many people in rural areas, Social Security is their retirement income and they go get part time jobs to supplement for what they need.

[Neela Richardson]

How have the recent retirees, the people who are moving to Fairfield Glade and to Crossville from bigger cities. How has that changed the economy, if at all?

[Miki Eldridge]

Well, Fairfield Glade in particular has been a really great boost for Cumberland county because these are folks, and it's interesting because so many of them sold homes where they were and got a lot more out of them than they would pay for a home here. But they invest in the community. They're involved in our churches. And I gotta be honest, the reason we have so many successful nonprofits in this community providing services and making a difference in lives is because the retirees that have moved here still want to be productive and make a difference. And they're. They're very generous with their time, their hands, their money, and they're supportive of the community.

[Kai Rysdal]

And that's the paradox of the economy here in Cumberland County. Retirees moving in have driven up the cost of living for the people already here. You remember Melissa Ellis, the musician and mom of four that we heard from on Monday?

[Miki Eldridge]

You know what we were looking at?

[Gretchen Blau]

Someday we'll buy a house.

[Kai Rysdal]

And since 2020, with the massive housing market, the jump. I cannot imagine anytime in our near future, if ever, that's ever going to happen. But at the same time, all those transplanted retirees have created jobs, and they support organizations like good Samaritans with their time and donations. Let's go see the thrift shop. Can we do that? It's got racks of clothing.

[Miki Eldridge]

Everything in this thrift store is donated.

[Kai Rysdal]

And an endless variety of stuff lining the walls, rugs, mattresses. I got a lot of pair of tap shoes.

[Miki Eldridge]

This is what we call the workshop. When somebody pulls up at a back dock and drops it off, this is where it all starts.

[Kai Rysdal]

Oh, wow.

[Neela Richardson]

Look at all of this.

[Miki Eldridge]

That pile's all clothing.

[Kai Rysdal]

You've got a throughput problem because there's a pile of clothing there that's 12ft high.

[Miki Eldridge]

And two or three times a year, we get it worked down that you can see the floor. But I'm telling you, I just keep telling my staff, that's job security. I need you. I need you.

[Kai Rysdal]

I grabbed a couple of workers as they were sorting barrels of clothing from that big pile. Can we chat for a moment?

[Miki Eldridge]

Yes.

[Kai Rysdal]

Would that be all right? Wait till my friend with the microphone gets here. Tell me your name.

[Gretchen Blau]

An Lewis.

[Kai Rysdal]

How long you been here in Lewis?

[Gretchen Blau]

I started last November 14th.

[Kai Rysdal]

Oh, sir, you're a newbie? Yes, I'm a newbie. My God. Why are you here?

[Gretchen Blau]

Well, I had retired, and I found myself. After my husband passed, I found myself just sitting at home not doing nothing.

[Kai Rysdal]

So I came down here and I got the job, and I absolutely love it. Like Mickey said, some senior workers are here because they want to be. Some of them, but not all. What's your name?

[Kathleen]

Kathleen.

[Kai Rysdal]

What you doing, Kathleen?

[Kathleen]

And they call me Katie.

[Kai Rysdal]

All right. I'll call you a cat. What are you doing?

[Kathleen]

I am sorting.

[Kai Rysdal]

Why do you do it?

[Kathleen]

Because I have to pay for my bills, my home, medical. And you can't live on Social Security?

[Kai Rysdal]

Can't live on Social Security.

[Kathleen]

And I enjoy it, yeah.

[Kai Rysdal]

Are you from around here?

[Kathleen]

I was raised here. Went to kindergarten and high school. Graduated here, and it's like home.

[Kai Rysdal]

What was it like when you were growing up here?

[Kathleen]

A lot different than it is now. A lot different. Things have changed.

[Kai Rysdal]

It's busier. Life is, I imagine.

[Kathleen]

Yes.

[Kai Rysdal]

Demographic changes brought on by the aging U.S. economy have created both opportunities and challenges in Cumberland County. And as we've been saying all week, the changes we're seeing here are just the leading edge of a shift coming for the US Economy as a whole. Thanks, Kat. I appreciate it.

[Kathleen]

What is your name?

[Kai Rysdal]

My name is Kai. We're from Los Angeles doing a story on. We work on a radio show about business and the economy, and we're talking about the workforce force, the labor force, and how it's getting older and what that's going to mean. And you're part of that older labor force?

[Kathleen]

I am.

[Kai Rysdal]

How old are you?

[Kathleen]

I'll soon be next year, 77.

[Kai Rysdal]

You look great for 77k.

[Kathleen]

Oh, thank you.

[Kai Rysdal]

Yeah, it's.

[Kathleen]

This job keeps me young, younger.

[Kai Rysdal]

Good. I'll let you get back to it. Thank you. Sorry to bother you.

[Kathleen]

No, that's fine. Thank you. And enjoy Crossville, Tennessee.

[Kai Rysdal]

We have so far. We've been here since Monday. Tomorrow, Mila and I are going to reflect a bit on what we learned in Tennessee to wrap up this leg of our series, the Age of Work. This final note on the way out today, you have heard me mention, I'm sure, David Brancaccio and our morning report and how you ought to listen to him. You ought to listen tomorrow, especially for the first in a series of stories as David and his wife Mary rebuild after the Eaton fire.

[Melvin Davis]

I look around and now all I.

[Kathleen]

See is, is all the hard work.

[Kai Rysdal]

It'S gonna take to bring it back. And I'm wondering if I still have it in me to do it, if I'm still young enough to do it. What do you do when the biggest investment of your lives turns to ash? Tomorrow on the morning show. Our media production team includes Brian Allison, Jake Cherry, Justin Dueler, Drew Jostad, Dario Keefe, Charlton Thorpe, Juan Carlos Tirado, and Becca Weinman. Jeff Peters is the manager of media production and I'm Kai Rysdal. We will see you tomorrow. This is apm.

[Gretchen Blau]

Hi, this is Nicole from Camphill, Pennsylvania. I'm always surprised how much Content Marketplace can pack into 30 minutes. Listening is part of my daily routine. I love the way they make the content digestible and relatable. For us folks who don't have a strong background in economics or business, join me by making a gift to Marketplace [e-mail] donate.