captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: ebola in the u.s. the white house tries to reign in concern as unconfirmed reports emerge of additional cases and a hazmat team returns to the dallas apartment of the sole confirmed patient. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. then, debunking the myth of the american immortal, why one prominent doctor argues against the fight to live past 75. >> we'll live longer, but we'll also live with more functional limitations, less able to move around, more mental limitations so i think we need to put all of that into the way we think about old age. we're not going to be-- i'm not going to be 75 the same way i am

today at 57. >> woodruff: in philadelphia, the overwhelming impact on students of massive budget cuts. >> you know, we're hoping that money will be coming, but i don't know. we don't have enough to even carry us through the end of this month, actually. and it's friday, mark shields and david brooks are here, to analyze the week's news. those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the obama administration stepped up its response to ebola today, hoping to ease concerns about it spreading in the united states. that came with one case diagnosed in dallas and a confirmed death toll in west africa that now tops 3,400. >> woodruff: president obama's team came to the white house briefing room after a week of growing questions about whether and how ebola can be stopped.

lisa monaco is assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism: >> every ebola outbreak over the past 40 years has been stopped. we know how to do this and we will do it again with america's leadership, i am confident and president obama is confident that this epidemic will also be stopped. >> woodruff: anthony fauci, the nation's top epidemiologist, acknowledged there may be more cases in the united states, but he said it's not a cause for panic. >> we're having the press conference because we need to get information out because there is a lot of fear, and the reason there's a lot of fear is that there are many things, when you have outbreaks, it's the unknown, it's the cataclysmic nature of it -- namely, it's acute, it kills in a high percentage and it kills quickly. that in and of itself almost

intintuitively makes people frightened. the other thing that makes people frightened, can this happen to me without my evening knowing it? without my having any behavioral change at all? that's the kind of thing we have to keep over and over again emphasizing, we respect your concern, we understand your concern, but the evidence base tells us that that is not going to happen. >> woodruff: the officials played down any need for a complete ban on travelers from affected nations in west africa. they said screening efforts there are working. >> as measures being taken to screen individuals departing, cdc has provided assistance, training and advice to officials in liberia, guinea and sierra leone, and as a results ofsteps

undertaken, many, many people have been stopped from traveling. we see those steps actually being effective >> woodruff: also today, the pentagon upped the number of u.s. troops it's sending to west africa, to as many as 4,000. >> woodruff: we'll return to the case of the liberian man hospitalized in dallas and fears of additional cases, after the news summary. islamic state militants claimed late today they have carried out yet another beheading, of a fourth western hostage. they released a video today, apparently showing the murder of alan henning, a british aid worker who was taken captive last december in syria. he would be the second british hostage killed, along with two american reporters. job creation in the u.s. jumped in september, making the employment picture the brightest it's been in six years. the labor department reported today that employers added a net 248,000 workers. and the jobless rate dropped

below 6% for the first time since mid-2008. president obama welcomed the news this afternoon at a steel plant in princeton, indiana. >> this progress that we've been making, it's been hard, it goes in fits and starts. it's not always been perfectly smooth or as fast as we want, but it is real and it is steady and it is happening. and it's making difference in economies all across country. >> woodruff: our paul solman explores what these numbers reveal about the true health of our economy, later in the program. the jobs numbers went down well on wall street. the dow jones industrial average gained 208 points to close at 17,009. the nasdaq rose 45 points to close at 4,475. and the s-and-p 500 added 21, to finish near 1,968. for the week, all three indexes lost a fraction of 1%. violence erupted today in hong

kong, where protesters demanding more democracy have taken to the streets and tied up parts of the city since sunday. lucy watson, of independent television news, reports again from hong kong. >> reporter: it was a tinderbox in the heart of the hong kong shopping area. (shouting) the youth who crave democracy are confronted with fury. others want their streets back. our cops are world class but when they fired tear gas at students, they didn't use enough. clear out! clear out! yelled the people against the pro democracy movement, as they tore down and one by one disappeared.

this is the people against the people, face to face. while police tried to maintain order. >> we were hoping they would calm down. >> reporter: the media of hong kong described this as anarchy, but they nervously held their line all day and night. (shouting) >> reporter: hold the fort, students shout, hold the fort, because they believe violence is engineered by the president and should be held responsible. is revolution is under pressure.

