heating units-- freezing temperatures with little clothing options, blankets-- all of these are in short supply. >> brown: we examine a major ruling on the morning after pill, as a federal judge ordered the fda to make it available, without prescription, to women and girls of all ages. >> woodruff: mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> brown: and we close with the story of an expose of hidden off-shore bank accounts around the obe. >> the first consequence, i guess, is that a secret world is no longer secret, and it's going to send shivers through this world. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new york, a foundation created to do what andrew carnegie called "real and permanent good." celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> 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: american employers added 88,000 jobs in march, the smallest gain in nine months, raising new fears that the recovery may be slowing down. new hiring last month was a sharp decline from the previous two months. 268,000 new jobs were added in february and 148,000 in january. the unemployment rate dropped to 7.6%, the lowest in four years, but that was attributed to more people retiring or not searching for work. yahoo! finance's jeff macke: >> one half of one million americans quit looking for jobs in march. that means they just gave up and they stopped looking so that's how you get the unemployment rate to look lower because you shrink the pool and that is a >> woodruff: in fact, the percentage of working adults in the labor force is at the lowest level since 1979. in an interview on bloomberg tv, alan krueger, the chairman of the white house council of economic advisors, said that reflects a number of factors. >> it's natural that people will retire as they get older and we're going to be facing that trend for some time to come. but also when you go through difficult economic times, when unemployment rises as it did during the recession, you tend to see people leave the labor force. some go back to school, when >> woodruff: economists often warn not to make too much of any one month's figures. and the stock market, while down today, remains near record highs. on wall street the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 41 points to close at 14,565. the nasdaq fell 21 points to close above 3,203. for the week, the dow shed one tenth of a percent. the nasdaq lost nearly 2%. >> brown: and we take a closer look at today's numbers and some key longer-term trends in the job market, with lisa lynch, dean of the heller school for social policy and management at brandeis university. she's a former chief economist at the labor department. and andrew mcafee, principal research scientist at the center for digital business at m.i.t.'s sloan school of business and co-author of "race against the machine." lisa lynch, positive numbers but much less than hoped for, and even expected, right. what do you see here? >> well, it was, you know, frankly a miserable report. we had jobs coming in at less than half of what people had expected. and while there was growth in important sectors like construction, the health-care sector, accounting, we did not see the employment increase in manufacturing, it decreased a little bit. and there were big decreases in the retail sector. >> brown: just to stay with you, whether you look at sectors or other factors, does anything stand out or jump out at you as telling why there was this less than expectenumber today? >> well, people have been trying to point to maybe some seasonality factors, march was a little snowier so people didn't go to the store to retail stores. or maybe the upward revisions in february's numbers, maybe you have to move-- merge the two months together to get a picture of the labor market that say little bit more accurate. and folks have obviously been pointing it to the impact of the sequester. and there i think we have more information looking back at at's happening for growth overall in the economy. our economy is growing very slowly, at less than half a percent. and for that rate of growth, we shouldn't be surprised with a number like we saw today. >> brown: andrew mcafee we look at the monthly numbers. we try to look for signals. he look longer-term as well. what do you see, what important trends do you see that might help us understand even a monthly figure like this? >> and i think that this latest monthly figure is part of a long-term and pretty challenging trend, abt 30 years ago wage growth for the average american worker started to taper off. and for the past 15 years it's actually been negative. about 12 years ago job growth started to taper off as well. of course that took a huge dive during the great recession and has really not recovered at all. and i look at these longer-term trends and i think they're part of a pattern, as are technologies, and especially our tidge nal technologies just continue to get so much more powerful and to demonstrate all these new capabilities. that means that we tend to need human labor lite bit less, as digital labor gets more and more powerful. that trend i think is only going to continue. >> give us a specific example. i mean we look at the jobs report like this today, give us an example of how technology, robotics or something might impact a job that might have been there before but is not showing up today. >> well, for example, retail has been a huge employer in the united