captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, healthcare in america-- the biden administration makes major changes to medical care, including re-opening the insurance marketplace in response tthe pandemic. then, staying safe in the pandemic-- we examine evolving recommendations on masks, social distancing, and ventilation for avoiding exposure to the coronavirus. and, help wanted-- despite rising salaries, a shortage of skilled tradespeople gets worse by the day as an older generation of workers retires.

>> you're doing manual labor. people look down on that. and that makes people not want to go into it, clearly. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> twins! >> we'd be closer to the twins. >> change in plans. >> at fidelity, changing plans is always part of the plan. >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through

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>> woodruff: help for health care. that issue topped today's agenda at the biden white house. white house correspondent yamiche alcindor has our report. >> alcindor: today, president biden focused on his campaign pledge to strengthen obamacare. >> there's nothing new that we're doing here other than restoring the affordable care act and restoring medicaid to the way it was before trump became president. >> alcindor: in the oval office, he said the that effort more is urgent than ever. >> of all times that we need to reinstate access to, affordability of, and extend access to medicaid is now in the middle of this covid crisis. >> alcindor: his first action: expanding enrollment. beginning february 15th,“ healthcare.gov,” the federal online insurance marketplace, will open an additional sign up period. e kaiser family foundation has found that 15 million uninsured

americans are still eligible for that coverage. but in december, the regular enrollment window closed. and former president trump declined to reopen it. >> what we want to do is terminate it and give great health care. >> alcindor: during his term, trump repeatedly took steps to dismantle the affordable care act. and, there's a case pending in the u.s. supreme court that could lead to its demise. meanwhile, president biden also ordered action to roll back other trump policies, including work requirements, in some states, as a condition for low- income people to enroll in medicaid. and, the president moved to reverse two policies on abortion. he rescinded the so-called“ global gag rule” that bars u.s. funding for health groups abroad that offer abortion counseling. and, he directed steps toward restoring federal funding for planned parenthood and other groups making abortion referrals in the u.s. at the oth end of pennsylvania avenue, two of the new president's cabinet nominees made pitches for new economic

stimulus. >> alcindor: there was ohio congresswoman marcia fudge, nominated for secretary of housing and urban development. she told her senate confirmation hearing that full recovery requires greatly expanded housing aid. >> whatever it takes, we cannot afford to allow people, in the midst of a pandemic, to be put in the streets. i just believe that extraordinary times, take extraordinary action. >> alcindor: cecilia rouse, tapped to head the council of economic advisers, defended the biden plan to spend $1.9 trillion. >> we run the risk of actually finding ourselves in a downward spiral because the capacity to deal with our debt is not only the amount that we spend but the size of our economy. >> alcindor: today, democratic leaders said that if republicans refuse to support the stimulus plan, they will try to push it through anyway. for the pbs newshour, i'm yamiche alcindor.

>> woodruff: in the day's other news, a more contagious version of covid-19, from south africa, arrived in the u.s., with two cases confirmed in south carolina. the news came as the nation's covid death toll passed 431,000. and, the attorney general in new york state reported nursing home deaths were undercounted by up to 50%. new york city mayor bill de blasio demanded answers. >> we have to make sense of this. we have to get the full truth and we have to make sure it never, ever happens again, nothing like this happens again. and we have to be honest about the numbers. >> woodruff: covid variants from britain and brazil have already reached the united states. the u.s. commerce department says the economy shrank 3.5% last year, as the pandemic raged. that's the most since the nation

de-mobilized after world war ii. growth resumed in the third quarter but has slowed since then. last week, another 847,000 americans filed for unemployment benefits. at least six people were killed today when liquid nitrogen leaked at a georgia poultry plant. it happened at a foundation food group site in gainesville. a number of other people were injured, three of them critically. liquid nitrogen is used in refrigeration, but it can vaporize and force the breathable air out of enclosed spaces. in pakistan, a man cvicted and then, acquitted, in the beheading of american journalist daniel pearl in 2002 may be going free. the country's supreme court today ordered ahmed omar saeed sheikh and three other men released. in washington, the white house condemned the move. >> this decision to exonerate and release shiekh and the other

suspects is an affront to terrorism victims everywhere including in pakistan. but we call on the pakistani government to expeditiously review its legal options including allowing the united states to prosecute shiekh for the brutal murder of an american citizen and journalist. >> woodruff: secretary of state antony blinken said the u.s. will try to extradite sheikh if his acquittal stands. general motors plans to make most of its new vehicles electric by 2035. the automaker also announced today that it hopes to make its entire operation carbon-neutral by 2040. gm sold more than 2.5 million vehicles in the united states last year. only 20,000 were electric. on wall street, stocks made back some of wednesday's big losses. the dow jones industrial average gained 300 points to close at 30,603. the nasdaq rose 66 points, and, the s&p 500 added 36 points.