>> woodruff: a main student group behind the protest movement said later it's pulling out of planned talks with hong kong's government. back in this country, an update on a story we brought you last night students and parents in suburban denver say they'll resume protests against new standards for some u.s. history classes. conservatives on the jefferson county school board refused last night to cancel plans to review the curriculum. they want the material to promote "patriotism" and "respect for authority." students said it amounts to censorship. >> we came to these conclusions on our own and we have 40,000 people across the country who sided with us in saying that this is wrong for jefferson county. this wrong for us as students, this is wrong for american history. >> woodruff: the board's conservatives denied it's about censorship. and, they said they're looking for compromise. >> i have great hope that our

conversation this evening will bring this board together and have us work on a great proposal that assures our community that all classes are taught with balance, that we oppose all censorship. we want increased transparency, increased accountability, and increased community engagement. >> woodruff: the board compromised somewhat and voted to add students and parents to the review committees. it's supposed to be fall, but you wouldn't know it in southern california. a heat wave kicked regional temperatures near or above 100 degrees again today. los angeles county has opened dozens of cooling centers. and, some school districts also sent students home early to beat the heat. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: how are health officials handling ebola in the u.s.? islamic state militants fight to control a key city near turkey; why good economic numbers don't add up to americans feeling better about their own pocket books; a prominent doctor's controversial stance on living longer;

philadelphia schools face a crippling budget crisis; and mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> woodruff: even as top administration officials were answering questions at the white house about the federal response to ebola, much of this day's attention was focused on the latest developments in texas. hari sreenivasan has the story. >> sreenivasan: a hazardous materials team arrived this morning at the dallas apartment complex where thomas duncan stayed before being hospitalized on sunday. they collected anything contaminated, including a car that they covered with a giant plastic bag. they have been quarantined under armed guard after they refused to remain inside voluntarily. >> nobody is supposed to go

inside the apartment. they are in the apartment. they cannot come out, they are not even allowed to come on the porch. >> woodruff: dallas county judge clay jenkins, the county's top administrator, voiced concern for the family's plight and apologized for the delay in removing the soiled items. meanwhile, texas health officials said they've narrowed the group being monitored to 50 people who had direct or indirect contact with duncan. crews have also cleaned schools attended by five students who were exposed to duncan. but some parents say they're far from reassured. >> and then we just got letters in the kids backpack yesterday saying they had it under control. i feel otherwise. if you had it under control the kids wouldn't have come to school in the first place, but you'll never know. >> woodruff: questions continue as well about the handling of duncan himself. he managed to fly out of liberia last month after having contact with an ebola patient. he showed no symptoms at the time. after falling ill in dallas, he was initially turned away by texas health presbyterian

hospital, which now blames a flaw in its electronic records system. duncan was admitted on sunday, but even then, his nephew complained he was mishandled. >> woodruff: at the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, dr. anthony fauci says he agrees. >> the idea that this person went to an emergency room and they did not flag that he had recently been in liberia and thus immediately put him in isolation was unfortunately missed. that happens. i think the important thing is to have that as a lesson learned to look forward. >> sreenivasan: infected hospital waste has also become an issue. dallas officials announced today a disposal company is now in place. >> sreenivasan: this was a day when even one of the government's top health officials said, "there were things that did not go the way they should have." we look at those concerns and other moves by the government with stephen morrison, the director of the global health policy center at the center for strategic and international

studies. mr. morrison, let's talk a little bit about the lessons learned anthony fauci was talking about. we don't know everything yet about what's happened in dallas, but what can we take away from the way that the hospital and the region and the local authorities handled this? >> well, we know from what you've just reported that there were mishaps in the systems at various points, and there's a need for a much higher vigilance and training and awareness. i don't think, in retrospect, that this is all that surprising that you have a sudden introduction as something as lethal and dangerous as this into an unexpected environment and then that you have mishaps that happen along the reporting at the desk when he first reports to the presbyterian hospital that there's mishandling of the waste material later when he shows up, that there's clumsiness in the way the family is -- that had

