Marketplace - How small businesses navigated the ICE strike

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Activists called for a nationwide shutdown of economic activity Friday, Jan. 30, following another killing by immigration officials. But in this unforgiving economy, small business owners who support the cause faced a difficult decision. Today, a few told us how they navigated the moment. Plus: Sluggish big oil earnings show why Venezuela investment isn't popular, Trump announces his pick for Fed Chair, and parents pay a price for snow days.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

Are you ready for a life-changing opportunity? BC Cancer is actively hiring for all health care roles across all its regional centers in beautiful British Columbia. Join a dedicated team committed to ending cancer for good. And experience the lifestyle you've always dreamed of in stunning BC. We're curing cancer here. Are you in? Apply now at jobs.bcancer.bc.c.c.c.c.c.c.a. Yes, we've got Trump's pick for the new Fed chair, but there was also a Fed meeting this week. And who really pays the cost of a snow day?

From American public media, this is Marketplace. In Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams in for Kai Risdahl. It's Friday, January 30th. Good to have you along. As you've probably heard by now, this morning, President Trump announced plans to nominate Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve. As a reminder, Chair Jerome Powell. term as chair is up in May, although he could choose to stay on the board until the end of 2028. Warsh isn't new to the Fed. He served on its board of governors during the Great Recession and even had his hat in the ring for the job of chair back in 2017 when President Trump

last nominated a chair to lead the central bank. So to talk us through what his selection means now, we've got Rachel Siegel at the Washington Post and Catherine Rampel at MS Now and the Bullwork. Hey, you two. Hi there, Beverly. Rachel, I want to start with you. Who is Kevin Warsh? Kevin Warsh is a name that the Fed world has known before. As you said, he was a Fed governor 20 years ago.

He's very well known within Wall Street. He's known within Trump circles. And he's also known as one of the people who's been under really serious consideration for Powell's successor. We also know that he's been a critic of the Fed in the past, including some of the things that he says has made the Central Bank. more political than it needs to be, things that the central bank has done to miss the mark on inflation. But now we're looking at him in the context of being the next Fed share. And one, you know, presumably taking over that job if he's confirmed at a moment where he's really going to be tested about the ability to be independent, keep politics out of monetary policy,

and do so in a way that will exist in the same universe as the policies that are coming out from the White House. Catherine, talk a little bit more about some of those criticisms that Warsh has made over the year about the Fed. What exactly is his argument? His criticisms have varied somewhat over the years. So I would say that early on when he was on the Fed as a governor, as Rachel mentions, he was quite hawkish and he thought that the Fed was too blasé about inflation. that it was going to be too big of a risk. Now, mind you, this was during the financial crisis or its immediate aftermath and inflation did not rear its ugly head. In fact, there were much more serious concerns about deflation at the time. So he was somewhat out of step. But he was known as an inflation hawk. Now he has been relatively critical of the Fed for keeping rates too high and essentially being too concerned about inflation. So he will have to squaweigh.

some of that evolution publicly, and I'm sure that will come up in confirmation hearings. He's also been extremely critical of the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing. That he's been consistent on. That's, you know, building up the Fed's balance sheet, buying lots of asset back securities and things like that. So that he's been consistent on. And he's also, you know, he's changed his tune somewhat. what shall we say on the mission of the Fed? And he has complained in the past that there's been

too much mission creep in what the Fed is responsible for. More recently, I would say that he has tweaked his message, to put it mildly, to suggest that the Fed should be more cooperative in many ways in terms of supporting the fiscal policy. Rachel, I want to follow up on that point that Catherine was making about his criticisms of the Fed's balance sheet, what really gets to the role of the Federal Reserve in the U.S. economy. Where does he stand on that? And how does that align with the president who nominated him? Sure. So in the past, he, as Catherine was talking about, he criticized the Fed for its ownership of trillions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities, many of which, you know, built up after the