states for a long time. the job growth there has well slowed-- really slowed down and in some cases turned negative there are a bunch ftorst play there. one of them, though s that a lot of us buy things on-line now, we do self-service, we get our recommendations from recommendations engines as opposed to clerks. an even when we go to the store there tend to be fewer people around to man the cash registers because a lot of that becomes more automated as well. in some stores where i shop these days i actually check myself out without any human involvement. so we see technology chipping away at the kinds of things that we used to have people doing. and when i look at what robots and cutting edge, artificial intelligence can do, i think we ain't seen nothing yet. >> brown: the question, lisa lynch, i will come to you on this, is how much of the jobs problem we're looking at is as economists like you say, cyclical or structural, part of what andy mcafee is talking about here. what do you think? >> so as andy said, we've been seeing a decrease in the labor force participation rates that actually goes back 12 years ago, it started in 2,000. and some of that is made up of cyclical factors. economists are saying somewhere between a third and a half of that fall in the labor force participation rate is cyclical factors. but there are two other important source of that fall in the labor force participation. one is the aging of the workforce. so more of our workers are getting closer to retirement. so there is a composition issue playing here. secondly is young people delaying entry into the labor force. they're in school. they can't get a job. they get an unpaid internship so they don't get counted as an employee. and then the last source as andy is talking about is this sort of hollowing out of the economy. and part staff due to global sglachlingts and part of it is due to these technological shocks, when somebody loses a job, they can't find a job in their same sector. >> brown: at the same time doesn't technology create new jobs? i mean you're not against technology and to the against it in the workplace, i assume. so is it a balancing act? are you suggesting that longer term now we may be at some kind of real strong tipping point, that affects the labor market. >> yeah, technology is clearly racing ahead. and'muge technology optimist. i believe it's taking us into a more a bund ant future. but as it does it can leave a lot of people behind and i don't know the economic law that says that technology, by definition, has to create as many or more jobs as it destroys. and i think we're seeing that balance shift these days. >> brown: well, lisa lynch-- go ahead. >> but what is interesting is this technology is available around the world. and there are other countries like germany, the netherlands, norway, sweden, denmark, that are not experiencing this same decrease in labor force participation rate. actually in some of those countries it's actually been rising over the last 12 years, so there's something else than technology. technology is not determining our future. and when you look at those other countries you see institutions in place, helping to support workers make the transition from one sector to another that i think frankly are doing a better job than what we have in the united states. >> just one last word on this. does your argument suggest that it's harder for policymakers, harder for th federal serve, for example to respond to the weakness that we see in the labor market? >> yeah, i absolutely agree with lisa that there are a lot of things we can and should be doing. starting with the good old-fashioned econ 101 playbook of updating our education, making life easy for entrepreneurs and job creators and doubling down on infrastructure. that will help us out a lot. but i do think that our tool kit is going to get more challenged because technology continues to just demonstre astonishing n capabilities. i've ridden in the google driverless car, i've tried to play jeopardy against watson the world champion supercomputer from idm. these are astonishing technologies. and they're going to have labor force implications. >> brown: all right, short term, long term, andrew mcafee, lisa lynch, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> thanks. >> woodruff: economics correspondent paul solman offers his own analysis of the unemployment picture. that's on our business page. and still to come on the "newshour": no way out for millions of syrians; a new ruling on emergency conaceptis;hields and brooks and secret offshore investments revealed. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman. >> holman: tensions grew again today on the korean peninsula with reports the north has loaded two medium-range missiles onto mobile launchers. south korean media said they were hidden on the east coast. meanwhile, south korea deployed two warships armed with missile defense systems. we have a report from john irvine of "independent television news." >> reporter: it's a rare sight. thlegeary y ple, t u- 2. it may be an icon of the cold war but here it's no relic. ironically, it's still operational in the one place where that war persists. three of them fly out of this u.s. base near seoul. they can get into and out of hostile air space within minutes. north korea's just 50 miles from here and this is a u-2 returning from a surveillance mission. the aircraft that was the trip wire for the 1962 cuban