been exposed is handled. i think these are serious lessons, and the systems will have to improve as we get additional cases, which are quite probable. >> sreenivasan: the government says they have been trying to prepare people for months, but what does this say about the state of hospital readiness around the united states, until we had this situation happening in dallas, and now we're hearing about not quite confirmed cases in other cities? >> i would not draw the conclusion that presbyterian was not well prepared. they had themselves, just a week ago, gone through an extensive internal training. they had created an isolation unit within their i.c.u. they had the systems in place. i don't this this was a catastrophic failure. i think there were mishaps along the way, and anxieties at the public level were so high because of the lethal tye ofitys

and because it's such an alien and frightening event that these mishaps became quite magnified and will have to be handled differently and better in the future. >> sreenivasan: partly because to have the fear you're referencing and the concern that the people in the region or the area have, is containment or isolation even possible? because one can understand the families' concerns saying you're quarantining me inside an apartment that apparently has a deadly virus the whole world is concerned about and no one's even come and changed the sheets yet? >> well, they've relocated the family members who were exposed and quarantined and the county judge, mr. jenkins, apologized for the way that was handled. as we get into cases where there has been an importation of someone contagious with ebola who exposes others, i would expect you're going to see a much more rapid and humane procedure in place. this was a moment of pretty

intensive learning this week. >> sreenivasan: one of the things people are also talking about is trying to contain it at the source. the pentagon is going to increase the number of troops going there, but, of course, we have politicians and others saying let's try to figure out how to change the policy on changing the flight ban. is that a policy that should be looked at again? >> this is a very difficult issue. what we saw with duncan coming here was that the screening procedures are not all that effective if you were unsymptomatic and you don't personally and voluntarily disclose. so what do you do under those instances? you cannot insist on prior vaccination because there is novak seen, there is no rapid test. the only thing you can begin to consider is a 21-day quarantine period for people coming out of the worst affected areas, and how you would implement that has yet to be really considered. but that, really, i think is the

only option at this moment that could be considered. and i want to add here, the humanitarian workers who are coming in, both those that are nationals and getting trained up and providing care and treatment in exile, the external ex patriot folks, when they are removed because of exposure, they go through a 21-day quarantine period coming out of the region. there's already practices in place around that. >> sreenivasan: stephen morrison, thanks so much for your time. >> thank you. >> woodruff: we reported earlier on today's reported beheading of another hostage by the islamic state group, this comes as its terrorists continued to advance on and shell the beseiged kurdish town of kobani, along syria's border with turkey. the militants' push is happening despite continued air-strikes by

the u.s. and other anti i.s. coalition members. for more, we are joined by our chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner. margaret, well come. we did report on this another terrible murder of a hostage, and just now received a statement by the president condemning what's happened but he's also saying these airstrikes will continue. are they doing any good if these beheadings are also continuing? >> looking on the situation on the ground in iraq and syria, they have started to stop the i.s.i.s. advance but not rolled them back, and syria obviously from the beheading video, the i.s.i.s. people aren't deferred. the kurdish militiamen are begging for help on the ground

but the white house remains focused on long-range training of the moderate syrian anti-i.s.i.s. fighters. they announced australia and denmark were going to send fighter planes. the missing piece remains turkey, the key n.a.t.o. ally on the boarder. despite a personal phone call from president obama, they remain reluctant to get engaged. >> woodruff: why? it's complicated. presidenthe president of turkeys government has allowed safe passage and safe haven to all kind of fighters starting with the moderate ones up to the i.s. types and a lot of the neighbors are furious about this and say they helped create the mess.

the president of turkey believes if they weigh in against i.s.i.s., it will help assad and president obama is not going there. they have a complicated relationship with the kurds. they have a long running civil war with the p.k.k. just yesterday the jailed leader of the p.k.k. threatened if you don't save kobani, we're going to cut off peace talks with you. the prime minister today promised they would do what they could to save kobani but are keeping p.k.k. fighters from crossing into turkey and stopping with water cannons and tear gas. >> woodruff: no indication this is going to change? >> not for now. they are absolutely app p appapc

