Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!

What 100-year-old immigration policy can teach us about the economy

Amid new executive actions on immigration, and 100 years since the National Origins Act, we look at how policy has shaped the economy.
Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images

Negro Leagues barnstorming brought baseball to new places

It's just one of the lasting economic legacies of the professional baseball played in the Negro Leagues in the 20th century.
Teams that played in the Negro Leagues often had no choice but to hit the road and play games all over. They relied on this practice, known as barnstorming, to keep the money coming in. Pictured above: The Newark Eagles in a dugout in 1936.
Courtesy Magnolia Pictures

How baseball's Negro Leagues became successful business enterprises

"It was sailing against the tide of oppression," Negro Leagues Baseball Museum co-founder Larry Lester says.
Andrew "Rube" Foster founded the Chicago American Giants, pictured here in 1941. Foster organized the Negro National League, the first league for Black baseball players that survived a whole season.
Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images

Video game Dot's Home brings a story of housing injustice to life

The interactive game lets players follow one family's account of disadvantage and discrimination through the generations.
"We wanted to tell a multigenerational story, because when you think about housing disadvantage, it is cumulative," says Christina Rosales, above, co-creator of Dot's Home.
David Brancaccio/Marketplace

California debates who should be eligible for reparations for slavery

Jan 4, 2024
Recommendations start "with those folks who are clearly descendants of 250 years of wage theft in this country," says Sen. Steven Bradford.
Illustration: Dylan Miettinen/Marketplace | Photos: filo and JasonDoiy/Getty Images

Female truckers say Facebook’s algorithms may be steering job ads away from women, older workers

Dec 20, 2022
A complaint to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission alleges that these algorithms may be recreating hiring biases — unintentionally, in some cases, but still illegally.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it has a new system in the works to prevent ad discrimination.
Noah Berger/AFP via Getty Images

5 years later, economics faces another #MeToo moment

Dec 15, 2022
Despite being part of a field that studies inequality, women in economics are taking to Twitter to share stories of continued mistreatment.
Janet Yellen, the current U.S. secretary of the treasury, was president of the American Economic Association in 2020 and advocated for gender parity in the profession.
Alex Wong/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

Finnish prime minister's woes show women in power face double standard

Aug 23, 2022
Sanna Marin faced scrutiny after dancing and partying, a reaction familiar to many women in positions of authority.
Finnish leader Sanna Marin, whose partying at a private event raised a furor.
Hannibal Hanschke/Getty Images

What would the Biden administration's new plan do to fight racial bias in home appraisals?

Mar 24, 2022
The plan offers a number of steps to improve oversight of the home appraisal industry, and train appraisers.
Though the Fair Housing Act requires appraisers not to discriminate based on race, there are still big discrepancies between the value of homes owned by white versus Black or Latinx households.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

The NFL's hiring practices are biased against Black coaches, a former coach's lawsuit alleges

Feb 14, 2022
The vast majority of the league's head coaches don't look like the vast majority of its players.
Former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores claims in a lawsuit against the NFL that the Rooney Rule — which requires that one nonwhite candidate be interviewed for head coach positions — is all show.
Adam Glanzman/Getty Images