The Morning Meeting with Al Tompkins is a daily Poynter briefing of story ideas worth considering and more timely context for journalists, written by senior faculty Al Tompkins. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.
A new investigation by The Washington Post and the Markup finds that a new system for allocating human organs for transplantation is sending livers to wealthier states like California and New York at the expense of poorer states, where liver disease is more common.
The whole point of the new system, which began a few years ago, was to get donated organs to the people who needed them most, wherever they live. Livers that are donated now travel much further than they used to but the number of times those donated organs go to waste is also the highest it has been in a decade. The Post and the Markup report:
The analysis of data from federal health authorities found sharp declines in lifesaving surgeries in Puerto Rico and seven states, all but one Southern and Midwestern: Alabama, Louisiana, and Kansas, North Carolina, South Dakota, Iowa and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, New York and California, whose transplant industry officials lobbied for the new policy, logged their highest numbers of liver transplants in more than a decade in 2021 — 603 and 959, respectively.
(The Washington Post/Markup)
The new system, called the “acuity circles” policy, has nearly doubled the median distance livers are transported, increased transport costs and coincided with the highest number of wasted livers in nearly a decade, 949 in 2021. That’s 1 in 10 donated livers. The analysis further shows a significant increase in the number of states sending donated livers beyond their own borders. In 2019, before the new policy took effect, 21 states and territories exported a majority of livers they collected. Two years later, 42 did.
The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network points out that since the system changed, fewer people died awaiting organs. But at the same time, the number of people who died after transplantation increased. The network said that can be expected when the sickest people are the ones who are now getting organs. So increased patients at increased risk are more likely to die.
Today’s Fed meeting really matters to Wall Street
Around 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Reserve Bank will announce its newest move to control inflation. Conventional wisdom says the Fed rate will go up another quarter of a percentage point. The toned-down increase is partly aimed at trying to calm concerns over the health of the American banking system. The Fed has steadily raised interest rates to try to control inflation. The inflation rate is running at around 6% while the target rate is about 2%.
Homes sales increase while home prices fall for the first time in a decade
The newest home sales figures from the National Association of Realtors show a more than 14% increase the first monthly gain in a year. And maybe there is a connection to the fact that home prices dropped last month. The median existing-home sales price decreased 0.2% from the previous year to $363,000. The Realtors report said,
“Conscious of changing mortgage rates, home buyers are taking advantage of any rate declines,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Moreover, we’re seeing stronger sales gains in areas where home prices are decreasing, and the local economies are adding jobs.”
First-time buyers were responsible for 27% of sales in February, down from 31% in January and 29% in February 2022. NAR’s 2022 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers – released in November 2022 – found that the annual share of first-time buyers was 26%, the lowest since NAR began tracking the data.
All-cash sales accounted for 28% of transactions in February, down from 29% in January but up from 25% in February 2022.
Individual investors or second-home buyers, who make up many cash sales, purchased 18% of homes in February, up from 16% in January but down from 19% in February 2022.
The pay gap between men and women has barely closed in 20 years
Whatever momentum there might have been for women to earn as much as men has stalled.
New research from Pew finds that women’s education levels have grown in recent decades and that women hold their share of employment in higher-paying managerial, business, computer and legal occupations. It finds that in the last 20 years the shares of women in several lower-paying fields — such as administrative support, food preparation and serving occupations — fell significantly. And still, Pew says, “American women typically earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. That was about the same as in 2002, when they earned 80 cents to the dollar.”
Pew Research provides this updated chart:
(Pew)
Pew reports:
The slow pace at which the gender pay gap has narrowed this century contrasts sharply with the progress in the preceding two decades: In 1982, women earned just 65 cents to each dollar earned by men.
There is no single explanation for why progress toward narrowing the pay gap has all but stalled in the 21st century. Women generally begin their careers closer to wage parity with men, but they lose ground as they age and progress through their work lives, a pattern that has remained consistent over time. The pay gap persists even though women today are more likely than men to have graduated from college. In fact, the pay gap between college-educated women and men is not any narrower than the one between women and men who do not have a college degree.
(Pew)
- Women who were ages 25 to 34 in 2010. In that year, they earned 92% as much as men their age, compared with 83% for women overall.
- But by 2022, this group of women, now ages 37 to 46, earned only 84% as much as men of the same age.
- This pattern repeats itself for groups of women who were ages 25 to 34 in earlier years — say, 2005 or 2000 — and it may well be the future for women entering the workforce now.
Dive deeper into Pew’s research here.
Addressing the isolation of being deaf in prison and jail
The Marshall Project took on a subject I have never seen addressed before: the lack of accommodations for people who are in prisons and jails who are deaf and hard of hearing. Incarcerated people who are deaf can feel like they are living in a prison within a prison, but the Federal Communications Commission is stepping in. Marshall explains:
The Federal Communications Commission will soon require all prison phone companies to provide video communication services for deaf and hard of hearing prisoners. The new order, which goes into effect in January 2024, also applies to people in jails, immigration detention, juvenile detention, and secure mental health facilities nationwide.
Some prison officials have resisted installing videophones, saying they are hard to monitor, and many departments have been sued over a lack of access. The new rule applies only to phone companies and is not binding to corrections departments. But FCC officials said it “sends a strong signal” that these services should be made available.
Supporters of the new rule say phone access in prison is especially important for deaf people, as many are incarcerated without any other signing people. A call using a videophone may be their only chance at conversation. Many are unable to communicate with lawyers or advocates about appeals, abuse they may be experiencing, or plans for their return home.
Police tag fleeing vehicles with a GPS launcher
WCBS in New York tells a wild story about how police in 30 states are using a new tool that avoids the need for a chase. In Old Westbury, New York, cops are trying out a GPS launcher that shoots a tracking device embedded in a glob of sticky stuff at a fleeing vehicle. The units cost about $6,000. There are two kinds of launchers. One can be mounted on a police car that fires the GPS dart (it looks like something from the Batmobile). Another handheld version would enable a cop to fire a GPS blob at something flying past.
Starchase, the company that makes the devices, says they have fired 10,000 GPS tags and helped recover $150 million worth of stolen stuff, including cars, without a fatality, which are always a risk in police chases. The company claims an 85% apprehension rate.