missile crisis is now monitoring the north korean missile crisis. the north koreans are maintaining the familiar aggressive posture. today they released more pictures of kim jong un trying to look like a commander-in- chief. at one point, he picks up a handgun himself. later he watches as a huge exercise unfolds. the impression given is that north korea is preparing to fight whether it be on land or at sea. as the brinkmanship goes on, the south of the border, the waiting and watching goes on. the u-2s will keep a close eye on things. >> holman: also today, countries with diplomats in north korea said the government warned them their safety could not be guaranteed if conflict breaks out. about two dozen countries have diplomatic missions in pyongyang. there were new questions today about what university police knew about the suspected colorado theaterunman before last summer's attack. court documents made public late yesterday reveal james holmes' psychiatrist warned university of colorado-denver campus police that he was dangerous and had homicidal thoughts. that warning came more than a month before the july 20 shootings that killed 12 people. operators of 149 airport control towers slated for closure across the country gained temporary reprieves today. the federal aviation administration was due to start closing them tomorrow because of government-spending cuts, but a hostf legal challenges has pushed back the shutdowns to mid-june. in china, authorities slaughtered more than 20,000 birds at a major poultry market after six people died from bird flu. 16 people have come down with a new strain of the virus, but so far there are no cases of human to human transmission. the bird cull in shanghai was ordered after authorities found the h7n9 virus in pigeons being sold for meat in the market. other poultry markets in the city will close tomorrow. meanwhile in the u.s., the centers for disea control nounced it is working on a vaccine in case one is needed. at least 47 people died in eastern india when an eight- story residential building collapsed. 70 others were injured. it happened thursday evening on the outskirts of mumbai. indian authorities said the building was being constructed illegally, and four of its floors already were occupied. today, rescuers combed the debris looking for signs of life. more than 20 people still are missing. bulldozers were being used in the search. pope francis urged the catholic church to take decisive action to root out and punish sexual abuse of children by priests. the pope met today with senior members of his staff, saying the church's credibility is at stake. groups advocating for victims said the statements were just rhetoric until concrete action is taken. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: there was a stark warning today from the united nations children's fund, unicef, about the humanitarian crisis caused in syria, and the ability of the international community to help. a unicef spokesperson said "the needs arrising exponenally, and we are broke." new figures show the number of syrian refugees in jordan alone would more than double to 1.2 million by the end of this year. but they may be the lucky ones, millions more syrians remain in their country. and that's where hari sreenivasan picks up the story. >> sreenivasan: bab al hawa means "gate of the winds" in arabic. in northern syria, at the border crossing of the same name, it is also the gate into turkey, and escape from the slaughter of civil war. but for many syrians there is no way out and here at bab al hawa, in idlib province, thousands live in a squalid makeshift camp within sight of the border and refuge. videojournalist ted nieters traveled to syria for the "newshour" and found seven thousand people huddled by the frontier. syrian air force fighter jets overflew the camp, and sent its shellshocked residents scurrying. nawaf al moussa came from the countryside of idlib. >> ( translated ): it's not safe at all because at the moment the aircraft are over the camp. everyday there is the sound of aircraft because aleppo, which is 30 kilometers from here, there is war there. we're not fighters. we came here to feel safe, because we are civilians. >> sreenivasan: the united nations refugee office says two years of upheaval have uprooted at least four million syrians. that's about one-fifth of the entire population. more than one million have fled to neighboring nations; more than 300,000 are in lebanon; a similar number in jordan; nearly 200,000 are in turkey and 100,000-plus in iraq. but at least another three million have been displaced internally. and that number comes from the syrian government itself; the actual number is suspected to be much larger. with syria's neighbors straining to serve the huge refugee populations flooding their countries, it is becoming harder and harder for many syrians to leave. >> ( translated ): we came here and they promised to let us into turkey but now we've been here for one month and more, a they don't allow us tgo. there is no village left, so i can't go back to my village. >> one of the regime strategies has been kind of the inverse of normal insurgency campaigns that we think of to the point that what they're trying to do is purposefully displace populations from town centers and from city centers so that when the rebels take control, they're taking control of empty cities and empty villages. >> sreenivasan: elizabeth o'bagy is a research