and, the nation's very first "second gentleman," doug emhoff, stepped out today. the husband of vice president kamala harris had his first solo event, touring a washington nonprofit that advocates for food security. his appearance came as merriam- webster added "second gentleman" to its dictionary. still to come on the newshour: the biden administration makes major changes to medical care in the unitedtates. we examine evolving recommendations for avoiding exposure to the coronavirus. former preside trump continues to exert control over the republican party. and much more.

>> woodruff: let's look more closely now at the changes and orders president biden announced today in health care. as amna nawaz explains, the moves are designed to expand coverage and reverse some of president trump's actions on abortion and family planning. >> nawaz: judy, a key part of one executive order signed today will re-open enrollment for the affordable care act, what many call obamacare. mr. biden's other executive action will revoke the mexico city policy, often known as the "global gag rule." that rule barred u.s. funding for groups overseas that performed abortions or offered information on them. covering all this for the "washington post" is paige winfield cunningham, and she joins me now. paige, welcome to the "newshour", and thanks for being here. we reported earlier on some of the details around those executive actions. reopening enrollment for the aca from february 15 to may 15 at healthcare.gov. people know that site does not reach every state, right, so how

many people and who exactly is the biden administration trying to reach with this? >> right. as you say, they opened healthcare.gov. there are more than a dozen states that also run their own market places instead of using the federal web site and most of those states announced they will be opening their enrollment for that limited time period going up to may 15, and those announcements have come from california, minnesota, many of the large states that run their own marketplaces. so really this decision is going to apply to the vast majority of people in the united states. and what's interesting about this is the pandemic is the reason that the president is citing for doing this, but i actually think the bigger impact is going to be around the timing of this. for years, tax experts have actually said you could maximize enrollment in health coverage if you aligned tax filing season with aca enrollment and that's because a lot of lower income people who might be eligible for subsidies but have trouble

affording premiums, if you align that with tax refunds, that cod incentivize them to enroll in coverage at the same time. have talked to analysts who are estimating this could result in potentially tens or hundreds of thousands more people enrolling in health coverage over this three-month period. >> reporter: let me ask you about the other executive action getting asteenings, president biden's rescinding the mexico policy. what is the practical impact of rescinding that policy today? this has ping-ponged back and forth between democratic and republican presidents. i think there's a bigger imact and that's because when the trump administration put in that policy in place four years ago, it actually made it even broader than what previous republican presidents had done. it basically put a ban on referring for abortions or counseling about abortions not

just on international aid funding focused on family planning but all international aid funding which total billions and billions of dollars, and, so, now, by reversing this, it's really changing -- removing restrictions from many, many nonprofits who had been forced to comply with these rules over the last four years. >> reporter: there was a related memo president biden signed as well asking h.h.s. to review a trump rule that cut off federal funds for groups in the united states that did provide abortion services as well. what could that want reviewed lead to? >> reporter: right. we're talking act title ten planning funding and the step the trump administration took was unprecedented in banning participants in that program from counseling or referring for abortion certifications and had a very practical effect in that planned parenthood, which is of course the nation's largest abortion provider and a huge provider of contraceptive family

planning services withdrew from that program in 2019. what you will see with this is h.h.s. will probably come out with a new funding announcement which welcomes the providers back into the program and reverses that previous guidance. >> reporter: paige, i have to ask you, the previous administration when you looked at unilateral moves of healthcare ended up in court, immediately challenged by democratic officials, and we've seen that already with this new democratic president. when you have an immigration move related to deportation, you saw the attorney general step in and a texas court pause it. are we likely to see these moves end up in court? >> woyou know, it depends on whether he's forging new ground here. with a lot of these things, he's rolling back unprecedented things that the trump administration had done. one thing we haven't talked about yet is what the past administration did on medicaid, and they had really taken an

unprecedented step of allowing states to put in place new requirements for enrollment such as work or volunteering requirements or allowing states to get block grants. that was something we hadn't seen done previously to the medicaid program and you're going to see the new administration pull back on that. but i certainly would not rule out the possibility of litigation. here we're going to see the new administration do a wide variety of things not just around health insurance but having to do with discrimination and healthcare, other things with reproductive right by are controversial. >> reporter: you mentioned some of these moves are controversial but are there areas where a president who wants to move bipartisan support where you think there could be that support in congress? >> the president is someone who likes to bring about consensus, and this is what he said -- over the last couple of years i've tracked, especially with efforts in congress to pass reforms to lower drug prizes, and this is something that leading