Great Recession and during the pandemic. And he has made the argument that this big bond-buying spree, you know, basically enabled Congress to ramp up spending without worrying about higher borrowing costs. And I think that there are a couple of threads there that, you know, have connections to government spending, to what the, you know, Fed's role is when it comes to monetary versus fiscal policy. And these are a lot of the themes that we hear Trump economic officials talking about too, right? Now, those two types of leaders have very different. different roles and there are lots of reasons why monetary policy and fiscal policy come out of different shops, which maybe we'll talk about now. But I think like with any Fed candidate,

it will be telling. I think we've lost Rachel there. But, you know, since she talked about him as a Fed candidate, Catherine, I want to follow up with you in terms of his prospects in Congress, because Kevin Hassett, who a lot of folks thought was going to get the nod, turned out to have a lot of opposition in Congress. As I think Rachel mentioned before, excuse me, Warsh has been around for a long time. He has relationships on the Hill.

He has passed through a confirmation hearing before, albeit with, you know, different people, of course, are many different lawmakers sitting in the seats that would be there to confirm him or judge him. So I generally don't think he as a candidate, per se, will have a lot of problems. the one thing that may complicate his path to the Fed chairmanship is the fact that there is still this ongoing investigation, criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, the current Fed chair, which, you know, has, as far as I can see, is purely political, but listeners can judge for themselves.

And Senator Tom Tillis, who's a retiring senator, he's a Republican from North Carolina. he sits on the committee that handles Fed nominations, has said that he will oppose any Fed confirmation, including that of the chair, who he seems to like Warsh, but he has said that he will oppose any nomination, any confirmation all the same unless and until this Powell investigation is dropped and closed with some transparency, that basically this should not be hanging over the process going forward. This is political. This investigation of Powell compromises the political independence of the institution of the Federal Reserve itself. So that's not specific to Warsh. I should be clear, but it may be something that complicates his path to a confirmation. All right. Catherine

Rampell of MSN now and the bulwark. Thanks so much. We also had Rachel Siegel earlier at the Washington Post. Appreciate you. Thanks, Kimberly. Have a great weekend. Wall Street today, markets ended the last trading day of the month down. And even if traders seem to be somewhat positive about Trump's Fed pick, we'll have the details when we do the numbers. Let's shift over to some company news now, which is also kind of foreign policy news. ExxonMobil and Chevron posted their lowest annual profits since 2021 in their earnings reports today, adding yet another reason why neither of these companies seems particularly excited to invest big in Venezuela at the moment, despite White House pressure to do so.

In fact, it's not really a time when big oil is looking to pour big money into new oil production at all. Marketplaces Elizabeth Troval has more on the investment environment for the major oil companies and how that factors into what's next for Venezuela. For now, President Trump's goal of $100 billion in investment, in rebuilding Venezuela's oil industry is not amounting to much more than a pipe dream. Tom Seng is with Texas Christian University. We're in a low-price environment. The market globally is deemed to be in an oversupply situation. Why in the world would they invest in a place like Venezuela?

Some of the roadblocks to big investments there aren't Venezuela-specific. Sang says since oil prices went negative during the pandemic, energy companies shifted gears towards discipline. No more drill baby drill. You know, get into debt by just continually drilling and drilling. Instead, focus on free cash flows, which allowed companies to pay down debt, to pay dividends consistently. So you've got more corporate discipline, low oil prices, and oversupplied oil market and uncertainty around demand. Not exactly the makings of a, let's take on a big investment risk moment. Thomas Liles is with Restad Energy. Investment is likely to remain barely conservative,

flattish in a sense, albeit with the ability to pick low-hanging fruit where needed. So investing in places where there's already massive operations, like in West Texas or Guyana. As for the outlook in Venezuela specifically, a lot needs to happen to make that country investable in a big way, says Andy O'Connor with Morningstar DPRS. In Venezuela, the challenge is developing abundant resources. source is not finding them. This requires a higher oil priced. And then additionally, most potential investors will need a significant change in the country's legal and commercial frameworks before they consider investing. The University of Houston's Ed Hirz puts it a different way.

