Marketplace - Will Hollywood’s behind-the-scenes workers stay?

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

In the past decade, filming outside of Los Angeles has become a cost-effective option for many major studios. And lower housing costs are driving many lighting techs, grips and gaffers to follow. With roughly 13,000 homes lost in January’s wildfires, staying in LA will be even harder for those workers. Also on the show, the rising cost of utilities and a second act for frozen foods.

Well, that was a week, huh? From American public media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdall. It is Friday today. This one is the 28th of February. It is good as always to have you along everybody In no particular order as we get going today trade and tariffs a little inflation and maybe some interest rates and Because we can't not the politics of this economy Catherine Rampell is at the Washington Post Anna Swanson is at the New York Times. Hey you two

Hey, okay, Anna Swanson. We begin New York Times. Hey, you two. Hey, Kai. Anna Swanson, we begin with you, and I offer my condolences as the person at the Times who has to cover trade and trade policy in this economy right now. I'm not going to ask you where things stand. I'm not going to ask you what's going on. I'm going to talk to you, or want you to talk to me rather, about a great piece in the paper today that you and your colleagues had about how tariffs may not actually be able to do everything that Donald Trump wants them to do, everything everywhere all at once.

Thank you. Yeah, definitely. So it's been sort of an unending parade of tariff threats, right? And the president has talked about a few different rationales for these tariffs. So he's talked about them bringing supply chains back to the United States, using them as a source of leverage against other countries, and then also always raising massive amounts of revenue for the United States. And so my colleagues and I just pointed out that a lot of those goals just directly undermine and contradict each other.

So for example, in raising revenue, if you want to collect revenue, you need people to continue buying imports, which means that they're not switching to buying American goods instead and helping American factories. So, you know, it's a problem for the president's agenda. At some point, he is going to have to pick and choose. And right now, I think, you know, he's able to have all these different kind of interests allied in favor of his tariff threats because he hasn't really had to pick and choose a goal yet. Right. And, you know, those tariffs last we heard, and it will change between now and then almost certainly. They're slated to start on Tuesday the 4th.

Anna, let me ask you this, though. When you talk to practitioners in the art of global trade, as opposed to, you know, ask you this though, when you talk to practitioners in the art of global trade, as opposed to academics and practicing economists, when you talk to people who are doing it, are they bewildered? Are they resigned? What's the mood? Yeah, no, I think people are a bit bewildered. Many people did expect the president to double down on his tariff threats and go bigger than he did the first term. But I think it's really important to note that the scale of what the president is doing with these tariffs and with these trade measures is really so much bigger than what he did before in a way that is really astonishing even to the trade community. So

if all these tariffs would go into effect, it would be the most tariffs since Smoot Hawley and the Great Depression. Even the China tariffs that he's considering on Tuesday, he's considering adding 10% to all imports coming from China on top of another 10% that he did a month ago. That's already roughly equivalent to all the tariffs that he did during the entire US-China trade war in his first term, which took over a year to unfold. So it's really notable what is going on here in his first term, which took over a year to unfold. So it's really notable what is going on here in trade.

Yes, size and speed. Speaking, Catherine Rimpel, of things he's doing this time bigger than he did last time, the defenestration of the federal government is, number one, still ongoing, and number two, hitting now economically critical areas. I want to talk to you about the Internal Revenue Service. You did a lot of really cool reporting on that in the last 18 months, two years, about some of the modernizations that are desperately needed, which are now not happening. This will play out in the larger economy, yes?

Absolutely, well, first of all, it'll play out in the federal government. This is a way to save money or reduce budgets. Save in air quotes there, right? Yes, yes. This is radio, so you can't see my air quote, hand gestures, but I'm doing them, I promise. It is completely the wrong way to go about doing it.