democratic and republican senators worked together on, and we've seen some bipartisan legislation. so i wouldn't rule out that this might happen. but, you know, all depends, really, on kind of how republican -- or how democrats roll the dice and whether they decide it will be to their advantage to rope in republicans and do something bipartisan or try to pass something much more ambitious which they can't get republicans on board with but then use to hammer them with politically. >> reporter: paige winfield cunningham of "the washington post," thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: it's a common refrain: anger. frustration. anxiety. more than 25 million shots of a covid vaccine have been given

out. or about eight doses for every 100 people. but the process can be difficult and overwhelming. we wanted to capture a sampling of what americans say they are facing. >> my name is nora gallina. i live in zephyrhills, florida. >> my name is andréa shiloh, and i'm in houston, texas. >> my name is kareem deans and i live in st. louis, missouri. i teach middle school here in st. louis right now. >> my name is susan daniel and i'm in dallas, texas. >> my name is jason munn and i'm a letter carrier from brentwood, new york. >> i try every day, multiple times a day to see if an appointment has opened. every hour, basically, until i go to bed. even sometimes at midnight. >> at this point, i've tried six different branches of one supermarket and i have tried

four pharmacies. and i've tried three hospital systems. and gotten nowhere. >> i've been trying unfortunately unsuccessfully to get the vaccine for myself and my mother as her primary caregiver, her only caregiver. >> information is scarce about this. i'm worried that i might not get the vaccine because of the fact that i may have missed some bits of information somewhere. >> even if my appointment were for next month, i don't care even if my appointment were at, you know, 6:00 in the morning, i don't care. i will get up, i will wait and i will go to it. but i just want to know that there's something that i can get something. that's my biggest frustration. >> having to drive 100 miles to get a simple vaccine was just one more thing piled up on what has been a very, very difficult year for everyone. >> my mom is 97 and a half years

old, and she was diagnosed with dementiawo decades ago, actually. every day i think about the vaccine. every day, i think about covid- 19. every day, i have a conversation with someone or some exchange about it. it is, it is, it is the-- it's like the albatross sitting on my shoulder. >> we went out and we kept the economy running inew york state and now it feels like we're completely forgotten and i am in no way expecting us to go to the front of the line and i don't think we're heroes. but we did do a brave thing and it was noble and we worked very hard. >> our family in oklahoma city has a son with special needs and he is especially susceptible or at risk with the virus. and that has been a very, very

big concern for them. they have told us that it's been the hardest year of their life. >> it's hard because i know there are people that we're not going to see again, i'm already missing one friend who was in a nursing home and contracted covid. >> i want to hug my family and i think having the vaccine brings me closer to that goal. it's a race to the luckiest or the swiftest on the computer. i think a lot of luck is involved in the process. >> after what i read this morning, i'm hoping that i will get it before june. frankly. i just keep telling myself it'll happen eventually. so hopefully we'll make it. >> woodruff: and there is at least some good news from helen marshall whom we just heard from. she was able to get the vaccine today. as frustrating as it may be,

public health officials say it's important to continue trying to get an appointment. you should not have to pay out of pocket, though you may be asked for your insurance information. the biden administration has laid out its plan to speed up vaccinations. it includes purchasing and distributing an additional 200 million doses of vaccine; deploying fema to operate up to 100 community vaccination centers, and expanding the number of people who can administer vaccines. but the administration said it may take through the summer before most americans can get a shot. given that and the emergence of new, alarming strains of the virus, including one found in south carolina, public health officials warn it's crucial we redouble our protection efforts. william brangham looks at the latest on both fronts. >> brangham: judy, there are now several troubling variants of the coronavirus circulating today.

a few seem to make the virus more contagious. one variant, the u.k. mutant, is also more likely to make people sick or to kill them. the c.d.c. believes that strain will become dominant in the u.s. as soon as march. given those concerns, we wanted to look again at the latest research on how best to protect t ing toemr thesnew rian, lik the initial coronavirus they come from, travel through the air. that's the main way people get sick: someone who's infected breathes out the virus, and someonwho's healthy breathes it in. dr. linsey marr at virginia tech studies airborne transmission, and she says the coronavirus can travel on small airborne droplets, or even smaller aerosols. >> droplets are large, visible droplets that fly out of our mouths when we're coughing or talking. aerosols are really just smaller droplets. they're microscopic.

