Transcript of Wages Vs Inflation, Tennessee Failed Execution, Cornell Rape Case Special Prosecutor

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Americans' wages are going up. Prices are also rising more quickly than people's pay.

Some people borrow to fill the gap, and interest rates are rising, too. How long can consumers keep the economy going?

I'm Michelle Martin. That's Steve Inskeep. And this is Up First from NPR News. Tennessee is trying to save the woman it tried to kill. Christa Pike was on death row for a murder she committed as a teenager. She survived 2 lethal injections and is now in critical condition. What happens now?

Also, New York's governor assigned a special prosecutor in the alleged rape case at Cornell University. Authorities in 2024 saw no evidence of a crime they could prosecute, but how did they not know about the woman's statement? That she was raped. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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American consumers are heading toward the holiday season with their budgets not quite adding up.

Inflation is up, meaning people have to pay more things they need or want to buy. But wages have grown less than inflation, meaning that many people who pay more also have to borrow more. And interest rates are up, meaning the borrowing costs more.

Those are the trends as we receive the government's latest update on the job market, which was not very impressive. NPR's Scott Horsley brings it all together for us. Scott, good morning. Welcome back.

Good morning, Steve.

Okay, uh, the job market didn't look so great. Hiring slowed. What are the numbers?

Yeah, U.S. employers added just 29,000 jobs last month. That's weaker than forecasters were expecting. And job gains for both July and August were revised down by a total of 60,000. The updated figures now show a net loss of jobs during the month of July. We're still not seeing a massive number of layoffs across the economy, but most industries just aren't doing a lot of hiring either. Sarah House, who's a senior economist at Wells Fargo, says the job market's kind of inching along in low gear.

You're seeing some modest hiring. The good news is you're, you're not seeing a lot of layoffs. But it's really hard if you are one of those workers who loses their job or you're new to the labor force or maybe coming back. There's just not a lot of turnover. So it makes it harder to get your foot in the door right now.

One way to measure the strength of the job market is look at what's happening with wages. And in September, average wages were up just 3% from a year ago. That's a slowdown from the previous month. And, you know, in recent months, wage Wage gains have not been keeping pace with rising prices, so the typical worker is losing some buying power month after month.

Okay, so what is the deal with inflation then?

Yeah, it's still high, although not quite as high as it had been. This week, the Commerce Department released its inflation scorecard for August. That's the one that the Federal Reserve watches most closely. And it showed prices in August were up 3.4% from a year ago. Of course, rising gas prices are a big part of that. energy and food, inflation was a more modest 3%. But that's still well above the target that the central bank has. A couple of weeks ago, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate in an effort to tamp down inflation. Rebecca Venter, who monitors interest rates at Vanguard, says investors are now wondering how much higher borrowing costs are likely to go.

The Fed has come on pretty strong, reaffirming its commitment to bring inflation back to its 2% target. Now the question is, if growth is strong, if inflation is pretty sticky, Where do rates need to go for that goal to actually be met?

Of course, the Fed sets short-term interest rates. Long-term rates are set by the bond market, and they've been going up at a pretty rapid clip. The yield on 10-year Treasuries is up around 5.25% right now. That's pushing up borrowing costs for everybody else. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage this week, for example, was just under 7.25%.

Wow.

And that's going to keep a lot of people stuck in homes they might otherwise consider selling. What is pushing borrowing costs up so much?

Yeah, it's a variety of factors. Part of it is that stubborn inflation, which makes lenders demand a bigger return. Lenders are also concerned about the size of the federal debt. It's ballooned to $40 trillion, double what it was 9 years ago. And there's more competition for credit now because big tech companies are borrowing a ton of money to bankroll their artificial intelligence boom. Finally, you've also got consumers who are stretched thin. Mike Reed is head of U.S. economics at RBC Capital Markets. He notes that personal spending jumped almost a full percentage point last month, but personal income rose much more slowly.

When you become reliant on credit to fuel your spending, there's an increasing risk that the Fed hikes are going to start to bite sooner rather than later.

Now, so far, consumer spending has held up pretty well. But as we've talked about this morning, the job market is not generating enough wage growth to keep up with these rising prices. That means some people are having to borrow money to narrow that gap, and the cost of borrowing money is going up and up and up.

Okay, NPR's Scott Horsley, thanks so much for your insights.

You're welcome.

The woman the state of Tennessee tried to execute on Wednesday is still alive and in critical condition.

Christa Pike was convicted of the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer when they were both teenagers. She had received a death sentence. Pike was given 2 full doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital and is now getting quote-unquote life-saving care at a hospital, according to her lawyers.

From WPLN in Nashville, Marianna Buckeye is covering this story. Good morning.

Good morning.

What went wrong on Wednesday?

There's still a lot we don't know, but Christa Pike was given 2 rounds of pentobarbital— usually just 1 is considered a lethal dose. Her lawyer, Stephen Farrell, says that she has problems with blood draws, and that's something they had brought up ahead of time in court.

Her blood draws were difficult. She has a blood disorder that contributes to that, and we knew this was coming. So back in January, we asked that this problem be addressed in a way that would not lead to the torture that happened last night.