analyst at the institute for the study of war in washington. she says many syrian who had the financial means, and who wished to flee sya, he already gon those left behind are largely fending for themselves. >> they suffer from lack of food, in winter there was no heating units; freezing temperatures with little clothing options. blankets: all of these are in short supply. water has often been contaminated. they don't have adequate water resources, oil resources. >> sreenivasan: while the refugee populations of surrounding countries receive aid and services of varying quality and frequency, providing assistance to displaced syrians inide has pren to be an even more difficult operation. amna kizawi came to bab al hawa with her son and daughter; one of her sons was killed amid the fighting. >> ( translated ): they destroyed all the houses and even though they tried to dig a graveyard, they bombed all the graveyards. i am living in a tent for 15 days with nothing, they haven't distributed anything to us, just a little bread and canned cheese. it's very cold at night and now, very hot during the day. >> it's very difficult to get into syria, the checkpoints are pretty horrendous, up to 20 before we get to where we're going. >> sreenivasan: carolyn miles is the president and c.e.o. of save the children, which has more than 500 people in syria and surrounding countries. she's just returned from jordan, and the huge za'atari camp on the border; 1,600 syrians came over the border on just one night she was there. in addition to 100,000 people they help feed every day throughout the region, save the children is reaching about 80,000 inside the country. >> areeliving again food and water inside of syria with partners, when they're caught delivering food they're tortured. i think the biggest challenge is that the work we're doing is targeted, particularly the health system and the health facilities. >> sreenivasan: are there still hospitals left that people can go to? >> there are still hospitals that are still open. people still need health services, so they're trying to get to those few health clinics and hospitals that are open. >> sreenivasan: but those few cannot serve millions of internally displaced, many of whom go lacking for even bac healthcare. coupled with shortages of sanitation and clean water, outbreaks of disease-- typhoid, hepatitis-a-- are starting. elizabeth o'bagy: >> one of the specific things that they've requested is greater vaccinations in order to prevent diseases and try and help prevent the outbreak of some of the more contagious diseases that were they were facing. they were significantly hindered by turkish border authorities who wouldn't allow for certain medications and certain vaccinations to get across the border. >> sreenivasan: at bab al hawa, there is incasing frustration with turkish authorities: >> ( translated ): turkey promised us many times to allow these people to enter turkey but in vain. and you can see now that there is a protest at the border and people want cross in turkey but all of that went in vain because turkey doesn't allow them to go. >> sreenivasan: omar ibrahim is serving as a nurse in the camp without medical supplies and equipment. there are no doctors. >> i have simple equipment like injections, like some kinds of medicine. but for many cases i can't do nothing. like for pregnant women because they need delivery room and there are no doctors, they had two cases where the babies died of cold. >> sreenivasan: lack of good sanitation and clean water is also contributing to the spread of disease >> they are facing many cases of diarrhea. and leishmaniasis and scabs in fact becausthese people have not bathed in 40 days so they're going to face all those problems. >> sreenivasan: the "newshour" was told of other cases of leishmaniasis elsewhere in idlib province. it is a highly contagious disease that can cause skin lesions. in another form it causes acute fever, weight loss and if untreated, is often fatal. doctors told ten-year-old amel and her parents that she would need hospital care and an injection to cure what she calls "these things on my face." >> there is no injection here, and we have to go to turkey to find it. my mother and father started to get infected, too. >> sreenivasan: she fled with her family from their village in central syria after her home was burned. she is one of the estimated two million displaced children in syria, according to a recen eporby se the children. three-out-of-four children had lost a loved one. young amel is among that number. >> i miss everything, everything in my house, my aunts, my grandmother, even to go to school. >> sreenivasan: but she does have hopes of one day going home >> when we go back, i'm going to visit my neighbors, i'm going to play with my friends. my father says "we don't have a house." and i said "we are going to fix it." >> sreenivasan: but now, for many trapped he in bab a hawa, that day feels like it may never come. >> woodruff: learn more about the impact of war on the very young, watch hari's extended interview with save the children's carolyn miles, online. also there, see what life is like for students in a refugee camp classroom. that's on our world page. >> brown: it's an issue that's been fraught with moral, legal and political implications and today came the latest step, as a federal judge in new york ordered the food and drug administration to make the most common morning after pill