If you are, you know, we like to talk about, or Trump likes to talk about, running the government as a business. If you are running a business, you do not shut down your accounts receivable department right the guys who take in the money and he's essentially doing that so there's there's apparently shutting down taxpayer assistance centers laying off people who work at these call centers who help people who are trying to comply with

our absurdly complicated tax code. They're laying off enforcement people. There was a big investment in enforcement and nobody likes to get audited, obviously, but audit rates, particularly of mega corporations and very high-income Americans have plummeted or had plummeted in the years prior to the IRA passing. And that is a huge potential ROI if you invest in enforcement capabilities. That's where the money is. And there's been a bunch of research, at, for every dollar spent on enforcement, how much comes back.

And for very high income people, it's something like $6 for every dollar spent. Much more than that, if you consider deterrence effects, that is not only the revenue that's captured after the audit when the IRS finds that you've been noncompliant in some way, but also the fact that people are more compliant basically in the year subsequent. And there's a bunch of other stuff that they're doing that is likely to reduce compliance, not just on enforcement. There was reporting today by a colleague of mine at the Post that the that DHS is

Demanding that the Internal Revenue Service hand over information about undocumented immigrants who are paying their taxes and historically there has been a very well-guarded divide Because we want people even those who may be working off the books in some respect, we want them to pay their taxes. So they're not going to pay either because why would you do anything to remain on the government's radar? So we're going to lose a lot of money throughout all of this.

There are real effects to what's happening. Speaking of real effects, Anna Swanson, can we detour here into what's actually happening in this economy? It is still for now strong. PCE came in today two and a half percent, which was down just a hair. GDP came in this week. It's growing, a little slower, but it's growing. Consumers though, maybe getting a little tired. Some things to watch, yes? Yeah, no, I agree. So inflation numbers looked a little bit better today, but the problem

was that the data showed a pullback in consumer spending and that was somewhat unexpected. So, January was a very cold month and that always has a big impact because people are hibernating rather than spending and there were also wildfires in California. So it could be weather effects, but it does raise a lot of questions about whether these are early signs of a bigger downturn. And certainly there's been some more nervousness recently in consumer confidence surveys about the economy and the effective tariffs.

So the question is really, is this just a fluke or is this something more serious that we'll see develop? Right. Catherine, last question to you. And it comes with a nod to what happened today in the Oval Office between President Zelensky and President Trump Obviously the Trump administration has decided to reorient America's place in the world and its reputation in the world And I guess my question to you as we talk about the politics of this economy, right?

Is what does that change in reputation mean for the American economy, you think, and the global economy too? I think the core question here is, will America be a reliable ally? When we come to an agreement with other countries, whether it's on security-related things, as in the Oval Office meeting that you are referring to or trade agreements for that matter, will we stick to our word? And I think we've proven time and time again with this administration that that is not a reliable assumption.

Trump negotiated, for example, the current agreement with Canada and Mexico regarding trade, the USMCA, the so-called new NAFTA, and he's already ripping that up with tariffs, as we've discussed, expected next week. So what does that mean? It means that we are not a reliable place to invest in, per se, to have supply chains linked into. I think it's quite likely that we will see kind of a cleavage in the world into countries that do business with China and countries that do business with us as well that that may have already been in the works, but we are driving more potential trading partners into the arms of China. potential trading partners into the arms of China. And you know, just this general uncertainty over our commitment to free trade, to anti-corruption, I think is likely to drag on investment here, investment globally, and potentially global growth. Katherine Rampel, The Washington Post and Anna Swanson at The New York Times on a remarkable

Friday, to be honest with you. Have a nice weekend, you two. Thank you. Have a nice weekend, you two. Thank you. Thank you, Guy. Wall Street today to end the weekend of the month. Traders took a breather on this Friday. That PCE number I mentioned real quick easing their minds, I suppose. Details numbers when we get there. Maybe some time yet before we've got anything like a complete count of exactly how many federal workers the Trump administration has fired or put on leave before firing them. And it is for sure going to be a bit before we know what that's going to do to the economy.