and we release hundreds of those for every one large droplet that might come out. >> brangham: but, according to erin bromage, who researches immunology and infectious disease at u-mass dartmouth, not everyone who's infected spreads the viruthe same way, or in the same amounts. >> we know that some people have a lot more virus, and it's not just twice the amount, it can be 100 fold or a 1,000 fold more virus, inside their mouth. and so those people with talking, with singing, with shouting, breathing, for that matter, can release a thousand times more of those viral particles into the air >> brangham: with these new mutant strains, it's not totally clear why they're more contagious, only that they are. this only reinforces the mask- wearing need for mask wearing. numerous studies have now confirmed that wearing a mask can reduce the risk of transmission. but... not all masks are created equally. >> so virtually any covering

over your face will deal with those large droplets, you know, a handkerchief, a bandanna. they all deal with those large droplets in roughly the same way. but there is a big difference between the quality of the mask being worn and the ability to both filter the small little aerosols out, on the way out, and filter them on the way back in. >> brangham: there's still a great deal of confusion about what kinds of masks offer the best protection. n-95s are considered tops, but since they're still in short supply, many say they should be left only for frontline healthcare workers. kf-94 masks, like these, made in south korea, are considered a good substitute, and while they can be found online, there are reports of fakes and counterfeits swirling around. so what's a consumer tdo? >> unfortunately, there aren't any standards for masks right now, those are coming, but it's going to be several months. in the meantime, what we know is that tightly woven cloth works better than loosely knitted

cloth. two layers is better than one. three layers is even better, as long as it doesn't inhibit you from breathing easily through the fabric. if you really want to upgrade your masks, the thing to do is to look for a mask with a pocket or a middle layer where you can insert a filter. things like a hepa filter, a high efficiency particulate air filter work very well, block 99% of particles. the other thing you can do is to use a surgical type mask which filters really well, but probably doesn't fit so well, especially around the sides. and to layer a second mask on top of that, like a tight fitting cloth mask to help improve the fit and reduce gaps. that way you get both good filtration and a good fit. >> brangham: one of the things that seems, i think, so difficult for people is that they go to shop for a mask and it's very hard to assess quality or whether or not something that is a surgical mask or claims to be one, is in fact, one. >> so we want to look for

certification seals if we are actually buying, say, surgical masks. so they a.s.t.m. rating, one, two and three. a three is then s to surgical masks. and then the fda actually has a website that shows true from false, you have fake from from real ones. >> brangham: if masks are the first layer of protection, the second one is distancing. we've heard this mantra for months: avoid crowds as much as possible, and if you're around others, stay six feet apart. but six feet isn't some magical number. >> it really isn't a magic number. i mean, it's the closer you are, the more risk that you have. you know the analogy, which is not perfect, but it's a it's a way that you can sort of think about it in your head is if you're standing right next to a person smoking a cigarette, you're going to be inhaling a lot of that. it's the same with the virus. so six feet is just a good standard. it's easy for people to visualize six feet, but 10 feet is better, three feet is worse,

and it's not this instant cut off of distance. >> brangham: this is why outdoor gatherings are recommended-- infinite amounts of fresh air swirling around will disperse the virus quickly. but those sealed restaurant tents you see everywhere? not great, they're technically outside, but airflow is often minimal. crowded, indoor gatherings with people outside your family are by far the riskiest environments. there, if someone is infected, the virus can build up and linger in the air, and keeping your distance is no guarantee of safety. >> you also want to pay attention to ventilation. but what you can do is just open the door or the windows just a few inches or half halfway open door can make a huge difference. and so that's one way that you can improve the ventilation. >> brangham: with these new, more contagious variants spreading, public health experts argue, this is the time to re- double these safety measures. that also applies to people who've been vaccinated, because

it's not clear if the vaccine also prevents people from transmitting the virus. these precautions, they argue, will save lives, avoid more lockdowns, and could get us through the next few months until more people get vaccinated. oh, and don't forget to keep washing your hands. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. >> woodruff: in the week since president trump left office, the republican party is having an together to win back the majority. out of power on capitol hill, the republican party is deeply divided on issues like the attack on the capitol. the impeachment of mr. trump and even his role in the party. for a check on the g.o.p. divide, we turn now to denver

riggleman, a republican who represented virginia in congress up until earlier this month. he's now the chief strategist at the network contagion research institute. it's an organization fighting misinformation. and whit ayers, the president of north star opinion research, a political polling group that has worked with republican politicians including senators marco rubio and lindsey graham and florida governor desantis. hello to both of you. so good to have you with us. denver riggleman, let me start with you. what shape is the republican party in right now? how much power does president trump still hold? >> i think he holds a lot of power over the party. i'm here in virginiand the central and south central portion, this great commonwealth. right now, when you go downrange, i would say about half an hour south of here, i was down there recently and saw a trump/pence sign.