available to women and girls of all ages without a prescription. the ruling gives the f.d.a. 30 days to lift the age restrictions on teva pharmaceutical's plan-b one step' and its generic form. under current regulations, the emergency contraceptive, which reduces the risk of pregnancy by half if taken soon after unprotected sex, is only available over-the-counter to women 17 or older. younger teenagers must have a prescription. in 2011, the f.d.a. concluded plan-b one step was safe to sell to everyone without that requirement. but health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius overruled that decision, saying there was not enough evidence to allow the contraceptive to be sold to girls younger than 17 without a doctor's order. today, u.s. district judge edward korman called that action "arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable-- an excuse to deprive the overwhelming majority of women of their rights to obtain contraceptives without unjustified and burdensome restrictions." in response, this afternoon in washington, white house press secretary jay carney said the administration stands by its original decision. >> secretary sebelius made this decision. the president supported that decision after she made it and i and he supports that decision today. he believes it was the right common sense approach to this issue. >> brown: today's ruling is now being reviewed by the justice department. more now about the ruling and the long debate surrounding this issue with sarah kliff of the "washington post." strong language from that judge, fill in a little bit about his arguing. >> right. i mean he didn't mince words in his ruling. he called it arbitrary, ca pricious, called it a political decision on the part of the obama administration. one of the things he relied on heavily is the fact that the fda after a rigorous review decided this should be available over-the-counter. and that the hhs stepped in and said, you know, because of some of the concerns we have, citing not necessarily evidence of it being harmful for young girls, but saying we have concerns about young girls purchasing this, because they stepped in without that evidence. >> brown: what was the evidence? what do they mean by evidence? it's not the medical safety of the actual drug versus how it would be used? >> right, so the fda went through and did a rigorous study as they do with all medications looking at what are some of the side effects and possible harms that the medication if taken in a way it is not supposed to be. and they found it safe. secretary sebelius in her statement overruling them said there was no testing done on 11-year-old girls and there are some 11-year-old girls who reached menstruation there he is a possibility they could use it. and said because there was no testing on that age group that they should not allow it to go over-the-counter was her argument about a year ago. >> brown: that was a very controversial decision back then. >> it was. >> brown: that lead directly to this lawsuit. >> it was the first time an hhs secretary has ever overruled the fda on a decision like this. so it is really a break from what we're used to. >> brown: at the same time, as i said in the intro, this has been steeped in politics for a long time, certainly at least going back to the george w. bush administration, including a number of resignations along the way. >> right, ever since plan b was first approved for sale as a prescription in 1999 it's been marked with controversy. we saw multiple officials resigned over the issue during the bush administration. many expected the obama administration to quickly make plan b available over-the-counter. and many folks were advocating it, were really surprised and disappointed with the decision in 2011. and are really excited about this court ruling right now. >> brown: tell me more about that. what kind of reactions we there today from both sides? >> so, a lot of excitement from both medical groups and women's health groups, have really been pushing the administration hard on this issue. some abortion opponents and social conservatives are very concerned about this ruling, that they say it will essentially remove parents and doctors from a decision that they should be involved in. and they're very worried about, you know, what it will mean to have emergency contraceptive on a shelf next to you know, tylenol and other over-the-counter medications. >> brown: hhs and the administration can presumably apal. any signals or signs of what the next step would be? >> they are being pretty quiet right now. the justice department says, obviously, the ruling just came out this morning. they're reviewing the options. press secretary jay carney for the white house says they stand by that i recaller-- their earlier decision but haven't commented yet on whether the department of justice will pursue action to overturn this. >> brown: of course the politics are still there right, whichever way it may go. >> it is a tough decision. it's been a thorn in the side of two administrations at this point. the politics might be a little bit different than the last time they addressed this issue. they're not facing re-election this time, which might give them a bit more wiggle room. but you are going to have folks disappointed on both sides of the issue no matter where you land. >> brown: in the meantime, what is known at this point about how widely the pill is being used, how much it