We'll get the February jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday next, but because of the way that data is collected, it is unlikely to give us a good picture of what has been going on. Marketplace's Kristin Schwab explains. It's sort of funny that we call the February jobs report the February jobs report because Harry Holzer, a former chief economist at the Department of Labor, says it doesn't really capture all of February. It's a snapshot of the month that occurs within a specific week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys workers during the seven days that include the 12th day of the month. It's called the reference week. And February's reference week happened before a lot of these recent federal cuts, which means they won't show up in the data

until the March jobs report. Plus, it'll be a while before people who took buyouts show up at all. Gimbal Because they won't be looking for new jobs in most cases. Lauren Henry They might wait a while to job hunt. Others may have retired. Martha Gimbal, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale, says federal layoffs alone won't change the unemployment rate that much. director of the budget lab at Yale says federal layoffs alone won't change the unemployment rate that much. I think people have to keep in mind how big the United States economy is.

There are more than two million federal employees. The total U.S. labor force adds up to 170 million. Just from a pure economy standpoint, the private sector can absorb those people. Of course, from a personal standpoint, job loss is difficult, especially for workers who've spent their careers with the government. Big picture, federal cuts will ripple out beyond the federal workforce, says Aaron Sojourner, an economist at the WE Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Most of the federal spending is not spent on public employees, but spent on private

sector employees through contracts. And grants, which means it'll be months before we get a clearer picture of the full impact of these government cuts on the labor force. I'm Kristin Schwab for Marketplace. The wildfires here in Los Angeles last month were just the latest hurdle in a difficult four or five years for the biggest industry in town. The pandemic and then the writers and actors strike put Hollywood in a bit of a skid, with studios and streamers cutting back on local film and television production.

And now there are words that the fires will accelerate that decline. There is a stay in LA campaign, big name actors calling on those studios and streamers to keep production here. And yes, us going to the multiplexer and pulling up Netflix is a business for those companies. But it's a livelihood for the tens of thousands

of Angelenos who work behind the scenes, the gaffers and location scouts and makeup artists. You're not gonna see at the Oscars on Sunday. And for them, the stakes are high, as Marketplace's Matt Levin explains. Even if you haven't visited LA, you probably know Randy's Donuts. Can I please do two plates?

Okay. Two maple bars? It's here at this noisy intersection in Inglewood, just a few small traffic jams away from LAX. You're likely familiar with their plane donut, the 30 foot tall one on the roof. I think it might have been the sequel, Iron Man 2, where Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. is sitting in his Iron Man suit in the middle of that donut up there. Danny Finn is an LA location scout for movies and TV shows. He says if a script calls for an authentic LA landmark that's a little less on the nose than the Hollywood sign, Randy's Donuts is a popular go-to.

It did make that cameo in Iron Man 2, it's in the Ice Cube comedy Friday After Next and a bunch of other stuff, which is why Finn was taken aback when he saw the 2018 cult classic Den of Thieves. In the opening of Den of Thieves there is a heat style armored car robbery. Take your foot off the gas, press the unlock button and step out of the vehicle. That I believe is supposed to be right there because it's in front of a walk-up style donut shop and there is a little donut on the roof that looks like the size of like a direct

TV satellite dish. All of Den of Thieves is set in greater LA and most of it was shot in Atlanta, Georgia. Finn didn't think it worked. You could tell it wasn't Randy's. I felt validated as a Los Angeles location manager. I felt like, yeah, you can't do it. Like you really can't replicate LA. Major studios are trying though. Film, TV, and commercial shooting days in LA have dropped 39% since 2017. Den of Thieves and The Walking Dead and the Avengers movies were filmed in Atlanta because it's cheaper there,

mostly because of a very generous 20% state tax credit. Also cheaper in Georgia? A house. Paul Oddly is the head of the nonprofit group Film LA. We did see some migration over the past 10 years of folks from here moving to other production centers. He fears the roughly 13,000 homes lost in January's wildfires will only make Los Angeles even less affordable for below-the-line workers, an industry term for people behind the scenes. While most below-the-line workers are well-played