pence had been sprayed over with screwed language. i went into a story and everyone in there was pro trump and somewhat unhappy with me. in committees, oregon, kentucky, arizona, georgia, michigan, i think right now what i'm seeing is that a certain districts i think president trump will play very well and i think there's an advantage to some of these individuals who sort of graph to stop the steal me theology and messaging and i'm seeing that in north carolina a other places and even in virginia, people already running an election to stop the steal, judy. so i'm not trying to sound a pessimistic bell, but i don't think it's as bad as people think for wheel who supported president trump and i think people who are angry about the capitol riots may be in the nority now. >> woodruff: whit ayers, are you seeing the same thing in the republican party right now? >> hello, judy. it's good to be with you. the g.o.p. is sharply spit today

between a governing and populous faction. the governing faction has gained majority support in the past among elected officials and retains the dominant force among elected officials today, including people like congressman riggleman. but the populous faction pre-dated donald trump, but donald trump expanded it and grew it to the poi where it dominates republican primaries today, although itas never gained majority support in the country. >> woodruff: so what does that mean right now? i mean, as we try to understand, denver riggleman, back to you, as we try to understand the place for -- frankly, for truth, for fighting disinformation in the party, what happens to party members who are trying to do that? >> well, you know, for me, you know, i thought that, you know, the use of sort of compassionate blunt-force facts would be some way to pull people back in, but

if you remember my convention last year i was hit with conspiracy theories, and even with my background in intelligence and fighting disinformation back to i.s.i.s. and al quaida and the taliban, it was interesting to see i couldn't break through on what facts and truth were. i'm still seeing that today. i still got messages today that said i was still on the wrong side of things, that said on march 4, president trump would be inaugurated. i was bonderring how difficult it would be to bring people back in folks. some were out of sorts after jan 6. i think they were ashamed of what happened to people bike officer sicknick. but there's a small uptick in polling and in the open source data and chatter on what we are seeing, seems like people are buying back in to the stop the steal election and conspiracy theories that have spread across the country tim whit ayers, for me, the question is is there a place in the republican party

for traditional republicans, people who don't buy into the idea that the election was completely fraudulent, that donald trump actually won? >> we're going to find that out, judy, and it's not at all clear that that's the case. whether the g.o.p. retains its uneasy alliance between the governing faction and the populous faction depends on some things that we don't know about yet. how is the biden administration going to govern? are they going to governorern from the center or get pushed to the left? how active is donald trump going to remain in politics in america, and will there emerge a republican leader who can somehow split or appeal to both of the factions of the party? marco rubio gave a speech at catholic university called "common good cap pallism," where he said that corporate leaders

have as much overan obligation to their workers as to their shareholders. that is an attempt to bridge the divide. we'll see if that's successful. >> woodruff: i'masking you all this in part, denver riggleman, and whit ayers, because just as an example, today, florida congressman matt gaetz went to wyoming, held a rally against liz cheney, who has been in, is in republican leadership in the house of representatives but was one of the ten republicans who voted to impeach president trump. let's listen to part of what congressman gaetz said today. if you want to prove you have the power to (indiscernible) liz cheney in this upcoming election and washington to its knees. leadership opportunity mean

backing a nancy pelosi eled impeachment by reflex. you know, there's basically two things that liz cheney has done in the united states congress, frustrate the agenda of president trump and sell out to the forever war machine. >> woodruff: so, denver riggleman, in liz cheney, you have a very solidly conservative member of the republican party. is she in real jeopardy here? >> absolutely, and, you know, i've talked to liz, liz is a friend of mine, but liz is tough. i don't know if she's going to take kindly to matt gaetz going to her home state. she definitely used the makeup analogy but i don't think he's going to try to beat rinos one piece of mascara at a time. i don't think that's the way to go about it, going to somebody's home state. there were hundreds there. he had donald trump, jr. there over the telephone speaking

about this. so you can see the trump family is still very involved in politics. the fact is they have a grudge against liz cheney, judy, they want to do this, and i do believe there's going to be a lot of challenge and money pumped into that race, against fred upton, anti-ly gonzalez, i think tom rice is going to get hit, too. i talked to a lot of these individuals. they're not afraid, they're angry, but they do understand there's a real challenge coming. i believe whit is direct, remains to seen what's going to happen, but what i'm seeing on the data, what people believe, the committees and how they're voting, i think there's trepidation with liz and the voter for impeachment. >> woodruff: whit ayers, you said a lot depends on how presidepresident biden governs.