about their situation with the kurds. they straddle four countries and the more these kurdish fighters work together and are embolden, it will increase pro sentiment for an independent kurdistan. >> woodruff: a bigger concern than i.s.i.s. >> apparently. it's always a moving target, but, yes, for now. >> woodruff: margaret warner, thank you as always. >> woodruff: for the first time since 2008, the jobless rate has fallen below 6%. that fact was part of a jobs report out today that showed a better rebound in the labor market than had been expected even a month ago. economics correspondent paul solman went to the heart of boston's financial district to discuss the numbers with economist barry bluestone, as part of paul's ongoing reporting: "making sense of

financial news." >> so we're in boston's financial district and today's job report is really good news to the economy at long last. >> absolutely. we had almost a quarter of a million jobs created in september alone. we have more jobs coming for the last 12 months. as a result, we have no longer the kind of jobless recovery we had in years past. that's real good news. >> reporter: and financial services, for example, 81,000 jobs, i read this morning, were added just last month. >> as a matter of fact, we had growth in almost all sectors -- information services, healthcare, education, construction, manufacturing's been growing over the last year, so it's been a broad-based growth in jobs and now we have the numbers to show us we're on our way back to a stronger and stronger economy. >> reporter: are the regional pockets better in one place than the other. >> we have much lower

unemployment in some areas. new hampshire and some areas over 7 and 8% but they're down from 10, 20, 13% in some of those areas. so that's improvement. >> reporter: in my experience with economists, there's always a "on the other hand." not this time? >> no, there's a "but" here. while jobs are up, wages haven't risen at all. in some sectors they are up, they're up in information services, financial activities. but in other sectors they aren't keeping up with inflation -- manufacturing, restaurant, hospitality and the healthcare sector. >> reporter: but you're talking about wages on an annualized basis based on this past month's numbers, and it's just one month, so how significant can it be? >> one month doesn't tell us very much. we have to have many more months of data. the fact is over the last five years, wages haven't been rising for most workers in america.

>> reporter: but these are better numbers today than you expected, right? >> indeed, these are very good numbers. almost a quarter million jobs in a single month, that's real good. our unemployment is down below 6% and we could get down to 5.5, 5.4, 5.3 within the next year. >> woodruff: next, a provocative piece of writing from one of the country's leading health care experts. in the current "atlantic magazine," dr. ezekiel emanuel argues that the quality of human life begins to drop off by age 75, enough, he says, that he will opt out of medical treatments and let nature take its course. a trained oncologist, dr. emanuel is chair of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the university of pennsylvania, and a former obama administration policy adviser. he is also older brother to

chicago mayor rahm emanuel and hollywood talent agent ari emanual. i sat down with him earlier today. dr. ezekiel emanuel, thank you for talking with us. >> it's my great pleasure. >> woodruff: you created quite a stir, why i want to die at 75. why at 75? why not 85? why not 70? >> first of all, let's clarify, i expect to be alive at 75 and i'm not going to kill myself, i don't believe in legalized euthanasia or assisted suicide, but i am going to stop medical treatments. when i look at 75, all the data on physical disability, dementia, alzheimer's, loss of creativity, slowing down of the mind and body, and 75 seems like that, albeit somewhat arbitrary moment where you get the maximum chance you're still going to be vital and alive and vigorous. >> so it's kind of arbitrary. i say that, yes. >> woodruff: and you talk

about something you call the american immortal. who is this being? >> my brother! the american immortal are people who want to put off death as long as possible, want to live as long as possible, get every day out of it. they take all these -- they change their diet, they exercise like mad, that take protein concoctions and all sorts of other supplements and it's almost a religion for them to live as long as possible and i think they, in their mind, they will be as vital as they are when they're, say, 50 all the way to the end. but, of course, we all do deteriorate and slow down and get disabilities. >> woodruff: you looked at a lot of research for what you've written and you talk about how, as you age, you really don't get healthy. no matter how hard you try, a lot of things creep up on you. >> yeah, so there's a theory which was developed in the early 1980s at stanford, of course, that there will be a compression

of morbidity. as we age and get older we'll actually become healthier, that falling apart, the disability, the dementia, they're going to be ever smaller parts of life. and that was a very, very compelling theory and a lot of people grabbed on to it. turns out that's not true. the data are that, as we age, we've actually add more years of disability, so there's not a compression of morbidity, there's actually been an expansion, and that i think is somewhat distracting for people to realize, yes, we'll live longer but with more functional limitations, less able to move around, more mental limitations, more psychological depression and other mental problems. >> woodruff: you're it from critical in this piece, ezekiel emanuel, of slowing down, of living a quieter life, of spending time smelling the roses. (laughter) you talk about riding a bicycle and making poetry as if it's