Until they see a Trump hotel on the beach in Caracas, no oil company is going down to Venezuela with billions of dollars. Even Chevron, which is already operating in Venezuela, is cautious. While it may increase its Venezuelan production in the near term with modest investments, there's still a ceiling on major growth for now. I'm Elizabeth Trowball for Marketplace. Pushback against immigration and customs enforcement funding by Senate Democrats is blocking a government funding deal. And so we're likely going to have at least a partial government shutdown over the weekend. And congressional Democrats aren't the only ones trying to protest the ongoing immigration. crackdowns across the country, especially the ones happening in Minnesota.

A coalition of activists from across the country have called for a national shutdown today to protest ICE, asking people to boycott school, work, shopping. Marketplace's Carla Javier talked to small business owners who support the shutdown in principle to understand how they decided whether to spend today closed or open. In New York City, Fannie Gerson of FanFenn Donuts and the restaurant Mijos says the vast majority of her employees are immigrants. And so today, like many businesses around the country, she faced a choice. We can either stay open, business as usual, or we could stay open and give a portion or the entire sales to an organization that we all agree upon or we close. She asked her

employees what they wanted, and everyone chose to shut down. I don't know if we can't really afford to, but this is just the bigger and what was most important to us, even though we don't know exactly like the financial hit. In Wisconsin, T.J. Samanchen, owner of Wonderstate Coffee, says it's important to him to keep showing solidarity with the movement, even if there's a financial cost. Between lost sales and paying our staff, you know, it's probably less than $10,000, but it's in that ballpark.

But not everyone can do that. Caroline Glover of the restaurant Annette and the traveling Mercy's Bar in Aurora, Colorado, says this is a tough time of year. For us closing down on a Friday night at the end of the slowest month of the year just was not a business decision that we could do. You know, we couldn't support our staff financially if we did that. She says most employees told her, They want to work because they have rent to make at the end of the month. So she decided on a middle ground. They're open and donating 10% of sales all weekend to refugee and immigrant rights organizations.

In the Twin Cities, hundreds of businesses shut their doors last Friday, including St. Paul's Store, The Yarnery. But co-owner, Scott Rour, says he's not shutting down today. In part because we are donating proceeds from various projects, not just today, but throughout the weeks. He says he and the business are in this for the long term. So he's planning for what other actions or closures might look like in the future. I'm Carla Javier for Marketplace. Coming up. I want a nice drink. I want a fancy drink.

I don't want to spend that money, though. Especially in this economy. But first, the numbers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 179 points, 4 tenths of a percent, to close at 48,892. The NASDAQ gave up 223 points, 9 tenths of percent. to finish at 23,461, and the S&P 500 dipped 29 points for 10th percent to end at 6939. Gold and silver were on a tear all month until they tanked today. Investors who fled to them as safe havens in uncertainty seemed a bit less uncertain after the president named his choice for Fed Chair.

Silver sank more than 25 percent. Gold fell about 9 percent. Bonds also fell. The yield on the 10-year T-note rose to 4.24. percent and you're listening to Marketplace. Are you ready for a life-changing opportunity? BC Cancer is actively hiring for all health care roles across all its regional centers in beautiful British Columbia. Join a dedicated team committed to ending cancer for good and experience the lifestyle you've always dreamed of in stunning BC.

We're curing cancer here. Are you in? Apply now at jobs. BCcancer.BC.c.c.c.c.c.c. This is Marketplace. I'm Kimberly Adams. Parts of the eastern U.S. are forecast to get more snow this weekend. This comes after much of the country was hit by heavy snow and iced last weekend. That storm brought power outages, canceled flights, and school closures. In some places, power is still out, roads are still treacherous, and schools are still closed. Working parents, however, don't get a snow day. They get a day. They get a day

where they're working two jobs, and there are all sorts of costs to that. Marketplaces Stephanie Hughes shares her firsthand experience. This week, I've been referring to my seven-year-old, William, as my assistant. You know where to find those letters so fast? Yes, I'm like a paper. Baltimore, where I live, was hit by about a foot of snow. Public schools have been closed all week. My husband and I split up childcare and tried to do our jobs with the kids around.