could we see more violence? there's a warning out from the department of homeland security, that domestic terrorism, a man was found with explosive in his car threatening governor newsom today, a democrat. are we headed for a period where with emay see more violence, do you think? >> the judy, you can't guarantee that we won't, not with the kinds of emotions that are out there. i mean, it's incredibly divisive, when someone like congressman gaetz goes out to the home district of a leader of the republican house caucus and attacks them. that gins people up and makes them angrier. so i think we're in a very, very tenuous time, and it's really, really dangerous to be continuing to feed people lies and misinformation just to get them riled up. >> woodruff: it's a disturbing to think about, but we thank you

both so much for joining us. whit ayers, denver riggleman, thank you. >> thanks, judy. good to be with you, judy. >> woodruff: there's a shortage of skilled tradespeople throughout the american economy. it's a persistent problem that started well before the pandemic. but it's a good moment to explore what's behind that gap and what can be done. paul solman has the story for our series, "work shift", which focuses on navigating the job market in a post-covid economy. >> reporter: superstar seattle, where the high tech young make six figures and up. but you can make that much in low tech too, says plumber vinnie sposari. >> drain cleaning, light

plumbing repairs and that kind of thing, we've got guys making, you know, over $100,000 a year. >> reporter: sposari owns seattle's mr. rooter franchise. >> i've got plumbers that work for me today that make 200,000 plus a year. >> reporter: and they're what age? >> in any age. >> reporter: making $200,000 a year or more. >> absolutely. >> reporter: that's because there simply aren't enough umbers-- not in boomtowns like seattle, not anywhere. >> manpower is one of the most frustrating parts of my job, is filling all the spots i can hire six, eight experienced plumbers right now. >> reporter: but they're just not out there? >> they're jt not out there. guys that army age, they're aging out. >> reporter: but why aren't they being replaced with the young, given their historically low labor participation rate, made worse by the pandemic? there are all these kids who either aren't working at all or are working in dead end, low wage jobs.

why can't you just say to them, hey, by age of 25 or 30, you could be making six figures. just come with me. >> i would love to. i've gone to some career days. and you know, the kids, you're waiting for them to come talk to you. and they just don't. >> reporter: so why no takers? >> first and foremost is the perception of plumbing. >> reporter: trevor caldwell is vinnie sposari's right hand man. >> there's this stigma that goes along with getting your hands dirty. just a plumber, not a person, just a plumber and i don't want to be that guy. >> reporter: or that gal. >> you're doing manual labor. people look down on that. and that makes people not want to go into it, clearly. >> reporter: sarah schnabel isn't a plumber, but an ithaca, new york electrical apprentice, another well-paying trade which can't find good help these days, a frustration for schnabel's boss, brian lamorte and his colleagues.

>> i know lots of guys in the trade who are contractors, and they're looking for help. >> reporter: and willing to pay for it. >> i recently raised our rates as a business to $90 an hour and we are not pushing the envelope. we were 75 a little while ago and 65 a little while before that. it's getting to the point where you probably pay us more to come fix your light switch than you do to go to the doctor. >> reporter: so again, why no takers? >> i do think for people my age that it's definitely more glamorous to think of the tech job where you're in a really nice cushy office building. we're the kind of people who are going to hire someone to go change a light bulb, let alone go into the trades. that's kind of where my generation is right now. >> i can't give them a power tool, they might kill themselves with it. they've never held a power tool in their life. >> reporter: yes, says detroit master plumber adrienne bennett, whose firm is currently helping to revitalize “michigan central station,” it takes a non-cushy mindset. >> this is physical work. you need to be there on the job site every day. and you got to be on time.