just, you know, a throwaway. what's wrong with having that quiet phase of life at a certain point? >> i mean, that is part of my view that, you know, we're on the earth for a very short period of time, no matter what we do, even if we're an american and immorting, it's not going to be for centuries, but we have to get the best out of our life. it's a privilege slowing down and being a little self-indulgent. i don't find that as meaningful to me, and i find it a little sort of focused on me instead of focused on what i can contribute and what i can do for bettering the world and bettering, you know, my family and my community. >> reporter: so you're kind of saying unless you're contributing actively every minute of every day, practically, then there's not much point in living? >> first of all, that's my personal philosophy, and i do believe contributing can happen

in a number of different ways. >> woodruff: you know there's a lot of pushback who point to all the people we know of who are very contributing well beyond 75. you look at anywhere you turn. i mean, in the world of entertainment, it's so easy. >> the jack nickels, willie nelsons, sidney poitier, betty white is 91, queen elizabeth is 88, jimmy carter just turned 90. >> that's almost everyone's first reaction is to begin listing lots and lots of people who are over 75 and still creative, productive and engaged and of course there are going to be some people. it's a bell-shaped curve and there will be outliers of people over 75. but let's remember we live in a country of 300 million people in. the developed western world there may be a billion people. giving me a list of 20, 30, even thousands of people creative after 75, you have to understand those are very select outliers.

they are not the common thing. and i believe that we shouldn't -- we can't live our life as if we're going to be a very rare outlier. odds are, you won't be an outlier, and i tend to go with the odds. i live life by, you know, what does the data show? and that's most likely to happen. >> woodruff: what does your family think about this? you have how many daughter? >> i have three daughters. >> woodruff: don't you want to see your grandchildren grow up? >> absolutely. >> woodruff: but you've put kind of a limit on it, haven't you? >> i am very, very committed to seeing my grandchildren. what i really care about is how they remember me, and i want them to remember me vital, doing crazy things with the kids on the swings and the slides and the playgrounds, maybe taking them on trips and, you know, kayaking around the everglades or in alaska. i don't want them to remember me as frail or demented or repeating myself. i would think that would actually be a tragedy. >> woodruff: but isn't there some value in just being there

for family, whether you're 75, 85, 95 and your family is around you, isn't there some personal value to that? >> connection? >> woodruff: connection. i think there is a very important connection, but i think if you're just confined to a chair or you're demented or sort of very slow, it may not be as meaningful as we try to project. >> woodruff: one last thing. you said you've heard from doctors, medical professionals, a lot of people who are very critical of what you've written. what are doctors saying? >> i've heard from hundreds if not thousands of people now. one category is people who violently disagree with me and think i'm crazy. one category of people who do agree with me and think i've got it exactly right, and about half of those people are in the health professions. they're doctors, nurses, they

work at health insurance companies, home healthcare agencies. almost uniformly, i have been racking my brain to think of one who's a health professional who doesn't agree with me. they almost uniformly say, yes, i'm right. >> woodruff: you reserve the right to change your mind. >> by 75, it really is a complete life. you will have grown up, picked a career, worked hard in the career, had kids, raised them, had grandchildren. what more could you ask? that's a very rich, rich life. >> woodruff: but it's a number that could change, right? in 100 years it could be 85 or 95. (laughter) >> there are many who think that will be true i. we'll continue this conversation online but for right now dr. zeke emanuel, thank you. >> thank you for having me. i really appreciate it. >> woodruff: it's a very tough time to be a student, a teacher or a parent in the philadelphia

public schools. the nation's eighth largest school system is experiencing a severe budget crisis. special correspondent for education john tulenko of learning matters looks at the impact hitting the classroom and what's being done to deal with it. >> reporter: last month, about 1,000 ninth graders marched to the football field at northeast high school for a very different kind of kickoff ceremony. (cheering) >> we are doing a mock graduation. it's an opportunity for our incoming ninth grade class to make a commitment. >> we want to put the new jersey them that they promise they will be right back here in june 2018. >> reporter: but hanging over the ceremony and the odds students will graduate is a budget crisis called the worst in the country. northeast has 3,000 students and two principals. sharon and linda.