But even when you hide yourself away in the house, your children will find you. Let me send this one message and then... And then I'm going to come downstairs and talk to you and daddy, okay? For working parents, no days become this jumble of work and parenting where you feel like you do nothing well. And I'm one of the lucky ones. I can work from home. I heard from lots of parents in the region who are exhausted. It's been a bad week, I would say. It's been a comically bad week. Matthew Johnson manages a team of developers for a tech company.

He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, who works in data visualization. They have three kids. This week, they had to take turns working and caring for their children, which meant taking paid time off. We're just burning through PTO while at the same time putting in hours to work to just try to keep, not even the ship running, but just making sure, like, this ship doesn't sink. They're still paying for child care, even though they weren't able to access it much of the week. Johnson says it's taken an emotional toll, too. I love my kids, but it is such a constantness that, like, it burns through my patience and kind of by, like... Another layer, some parents have to oversee virtual schooling as well.

I monitored Will as he logged on to his first ever online meeting. And I'll show you how to unmute and mute yourself. What's mute? Mute means that no one can hear you. In search of quiet, some parents are paying high schoolers to watch their kids for a few hours. Others are calling in favors. I was like, hey, do you mind if I drop Maxine off for a couple hours? Like, I'll buy Dunkin' Donuts.

Brittany Crutotow also lives in Baltimore. Her five-year-old, Maxine, is in kindergarten. Cruton needed to attend a big meeting without any distractions. Her husband's been out of town. So she dropped off her daughter at a friend's house. But you also don't want to overuse those things, right? Gruto doesn't have family nearby. That's shaped how she prepares for these kinds of situations, including the decision to only have one kid. We just kind of knew that this is what we would be in for for the snow days, for spring break, for summer, right?

So we just have to be proactive and plan. Come here. You want to come say hi. Hi. Gruto loves her job in special education, but she says parenting is her first priority. Because we are replaceable. and I'm not replaceable at home. There is new research that moms bear the brunt of interruptions on snow days. A working paper by academics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln finds that if a place gets a lot of snow in a month,

working moms miss, on average, about two days of work. Researchers also believe that moms may self-sort into more flexible jobs, even if they pay less. While snow days cost parents, they're also an opportunity for small businesses. In Baltimore, a dance and art studio called Dance on the Square held a pop-up Flurry Camp this week for 3 to 10-year-olds. Whoa. The studio's owner, Kate Drake, decided to offer camp as soon as school was canceled. So I actually made the choice to sleep here so that I could open. The camp costs $75 for kids to come from 8 to 3.

Aftercare, which goes until 5.30, is another $25. We filled yesterday for today in six minutes, 50 spots, and then we had a wait list of 49 people for today. At my house, we also spent some money on a day camp that wasn't sold out. And it has been nice for Will to see more of what I do. He's even come up with a new jingle for the show. It's a turn and it's a playing it's Marketplace. In Baltimore, I'm Stephanie Hughes, reporter and parent for Marketplace. Well, that was just too cute.

Meanwhile, for those who've been participating, tomorrow is the last day of dry January, where people hold off on drinking alcohol for the month. Many of those folks turn to non-alcoholic beverages to have something to imbibe during the dry spell, including mocktails, non-alcoholic or alcohol removed beers and wines. These kind of drinks have grown in popularity over the last few years, as more Americans decide to,

cut back on the booze. According to a gallop poll from last summer, the U.S. drinking rates hit a record low of 54 percent, and that number is even lower for young adults, which is welcome news if you're in the business of NA. That's the setup for today's installment of our series, My Economy. My name is Amber Suzanne Pennington. I am the co-owner of Free Spirited with my husband, Arlio de Guzman, and we are at Free Spirited in Alhambra, California. So coming in through the red gate, you're not going to find a handle on the door, which confuses a lot of people. We actually have had people knock before. But there's a sticker that says, activate switch to operate.