and a lot of the young people today, they don't have work ethics. >> reporter: but plenty do. determined to breed new plumbers, vinnie sposari runs his own year-long training program, paying young people from the get-go to learn the trade. >> we're paying our trainees 15, 16, $18 an hour. and then when you're done with the program, you're not a full licensed plumber, you're a service technician who's able to snake drains and to do the kind of small plumbing repairs and whatnot and get close to that six figure income. you're getting paid to learn that! >> reporter: after a certain number of hours and possibly an exam; the requirements vary by locality; you can become a licensed plumber, a quality credential in an economy where only 11% of employers think colleges and universities are doing a good job of preparing people for the workforce. says sposari of his

apprenticeship program: >> it's open for everybody. i would welcome anybody. >> reporter: but says sposari... >> you'd be amazed how many people we want to hire, but our insurance company won't insure them because of driving violations, drugs, you know, can't keep a job. you know, you see some applicants come in here in a ripped t-shirt, hasn't shaved. you go out, look at his car and it's full of garbage. hasn't been washed in a month. those are the things we look at. >> reporter: but hey, plenty of young folks have intact t- shirts, clean faces, clean cars. maybe they realize, or learn, that you need an apprenticeship to get licensed, says plumber adrienne bennett... >> and the apprenticeships are five years. and you start out at maybe 15, $16 an hour and to get to 40, $50 an hour is going to take you five or six years. >> reporter: plus, to get a job, isn't it who you know? and few potential candidates

know tradespeople, it seems. >> i didn't knew nobody. >> reporter: manuel rios, a mr. rooter trainee, used to work on electric motors for $18 an hour with little prospect of making much more. but by chance, he met some plumbers there. >> they say that they make a lot of money. and i realize that the plumbing is never going to end because you always going to need a plumber. so the business is always going to be there. >> reporter: the final barrier to entry in the trades is a familiar one, says electrician lamorte. >> there is a certain feeling that it's kind of like a white man's game. i hate to say it. so people who are l.g.b.t.q., minorities, are a little bit intimidated by the boys club that exists. >> reporter: and of course women. added together, that's about two-thirds of the country. in the late 1970s, adrienne bennett was recruited as a union plumbing apprentice under a federal program targeting women. similar programs exist today. >> this is somethinghat will keep food on the table.

it will keep clothes on your back. it will keep a roof over your head. i'm ving proof. >> reporter: living proof, as c.e.o. of her own industrial contracting plumbing business since 2008. for the pbs newshour, paul solman. >> woodruff: the january pick for our "now read this" book club was a book of essays exploring many aspects of american culture through the prism of the internet and social media. at age 32, author jia tolentino has gained acclaim as one of its most astute observers. she's a staff writer for the "new yorker," and "trick rror" is her first book. she recently spoke with jeffy brown for our ongoing series on arts and culture, canvas. >> brown: jia tolentino, thanks

for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> brown: i want to start with the subtitle "reflections on self-delusion." what does that mean? >> i was thinking of the internet as this mechanism that everything else in our world is run through, essentially, and the internet is structured in this very specific way that has i've grown up with i've spent my entire life, my whole life with. the internet and social media in particular. it's structured in a way that makes people look at the world and see the world as kind of a personal reflection on them, right? the internet encourages you to look at everything and say, what does this say about me? and i just, you know, over the years that i was writing the book, in the years preceding it, i was ju starting to think about the effect that this had on people sort of politically and civically in terms of the narratives we tell ourselves about ourselves. >> brown: you know, the change in american politics and culture after the 2016 election clearly shaped some of your these essays >> there was something about the

2016 election where i started, it started to become, for me it was the moment where it seemed like the internet was determining the worst things about offline life rather than reflecting them. and i think that's something we've only seen, you know, blossom from the 2016 election through the capital riots and so on. >> brown: but here we are in a pandemic where we live ever more in that space in some ways. >> yeah, the internet's magic. you know, i can get on youtube and look up any concert, look up live footage of any concert at any time, at any venue. you know, i can listen to any song in the world. i can look at any painting on google, right? i try to not forget that it's magic. it's the thing that has allowed me to i can see a picture of something i want to text any of my friends and do that. and i don't want to neglect how much that's kept our lives together during the pandemic. but at the same time, i think the sort of uncertainty, the incompletion, the hollowness, the strangeness we feel and the

weird currents of aggression and loneliness is evidence of the way that the internet is at best kind of a poor simulacrum of real life. >> brown: we've just gone through a period where the some of the large social media companies have, you know, taken voices off their platforms, notably donald trump's. >> i think that what was so interestingly obvious, the second twitter banned trump on after the riots was that the c.e.o. of twitter and the c.e.o. of facebook, these men are 100% more powerful than the predent of the united states. and it's not even close. and i think that's been true for a long time. i think that almost everything wrong politically with covid misinformationwith all of this conspiratorial thinking about the election, i mean, the whole qanon fiasco, none of these things are possible if social media did not have the specific economic incentive that it does to addict people, to make them angry, to make them seek community in ways that are