may have expanded, if at all, in recent years. >> it's pretty widely used. the cdc looked at this a few years ago and found between 2006 and 2010 that about one in nine women of child bearing age that works out to about 5.8 million women used an emergency contraceptive it is most frequently used by women 20 to 24. and most often used either once or twice. you don't see a lot of repeat use that some folk was worry about, relying on it as regular birth control. but it's definitely pretty widely used and there is some feeling that the affordable care act by eliminating copay force contraceptives may increase use going forward. >> brown: is there the expectation that this ruling, if it stands and isn't appealed, that might affect the numbers presumably? >> right f it makes access easier. one of the issues that has been raised here, while this affects minors a lot in that they would no longer need a prescription s that for women over 17, they're not going to have to go to the pharmacist or drugstore when the pharmacy is open. so that could really expand access to older women as well. >> brown: sarah cliff from "the washington post," thanks so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and to the analysis of shields and brooks. syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. welcome back to the program, gentlemen. so let's start out talking about the jobs numbers, dav. heard the analysis earlier in the show. fewer jobs created than what the economists were predicting. the rate went down which everybody is happy about. but overall the picture is what? >> bad. we shouldn't even be happy about the rate going down, you know, austin goolsbee called it a punch in the gut and i think that's act rat there was a sense and i have been hearing from economists and businesspeople that we are finally reaching takeoff. because the housing market is looking a lot better. the private debt has been looking better. so the fundamentals seem to be fine, that we're taking off. and that clearl is not the case or probably not the case. and so now we're stuck in this frustrating economy. and politically you began to see everybody rallying around their favorite causes. why does this happen. some people pick on sequestration but the timing isn't quite right. the sequestration is probably going to hit to the extent it does later. maybe because the payroll tax was raised or restored to earlier levels. but again, retail, jobs were down. retail sales not so much down. maybe health care. well, it's hard to see. i would only say we should be hesitant about trying to draw a naative about a short-term cost versus a long term, and focus on what we heard in the discussion, some of the more fundamental issues about technology, about globalization, about men in particular dropping out of the wage, the labor force. those big long-term structural problems, seem to me, the core thing to worry. >> woodruff: mark, what did you think about this jobs report? >> i think it is-- i think that austin goolsbee deserves the anti-spin award for 2013. usually you get straight partisan explanations. and he said it was a punch in the gut. it's more thanhat. 's more than a political setback. i mean it raises the question, 11.7 million americans were looking for jobs to go to last month. and they didn't find one. and we have people, smallest percentage in the workforce now in 34 years, 1979, which some of us may recall was not a great time economically in this country. and i think the earlier discussion really raised, what i think, is the fundamental question. i mean the moral test of any society is whether that economy serves the human beings in it, or the human beings there to serve the economy. we've got corporate profits at an all-time high, the stock market going through the roof. and yet we have this human waste of capital and broken human dreams. and i just think it's time beyond just a quick band-aid fix or whatever. we've got to examine that. if we're not going to produce jobs, i mean, what are we going to do with these people with their abilities, with their ambition w their time. i just think it's a serious, serious question. >> woodruff: should people be looking to washington right now for solution, for answers? >> i think some of these structural things. it's hard, you go in a drugstore now, you stood there before cashiers checkinyou out. now there is four atomac machines and one person helping out the four machines. so that is what we are seeing. so what can we do? and i would say both parties have very bad growth strategies. you know, cutting taxes any more, i doubt that's going to help. spending, well we just can't spend that much more. maybe some people-- . >> woodruff: even the infrastructure. >> so we look to the long-term stuff. and infrastructure spending is not a short term thing. that is a long-term thing and i think most economists would say that would help, as we said earlier, improving the education would help but that is easier said than done. so we have a lot of bi structural proems we could improve. but as a short-term fix, you know, we've spent, i don't know, we've spent another 5, 6 trillion dollars in debt over the last, since the financial crisis. we haven't solve-- felt a thing short term yet. >> woodruff: you are saying neither party is offering. >> i'm really struck by the lack of a persuasive growth agenda. >> i obviously tilt more towards the democrat's answer. but the only point i could come to is