middle class, that still isn't enough in many cases here. Lighting technician Todd Brown moved to Atlanta from Los Angeles in the summer of 2022. He just wrapped work on the last season of Stranger Things, which was filmed in Jackson, Georgia. He was able to buy a 2400 square foot house for less than a million dollars, which is basically impossible in LA. And Atlanta has other professional perks. Quite frankly, there's just a little less competition. And so if you come with skills, you will, it will be seen. Brown says the workforce in Atlanta is younger. It's the next generation of behind the scenes talent from all over the country trying to break in where it's easier. Like in Los Angeles, you'd have guys that are like gaffers and that's because their father

was in there, their mother was in there. You know what I mean? It's a trade and there's legacy to that. The temptation to leave LA is stronger now after those January fires. Jeremy Whalen gave it a passing thought. So we're coming to my new apartment now. It's a converted garage that we found after the fires. Okay. Waylon and his partner lost the home they owned in Alta Dena where

he lived for eight years. They're both drivers for film crews, fairing equipment to and from sets and studios. In a good year with steady work, he'll make about 150 grand, although lately it's been less. All the furniture he has right now has been donated from those Hollywood studios, including the 70s looking rug he hopes will be a conversation piece. Yeah, it's cool. It's a fun rug that was on some set somewhere. This could be the Threes company.

Yes, absolutely. You know what, even if it's not, I'm going to pretend like it is. Wayland says the below the line community here has really helped him recover after the fires. And that very brief flirtation with leaving LA, well, that scene has been cut. The thing about working in Hollywood is that you have generations of really skilled,

talented people that are here. So we really want to fight to stay here. He hopes the movement to bring more movies and TV back to LA will make that fight easier. I'm Matt Levin for Marketplace. Coming up. If I microwave this chicken nugget, it was soggy and really sad, but if I throw it in my air fryer, it's delicious. A second act for frozen food, believe it or not.

First though, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrial is up 601 today, 1.4 percent, 43,840. The NASDAQ added 302 points, 1 and 6 tenths percent, 18,847. The S&P 500 up 92 points, 1.6 percent. Ended things at 59 and 54. For the five days going by, the Dow up just under 1 percent, the NASDAQ down 3.5%, the S&P 500 slipped 1% today. Bonds went up, yield on the 10-year T-note, thus down 4.20%.

You're listening to Marketplace. If you want to be savvy about the economy, the Marketplace newsletter is just what you need. Every Friday you'll get explainers and analysis that make sense of everything from the moving markets to grocery prices. No jargon, no hype, just smart takes delivered to your inbox. Sign up today at Marketplace.org slash subscribe. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Rizdal. Ana and I mentioned this a little bit earlier, that consumer spending slid in January on everything from cars to clothing. Makes sense, right?

After the holidays? One category went up a whole bunch last month, though 29% according to the Department of Commerce. Utilities, which have been a pain point for low and middle income consumers in particular, as Marketplace's Elizabeth Troval reports. January spending is often about essentials, says Morning Consult's Denny Cohen-Hempsey, but utilities are subject to the weather and. We've had really cold temperatures

on the Southern United States and East Coast. Like snow in Houston. And the cold has a double whammy effect on utilities, especially for natural gas heated homes, says David Tinsley with Bank of America Institute. You've got the price of what they're paying for gas rising, but they're also having to burn more gas in order to counter this unseasonably cold weather. His review of electricity, gas, and water payments showed a 6% year-on-year increase in January.

But households are feeling the pinch differently. Well, richer people pay more for utilities. They often have bigger homes. They don't pay a ton more than people who are poorer. It's certainly tougher for people at the lower end of the income distribution. That leads some families to make drastic decisions, according to a survey by the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute. Margo Weiss is their executive director.