refracted through anger and loneliness and self- righteousness, i think that the entire political landscape of the united states for the last, i don't know, six years has been shaped by these particular financial incentives that twitter and facebook have. and we are going to be we're going to be dealing with this for the foreseeable future until that economic model changes, i think. >> brown: do you sense a yearning from young people, people, your own generation to to escape that? is it possible to escape? >> i think there's this enormous hunger to find the opposite, to find to find realms of interaction that are not surveilled, that are freely give, where we are freely giving and taking of each other. and for me, you know, for community. these places where you feel a porousness to your identity, where you don't feel solid and locked down, you feel completely open. and i think i don't know, i think we're all pretty hungry for those experiences right now, maybe my generation in particular, because maybe our brain damage is slightly heightened from how we grew up

with it. >> brown: oh, i hope not. and i wish you will. all right. the book is "trick mirror." jia tolentino, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and our february pick is "interior chinatown", a wildly inventive, national book award winning novel by charles yu, that takes on hollywood culture and asian-american stereotypes. we hope you'll read along and join the conversation on our website and facebook page for "now read this", our book club partnership with the "new york times." >> woodruff: shortly before the pandemic, our "brief but spectacular" team traveled to georgia, where they spoke with two high school seniors, audrey mcneal and shaylon walker about

race and being underestimated. >> i recently got a, a full ride to a very prestigious university. and i went back to go visit my elementary school teachers. and sohere's this one teacher. she, she runs into me in the hall and the other teacher i was walking with, she starts bragging on me. and she's like, yeah, is shaylon here has got a full ride to boston university and the other teacher stops. and she goes, so what, what is it? and i was like, what is what? she's like, what's your sport? i got an academic and leadership scholarship. i don't play a sport. >> two years ago, i was sitting in my graphics and design class and there was an anonymous death threat using the n word. there was no investigation whatsoever. black people, we internalize these things, you know, does my life really matter to my school or my community or my county who

doesn't even want to look into these threats. >> when you even look at how teachers interact with students of color versus white and students, when a teacher comes up to you and you respond in a manner that might not be cheerful or might not be what they want to hear, it's automatically, oh, you have an attitude and they get snarkey a lot of times i've, i've experienced this. i'm not even that type of person. like if you know me, i don't, i don't even have that type of attitude. and so when i get that, it's kind of like, whoa, but then each time it kinof becomes less and less like a whoa, because it is a pattern it's so familiar. oh, if i'm not smiling, oh, i'm going to be taken as an angry black woman. and we have parents come forward. we have actual students come forward. we have picture evidence. we have recordings. we have everything saying, hey, we have a problem here.

but the county comes back to us and they're like, no, we've had training on that. you're not going to make me think i'm crazy because i know what i feel. and i know what i see every day. >> there's this, the quote by benjamin franklin that says that justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are just as outraged as those who are. so sometimes when i'm the only black person in the classroom who has to speak on issues dollar particularly challenging that make me or other people feel uncomfortable, it keeps me shes me to challenge not only self but my pierce to talk -- peers to talk about these things. >> the first thing you have to do is acknowledge the problem, even if it may not be you >> but the first thing you have to do is acknowledge the problem. even if it may not be you or your people group, you have to take a step back and look in and see that something is wrong. once you've learned about the issue, you're going to take that knowledge and enlighten others. you're going to open their eyes to something that may not even be apparent to them. and so once yove done all those three things, you yourself have created a vessel for

change. you are a catalyst that will lead to a greater future for those coming after us. >> my family has lived in georgia for generations, but we have directly been affected by the institution of slavery. and so i see a people, especially in my family that is strong and people who want to fight for change and to keep moving forward. i use that to inspire myself, to keep creating change because it can be done. my name is audrey mcneil. >> my name is shaylon walker, >> and this is my brief but spectacular take on >> acknowledging that there's a problem. >> woodruff: two strong young women. and on the "newshour" online right now, every state has on the newshour online right now, every state has different rules about who can currently get the covid-19 vaccine, and how to sign up, creating lots of public confusion. we asked experts for some general tips, which you can find on our website, pbs.org/newshour.

and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: we offer a variety of no- contract wireless plans for people who use their phone a little, a lot, or anything in between. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worlide.

>> 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 newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

hello and welcome to “amanpour & co.” here is what is coming up. >> we need to make justice and equity part of what we do every day. >> time to act and why equity is part of a more perfect union. from race to climate. the highest ranking african-american house majority whip jim clyburn joins me. then -- ♪ >> the most exciting sound in the world. >> the bee gees come alive again in a new film and album. i will speak to the last surviving brother barry gibb about the legacy and reinventing the classics. plus -- >> the risk today, as it was in september, is doing too little

and not for longnough.