So you press the button, and we made this handicap accessible so anyone could come in and enjoy and not feel left out. We are a SoperCraft cocktail lounge and allergen-friendly Scratch Kitchen. We opened in January 2024. The inspiration came when we... were working at a bar together and a bunch of sober cocktails or mocktails were being ordered. And I was like, oh my God, there's an actual demographic for this. It's not just me. So with my history of losing people to addiction, being hit by drunk driver and my husband

going through alcoholism, I'm like, all right, dang it, we're doing this. This is something that we can do and we're going to be a place for someone. Winter, as well as January, all the way through spring is our busy time. summer is our slow time. Coming into our first year, I was pregnant and my son was due in April. So we were gone during the entire time that would have been busy for us. And when we came back from parental leave, it was kind of like starting all over again. But recently, it's been really, really busy. As a person who doesn't drink alcohol, I hated going out and seeing things that were like $14 or $16. And I'm like, holy crap, I want a nice drink.

I want a fancy drink. I don't want to spend that money, though. And that was kind of a thing that we went back and forth a lot on. Our initial prices were $16, but that included tax and tip. And our prices now still include tax and tip, but they're $8. Give me the quarantine heart, please. So I love this one. This is the one that started it all.

It has a nice creaminess to start. and then I really like acidic, and it has that acidic qualities that you feel in the back of your mouth. And it's so good. Lemons, limes are black garlic, which is a specialty product. Those things have gotten a lot more expensive. To keep costs low, we don't buy random juices, like, I don't know, orange juice, lemon juice, that sort of thing. We bought a machine and we juice our own stuff. we make our own syrups. We don't have that extra cost because of the pre-made products since we do

everything in house. Right now it's Arleo and myself who are working. And it's worked so far, but since we're getting busier, we are starting to hire more people. About three people is what we're hiring right now. We posted the job posting on our Instagram because we really want people. We don't want just random people. We want people who know what we're about, who believe, in what we're about and also embody that themselves. We're excited to bring in people we trust. Amber Susan Pennington, owner of Free-Spirited with her husband, Arlieo de Guzman, in Alhambra, California.

We can't do this series without you. Write to us about what's happening in your economy at marketplace.org slash my economy. This final note on the way out today, with so much of their economic news on this Friday, we didn't get to an important data release from this morning. The producer price index, a measure of how much businesses are paying for goods and services, was up half a percent in December, more than analysts were anticipating. And yes, these are December numbers, not January. We're still dealing with shutdown delayed data.

Anyway, it was the biggest increase in five months and caused mostly by an increase in the cost of services, especially trade-related services. See footnote tariffs. Economists like to keep an eye on PPI because inflation tends to show up in the prices. companies pay before they eventually pass it on to consumers. Our theme music was composed by B.J. Leaterman, Marketplace's executive producer is Nancy Fargolly. Joanne Griffith is the chief content officer, and Neil Scarborough is the vice president and general manager. I'm Kimberly Adams. Have a great weekend, everyone. We are going to be back on Monday.

This is APM. For second and third generation kids, holding on to your family's culture can be difficult and expensive. I'm Rima Gres, and this week on This is Uncomfortable, I talk with author and journalist Aman Ismail about how passing down his Egyptian roots to his kids has become a line item in his monthly budget. I don't want to have kids who can't speak Arabic or read Arabic. This is the only chance I get to do this, right, when they're really, really young. I won't get another chance to help guide them and help them learn Arabic for the sake of them be connected to this massive heritage that they're inheriting.

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