A very high percentage of people leave their thermostats or their air conditioning at uncomfortable temperatures or even turn it off completely because of the fear of being shut off. She says households have also given up entertainment, medicine and school supplies to pay their energy bills. I'm Elizabeth Proval from Marketplace. Frozen foods, maybe throwing a frozen pizza or something in the microwave, have long been a go-to to get something on the table as fast as possible after a busy day. Though convenient, frozen foods have gotten something of a bad rap. They're not all that healthy and not all that tasty either.

But the freezer section has gotten something of a rebrand. Megan McCarran wrote about it for The Atlantic the other day. Megan, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. I am not alone, I'm sure, when I say frozen food, ew. But that's changing, you say. It is changing. And also, you're definitely not alone in that perception.

I think, yeah, I haven't heard about how I shared that perception for a long time. Yeah. I don't know how you grew up eating dinner, Kai, but I grew up eating a lot of frozen meals at times, and, you know, I was never mad about it. There's like that one weirdly good fudgy brownie in kids' cuisine that I still think about sometimes. But yeah, it was, you know, it was a little mid. But yeah, American perceptions are really changing about frozen food and some of it is that the pandemic led people to take a second look. Some of it is also that I think the options are getting better. And also there's so much information online now about all these hacks to

freeze, you know, food you've cooked yourself that that's become like, if you're really nerdy, serious home cook, you're also getting into your freezer. Right, right. All right, so let's go through a couple of those. First of all, you point out that really the relationship that we have with our freezers began to change because of the pandemic. And, you know, certainly in my house, we were freezing a whole lot of food. Yes, I feel one of the pandemic status accessories was the chest freezer, right?

Right. But there's more to it than just that, right? Well-known name-brand cooks are saying, look, frozen food is now not only just acceptable, but actually good. I'm no fan of Gordon Ramsay, but you quote him in this piece. Yeah, we didn't actually speak to Gordon, but there are... But he has said, right? Yeah, he has said, you know, he was sort of...

gave a couple quotes to the press over the years saying, you know, frozen food isn't very good or, you know, in 2020 he disparaged microwaves is not really imparting any flavor for cooking. And recently he launched his own line of frozen food. This is kind of a familiar move for chefs. Wolfgang Puck has had a frozen lion for a really long time. But I think what's really changing is that, you know, you don't just have to microwave frozen food anymore.

The air fryer has made frozen food, you know, a lot crispier and tastier. And so sort of air fryer mania is another thing that has made people say like, wow, like, if I microwave this chicken nugget, it was soggy and really sad. But if I throw out my air fryer, it's delicious. You've been writing on food and culture for a good long while. Has your relationship with

your freezer changed? Most definitely. Yeah, I've been covering food for over 10 years. And when I started, I would say I wasn't even freezing stuff I had made fresh. That was just not interesting to me. But around that time, you know, I was like a canning hipster for a hot minute. And then I started, you know, reading these blogs about, you know, putting up your jam. I know. Ah, youth.

And... It's hard. That's the beauty of the freezer, right? Exactly. You wrap it up well, you pop it in the freezer and you're good to go. Canning is just, that's a whole different thing. Yeah, so that was my gateway. I was like, oh, well I can make this jam and just put it in the freezer, or I made this

stock, I can put it in the freezer. Oh, I made this bread, I can put it in the freezer. And then from there you start saying like, well why am I so down on these frozen french fries? Like sometimes you just want some french fries in the house. Totally. Can I just say I just discovered you could freeze bread like two years ago? It's embarrassing, truly.

But once you figure it out, you're like, I'm a genius. That's right. That's right. Megan McCarran writes on food and a bunch of other stuff. This one was in the Atlantic. Megan, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much for having me. All right, we got to go.

No time for a final. Too much talking up at the top of the program. Our theme music was composed by B.J. Luterman. Marketplace's executive producer is Nancy Fargoli. Donna Tam is the executive editor. Neal Scarborough is the vice president and general manager. I'm Kyle Rizdahl.

Have yourselves a great weekend, everybody. We'll be back on Monday. See ya. This is APM.