that whether we assert and establish that people have a right to decent and productive work, and decent conditions, at fair wages, i mean, is that-- is that a cornerstone of the united states and our value system. and i think if you start there, rather than, you know what are we going to do between now and october, i means that's the question. then i think it becomes a different test for both the private sector and the public sector. >> both of you mentioned the earlier segment, the analyst said other countries have done a better job. >> she mentioned germany, denmark. >> woodruff: supporting the economy when it hits this kind of a pass. >> exactly right. i really do think it is a more humanitarian instead of-- the german example instead of laying somebody off, they cut back the hours so that five people are working 35 hours a week instead of, you know, four people working -- >> there are trade-offs. look at the european unemployment rate what is it 4 or 5 points higher than ours. the european economy is not exactly something to self-recommend itself right now. i do think some german-- german retraining may be better but they have a different sort of economy than we do. much we have a much more disruptive economy. the thing that worries me is long-term men in particular dropping out of the labor force. a number of economists have said this economy still rewards education. even if this economy. if you have a college degree your unemployment rate is very low. women have gotten that message. men have to the gotten that message. men have not upped their skill level. and so why is that? it could have to do with family structure t could have to do with a thousand other things but those are the sort of fundamental things really hurting the labor market. >> woodruff: so can anything be done? i mean do i hear both of you saying -- >> well, i think there is an awful lot of work that needs to be done in our society. there's all kinds of tasks that need to be performed. the question is are we going to be stuck in this corporate mood el that says that, i mean, wal-mart, largest employer in the country, its profits are up, it's opened new stores with fewer employees. i mean if that's the model we've going to find, and turn it over and say that is fine, then we're going to end up with double-digit unemployment and wasted lives. i mean i just think there are all kinds of things that can be done and ought to be donement but it does require the public secretary tore do them. >> here we get into more of a left right thing. woolworth took jobs away from mom and pop 70, 80 years ago, wal-mart, it is just a more efficient system. i think we need to use human capital more productively. so wal-mart is on net in enhancement of productivity levels. that doesn't mean you do nothing. you increase training. you increase infrastructure spending. you get the education system, and mostly you devote less resources, fewer resources to the elderly and consumption on health care for at fluent, and much more to young families a young worke. and shift what's turned into really a redistribution machine. >> woodruff: well, speaking of less money for the elderly, president obama, it was just reported overnight that in this budget that comes out next week, he is going to propose something the republicans have been asking him to put out there, and that cuts entitlements, social security, medicare w some carveouts for those at the lower end of the income scale and for, they call extreme elderly, they're still talking about cutbacks in benefits for people who look to governme for support. >> i agree. this is a real body blow to those who accuse president obama of being a socialist. this is lardly a socialistic approach. in addition, i mean for not taking difficult political stands, he's been bombarded by the libral part of his own party and many liberal groups. you know, i think, judy, that he's probably the last best chance we're going have to reach any kind of a big, semi big agreement is what the president is going to unveil in his budget next wednesday. and i think it's absolutely legitimate point on his side to say that the republicans have come up with revenue if we are going to do this, because this is a blow to the democrats. it's been the holy grail of the democratic party platform for the past 70 years, social security. and you know, i think in that sense we'll find out whether the common sense caucus that editorial writers and some of the leading pundits, whether it'sthe lckecessary monster of american politics or whether it's a reality. >> i think he's taking the right approach. we have the patty murray, the senate democratic budget over here. the ryan budget over there. he's sort of a little closer to murray, obviously, but he's sort of in the ballpark of where a deal will be cut. and so some of the things i think are right and good policies, this chained cpi which will be adjusting social security revenues or benefits. some of the things i think are less persuasive. he's got medicare things which are not structural reform but just trying to tamp down reinforcements as the samtime we ar just running away from any effort to control medicare costs. but if he can take this chained cpi, this social security thing, and he can put in a few little more moderate medicare reforms, structural reforms like combining medicare a and b and other things, i think that has some bipartisan agreement. i do believe there are a number of