>> in past years, operating budgets were probably ten times what >> everything that makes the school run -- books, supplies, toner, ink, paper. >> lab equipment, textbooks, technology. >> reporter: how do you pay for all that stuff? >> you don't. you don't have it. this is what we're saying, we

can't because there's no money to pay for it. >> reporter: across the district, it's not just paper, textbooks and toner that have been cut. jessica ramos is principal at stern elementary. what have you lost in the school? >> we've lost a full-time nurse. we used to have two counselors, we now have a .5, a counselor for two to three days. >> reporter: ms. ramos is principal and counselor and some days more. >> i'm the nurse mondays, wednesdays, fridays. >> reporter: do you have any medical training? >> no, but i am a nurse three days a week. >> reporter: what can't we do because you're doing these other jobs? >> what i can't do because i can't get into classes to help teachers really develop their effectiveness and that's the heart of this job. >> reporter: the story of how ms. ramos and other arrived at this point began in 2009 when

the district was whip-sawed by a great recession which created a $120 million budget short fall followed by a windfall. >> we're making the largest investment in education in our nation's history. >> reporter: half a billion dollars in federal stimulus money. >> we need to fund administrators. you know, they felt for the first time they were able to do the things they always wanted to do. >> reporter: for mark who chronicled the district's financial straits, the sudden infusion of federal dollars set the stage of greater crisis. >> they put in various programs, hired teachers. from their perspective, everything was temporarily good. but it was a wiley coyote moment. once the stimulus disappeared they looked down and there's nothing but air. >> reporter: short $300 million, philadelphia schools were blindsided by what happened next. >> i will dedicate the next four years to fiscal discipline and a

responsible, limit government. >> reporter: in 2011, a new government, tom corbin, a conservative republican faced with his own state budget deficit refused to make up for the loss and in fact cut hundreds of millions in education funds statewide. the philadelphia school district slashed its workforce by 17% and borrowed some $400 million. >> you can't use one-time money for ongoing expenses. it's fraught with danger. because if you use that money to finance ongoing expenditures, once that money is gone you still have the ongoing expenditures but there's no longer a pot of gold to fund it. >> reporter: has this district borrowed irresponsibly? >> no question about it. >> reporter: william hit, former superintendent of schools, took over, closing 2 dozen schools and eliminating

5,000 jobs. >> you cut some of the assistant principals, some of the counselors, some of the individuals who are in the cafeteria or in hallways. and we try to make those cuts first as far away from schools as possible, but our largest group of employees are individuals who are working in schools. >> reporter: schools like northeast high school, which in the last three years has been forced to let go of 12 teachers. the result? larger class sizes overall. between 35 and 40 students. and in some cases more. this is ninth-grade biology, packed wall to wall with 62 students. >> i have never seen a class like this before. so how are you going to teach? >> i have to find a stairwell that will lead to the class fast. it's hard. >> reporter: how does this make you feel? >> annoyed. it slows down the class so nobody can learn and makes it

harder to pay attention that you can't even get a desk to sit in. >> reporter: nicole evans is the teacher. it looks hard. >> it is. i try to do a lab with them and it was extremely difficult because so many of them wanted help and weren't sure of what to do and you can't give your attention to 30 pair of students. >> reporter: despite all the cutbacks, philadelphia still faces an $81 million budget shortfall, a deficit for which the district is often blamed. >> what you hear is it's philadelphia's problem, they spend too much money, they have a strong teacher's union, the teacher's salaries are too high, they need to get their act together, that's the problem. but we concluded, on the expenditure side, they're not out of line at all. in fact, they're low. it's the revenue side. we have a state that's relatively miserly in terms of the amount of money it gives to any of the school districts, like the ninth lowest state.