Her attorneys are now calling on Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute her death sentence because they call it cruel and unusual punishment. All the governor has done so far is pause executions and call for an independent review of the state's I wonder why he would call for that now, given that this is not the first time it's happened.

The state had another failed execution earlier this year.

Right. Uh, reporters directly asked Lee that question, and he did not directly answer that question. He mainly just talked about how important it was to do a review now. He does acknowledge the state has a death penalty and that it's his responsibility to carry it out. But about Pike's failed execution, he said this.

It's a tragedy, and it's deeply disturbing to me that that has happened in this state. The people deserve better than that.

In that other failed execution back in May, medical staff could not access the veins of a man named Tony Carruthers, and the governor halted that execution. So there's a sense that one is a fluke, but two is a pattern. And speaking of patterns, this is also the second time Governor Lee has paused executions to do an extensive review of the process. He did so from 2022 to 2025. They found that the drugs used in the state's executions had not been properly inspected. The current process is the result of that review. Lee says the Department of Corrections followed this new process, and they don't know what went wrong.

Uh, this has all happened during election season, and there's a governor's race in Tennessee. I understand this has become a topic in the governor's race.

Right. So Lee is term-limited. His moratorium is really only good for the next few months he's in office, and it will be up to the state's next governor to determine what to do with the review's findings. U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the front-runner to replace him, says she supports the review, but she's also calling for the state to bring back the electric chair. It's still an option here for those who were sentenced before the year 2000, like Christa Pike. Her Democratic opponent, Jerry Green, says she would extend the moratorium and just have death row inmates serve out a life sentence. Governor Lee says even if he won't be governor, the review should take as long as it needs to take to make sure something like what happened to Christa Pike doesn't happen again.

Mariana Bacallao with WPLN in Nashville, thanks so much.

Thank you.

We should warn you first that this story includes descriptions of sexual violence. Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York State, has appointed the state's attorney general, Letitia James, as a special prosecutor to take over the alleged rape case at Cornell University. The governor says she does not have faith that the local prosecutor can manage the case— the prosecutor who decided not to investigate or press charges a couple of years ago. NPR has confirmed that the woman who alleged she was raped at a Cornell frat house gave campus police a very detailed account, but those details never made it to the local prosecutor. NPR's Brian Mann is in Ithaca, New York, covering all this. And, and Brian, what is Governor Hochul saying?

Yeah, Steve, she says that yesterday's big revelations about this case raised serious questions about how it was handled, not just by that DA, but also by Cornell University and the campus police. Hochul spoke at a press conference a short time ago.

In what world would the police learn from a victim that she'd been literally gang raped while intoxicated by 5 men in a fraternity house and not elevate those allegations to the district attorney? In what world does the district attorney not even interview her or anyone else involved?

Now, Steve, the woman has actually alleged that 7 men were involved in this incident. It's unclear why Hochul mentioned only 5. NPR did reach out to the local DA, Matthew Van Houten, for his comment on this. We haven't heard back.

I appreciate that. Let's just talk a little bit more about the details here. It seems that the, the, the victim in this case, there was a written statement that she signed, but also something else. There was more evidence. What happened here?

Yeah, so we know now that the woman offered this lengthy, detailed, and really graphic description of her alleged assault during an initial investigation. This is in 2024. And as part of that interview, she told police at the time, quote, I can say with 100% confidence that I was raped. Van Houten says he only received a 6-page condensed summary of that that the woman had signed. And based on that 6-page account, he's been describing her involvement in drug use and sexual activity at the frat party as consensual. Again, it now appears many of the key details she provided weren't given to him before he shut down the investigation. As you heard there, Steve, Hochul called him out for not requesting all of the woman's interviews and transcripts and, and not talking with her directly.

So there were hundreds, if not thousands, of additional words from the victim, and the prosecutor never saw them and maybe never asked for them?

That's right. Tons of nuance, lots of pretty harrowing details that she included in this lengthy interview with police. None of that made it through to the 6-page filter, this final statement that we've seen parts of. So something broke down in that process.

Including the sentence, quote, I was Now you were at a student gathering last night. What was that like?

Hundreds of students gathered in this stately Ivy League hall, Steve. They were devastated, heartbroken. Some people sobbed as they spoke. Savita Sastry is one of the women who testified.

There was rage. It was really, really nice to see people be emotional about this.

We are her.

We experienced that. And this entire week we had to think about the fact that we were raped.

And I heard this from a lot of women. They know women on this campus who've experienced sexual violence, and they want big changes to the culture.

What's the university saying?

Not much. NPR has repeatedly asked for an interview. They've said no. One important detail I want to mention quickly. Earlier in the week, Cornell claimed on its website that police did share all investigatory information with prosecutor's office. They then quietly removed that claim. We don't know why.

NPR's Brian Mann in New York, thanks so much.

Thanks, Steve.

And that's Up First for this Friday, October 2nd. I'm Steve Inskeep.

And I'm Michelle Martin. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Raphael Nahm, Susanna Capilouto, Gigi Duban, Mohammed El-Ebardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Misha Hines and Patrick Murray. Our technical director is Carly Strange, and our executive producer is Jay Shaler. We hope you'll join us again on Monday.

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