>> reporter: recently. after eleven months of wrangling, state lawmakers passed a cigarette tax they expect will close the gap and stave off another round of layoffs this fall. but it restores none of the cuts at schools like northeast high. >> woodruff: unemployment at the lowest level of president obama's time in office, the resignation of a secret service director, and the one-year anniversary of the rollout of healthcare.gov. it's all in another busy week in politics. and here to analyze it, as always, are shields and brooks, that's syndicated columnist mark shields and new york times columnist david brooks. >> woodruff: well come. i have to say first before i ask you about any other stories, that was a really discouraging report on the schools in philadelphia. >> yeah, well, i'm pretty sure spending in places like that is moderately high but if you have

62 kids sitting on a window sill, none of us would send our kids if we had a choice to a school like that. >> woodruff: that's right. this ebola story has everyone's attention. the white house saying this is a national security priority as important as any threat we're facing. how confident should we be that the country is prepared to deal with the threat? >> i should say people should be reasonably confident. if you look in africa in the countries where it was hit, it's a perfect indicator of the quality of the healthcare infrastructure system. if you have countries like liberia, sierra leone, they have no infrastructure or system in place. preexisting ebola, they don't have the doctors, the pharmaceuticals, the beds, and there it spread. but if you look at the countries where they actually have an infrastructure and a command and control structure like nigeria and ivory coast, they've done a

reasonably good job. i have to assume because we have probably one of the best infrastructures, we won't look like liberia, we'll look like nigeria or better. >> woodruff: it's a balancing act, isn't it? >> technology is important and i think the group today was reassuring. i thought it projected confidence. anthony fauci is the embodiment of the professional public servant in a very real sense and i thought what he said was reassuring in confidence building and there's reason to be confident in the healthcare leadership, i believe. >> woodruff: well, at one point, we heard him say, we're going to have to keep saying these things day after day and make sure everybody understands that. all right, so, again, we want to talk about today's unemployment numbers. david, for the first time in, i guess, since 2008, the unemployment rate is under 6%. the white house is saying over 10 million jobs added under

president obama. he said today job growth on pace for its strongest, i guess, record of growth since the 1990s. should he be getting more credit? >> no, not exactly. you know, there's this -- i do not think presidents have much to do with the cyclical ups and downs of the economy. there are extraordinary moments when they do, and the stimulus package, whether you like it or not, probably had an impact and probably ameliorated the effect of the recession. but i don't think over the normal course of time presidents have an effect on month to month or quarter to quarter or year to year cyclical stuff that goes on. there's a lot of stuff going on in the economy. first of all, not a lot is happening in washington to create or restore jobs. we have been stagnant here. the second thing the president said in his speech was the energy sector, the fracking and the manufacturing jobs that's created. that's not been championed by his administration or washington

in particular, that's something that just happened and surprised everybody through immense technological advance and our ability to get natural gas and oil out of the ground. so that's in the private sector. so i don't think this is sort of a washington organized thing. we have an economy that functions as an economy. >> the late american ambassador once said the party that takes credit for the sunshine should not be surprised when it gets blamed for the rain, and i think there's great truth of that in our politics. anybody who watched ken burns, 14 hours on the roosevelts, would be hard pressed to say presidents don't make an enormous business. without theodore or franklin roosevelt this country's economy would have been meaner, coarser, more oligarchial and a less passionate and more prosperous society. week to week, barack obama has been blamed for what he inherited. there's no question, i agree

with david completely, that the action to confront the economic crisis, the financial crisis he inherited saved this economy, and the fact that the united states economy has created more jobs than all of europe and the developed world and japan since that time is an accomplishment. but at the same time, the economy growing is not likely shared. between 2010 and 2013, 90% of americans saw their actual income go down, the bottom 90%. the top 10%, that was all the growth. the median family income is lower by actual dollars than in 1989. so this is something that started long before barack obama got there. but that's the reason i think people feel bad. you can look at the big numbers

and they look terrific, but when people -- you have three inches of water in your cellular and somebody says, look, there's only an inch and a half there now, isn't it better? well, you've still got water in the cellular. cellar. that's the thing about the economy. >> woodruff: you heard paul solman talk to it. >> mark and i agree on this and maybe disagree less than is obvious which is there are structural factors in the economy which the government clearly controls. if the new deal hadn't happened, the whole structure of the american economy would be different. then cyclical factors and we're in a job upsurge, and that's more cyclical. but at some point in american history, it seems the structural factors are more germane, more important and biting. in the industrial period, they were deeply biting when the industrialization came in.

the wage stagnation now, the lack of job security, the widening inequality, those are structural problems that are deeply biting and you do need government to address that sort of thing. so it's worth parsing out the interconnected parts of the economy. the hurt now is because of a bad structure. >> woodruff: you may celebrate a few seconds but essentially can't really be pleased until the prosperity is more widely -- >> and i admit it's a good point. after world war ii and the golden era of america, 9 po% of the economic growth -- 90% of the economic growth was shared by wage increases of the workers. that has just ended. it slowed down. right now, just one little statistic that threw me from the federal reserve, when ronald reagan was president, the great conservative, the top 3%

controlled 44% of the wealth of the country in. barack obama's second term, the man has been called a socialist by critics and enemies, the top 3% controlled 54% of the nation's wealth. the rest has just a quarter when hay thawhen -- they had a third. so it's the rich getting richer. >> woodruff: then what does capitalism look like? >> this is capitalism when you have a high-tech logical turnover. president obama has been 40% on the economy for a year. that stuck there. the president of france, he said like 9%. so these structural problems are hitting politicians all across the developed world. >> woodruff: i want to ask whether this will have any effect on the elections. you're saying it doesn't help the democrats. healthcare law celebrated the anniversary of its -- of the

exchanges being created this week. is it as big an issue, as damaging for democrats as republicans said it was? you can roll all this together. and i want to save time for the secret service. mark. >> it's unpopular. it has been unpopular since the rollout and all of the problems attended to it. it never regained pop particularity. but those who are against it are against it and it's not an organizing principal of the election of 2014, as, for example, the opposition of the war of iraq was in 2006, which generated turnouts and resulted in turnout when he controlled congress. the positions are hardened on healthcare and the problem is the election has been determined in red states where its less popular. >> i happen to think it did better than i thought, but politically not a winner. >> woodruff: better than you

thought it was? >> i'm not sure if this is because of the law, but costs are going down. healthcare inflation is declining. >> woodruff: secret service, a torrent of stories over the last few days about breaches at the white house, over the fence, a man ran deep into the white house, a shooting there we didn't know about, a man in the elevator with the president. the head of the secret service is resigned. what a way to make of this agency that's supposed to be protecting the most important people in our government and who's responsible? >> i first thought it was an overreaction when a guy goes over the fence and gets into the east room, but what's bothered everyone is the horrible management information afterwards, not confessing, not behaving like a competent agency but an incompetent agency when you have a lot to hide and when you behave that way people will doubt you. >> in 1981 tim mccarthy took a bullet intended for president

ronald reagan by assassin. larry put his thumb a gun aimed at president ford in sacramento. this is the secret service most of us have been privileged to know. these are heroic people. this sounds like something out of american pie or spring break in behavior. the performance was awful, dysfunctional. the idea that the president's daughter was in the white house by herself and nine shorts were fired and they didn't find out about it for four days and didn't reveal it that a man convicted of assault is on an elevator with the president packing a weapon? i mean, that's just dysfunctional. >> woodruff: no wonder both the president and first lady are upset about this. thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major

developments of the day. president obama's top health and security advisors acknowledged growing public fears about ebola, but they voiced confidence the disease will be stopped. islamic state militants claimed they've beheaded a fourth hostage, british aid worker alan henning. and the u.s. economy added nearly 250,000 jobs in september, as unemployment fell below 6%. on the newshour online right now, the u.s. patent office receives hundreds of thousands of applications every year for new inventions. we pulled some of the more unique-looking gadgets and made a quiz to see if you can guess what they are. that's on our homepage. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week" which airs later this evening. here's a preview:

>> woodruff: our apology. gwen will be here 8:00 eastern. and let me also tell you about what's going on tomorrow night for the saturday significant segment on the pbs "newshour" weekend. and we'll find that tomorrow night. and we'll be back right here on monday. we will be here with a look at how the islamic state militants are treating women. that is the "newshour" for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a great weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

. this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in matter by. the street.com featuring stephanie link who shares her strategies, the multi-million dollar portfolio she manages with jim cramer, you can learn more at the street.com/nbr. hiring surge, the unemployment rate falls below 6% for the first time since 2008. so why have wages hardly budgeted, and is that about to change? the blue chip dow index gained more than 200 points which it has not done since march. market monitor, our guest tonight is recommending stock that he says will do well if the economy and labor markets im