republicans who would be willing to give on revenues. and then we're not going to have a grand bargain but then do you see a bargain. you see a functioning government making progress. >> woodruff: so do you think, mark this could lead to some kind of-- because right now the republican leadership in the congress is saying no, this isn't enough. and we're not giving on revenue. >> yes, speaker boehner today rejected it and so did majority litre cantor. i think one of the-- leader cantor. i think one of the things head of the ways and means committee, all of the republicans say send it to the ways and means committee. democratic budget doesn't say send it to-- they have enormous responsibility. this is his last big chance, as chrman. i mean if he wants to make history, and barack obama, this is 1986 revisited. and barack obama, is ronald reagan and he is ross ten cowski, then it does take on a chance. but i still looking for those common sense republicans to step up and say yes, mr. president, you just did bite the bullet. you did, in fact, step on the third rail of the american politics, social security. >> the president is going over to have dinner with what, a dozen or so republican senators. >> it won't happen to the white house. -- go to the white house, i mean he always wants to meet him. it's like a strange date. >> they steal the silver ware. they can't be trustedz all right-- . >> woodruff: only a couple of minutes. north korea, it's been, it was scary, david. it sounds scarier today than it did. they are moving missiles into position. they said just about everything you can say. what are people saying you are talking to, how worried should they be. >> there are two schools of thought. one is they're blustering through domestic use, that sort of thing. we have a new leader. theeco is no, this is different. they're actually doing as you say some substantive things in addition, this new leader maybe he is unpredictable. and so the one thing they see people, i hear from, seem to be united about is what do we do about it? and so there are some things we can do. we're trying to pressure china but i don't hear too much hope about that. and so so far there seems it to be relatively little. we've tried the talks and that doesn't seem to work. >> north korea is a chinese-- state works china there is no north korea. but unlike iran where everybody is exercised about the fact that they may get a nuclear weapon, this fellow has nuclear weapons. he sun testedness. he's new. he's absolutely unpredictable. and chuck hagel's first test as secretary of defense, i mean i think it more than bears watching. i think it's serious stuff. >> woodruff: on that sobering note, we thank you both, mark shields, david brooks. and mark and david keep up the talk on the doubleheader recorded in our newsroom, that will be posted at the top of the rundown later tonight. >> brown: next, with tax day looming for millions of americans, a new investigation exposes the global use of off-shore bank accounts to hide trillions of dollars and evade laws. and again to hari, who has the story. >> reporter: uncovering the complex workings of offshore tax havens has lead to one of the largest crossborder collaborations ever between journalists. the international consortium of investigative journalists has been combing through more than 2 million files of financial transaction data for more than a year. it's taken this long becse the digital file size is 160 times larger than the state department cables publicked by wikileaks in 2010. a team of 8 of investigative journalists from 46 countries has collectively examined more than 120,000 offshore accounts belonging to individuals and companies for more than-- from more than 170 countries. the records show how government officials and individuals in a number of countries use covert accounts and companies to shield their wealth. and how some of the top global banks work within these offshore tax havens as well. the investigation is already leading to a series of reports including one spotlighting the transactions of a canadian senator's husband whose hidden money from their equivalent of the irs. an australian tied to arms dealing through shell company, and a mongolian law maker who may resign over the revelations of his finances overseas. jared rile directs the international consortium of investigative journalists and joins us to discuss the findings. thanks for being with us. >> great to be here. >> reporter: how did you get this drove-- trove of information, what is the data. >> the data is an enormous amount of sort of very unstructured data. it's got documents, spreadsheets, financial transactions, e-mails. and it came about because of a long investigation i did in australia about a fraud that effectively lead me to this world this secret world that i knew nothing about, which was the world of offshore. >> reporter: so in this report you say that it's not just the superrich and the superpowerful, but it's more pervasive, explain that. >> probably the biggest surprise that i found, i initially thought that the people you expect to use tax havens are the superwealthy but when y look at this world you find that it's not just the superwealthy using it, it is the sort of moderately wealthy. and it pervades right down through society to doctors, dentists, you know, small time developers. they've all discovered this world. and they're all using it. >> reporter: you said that it contributes to fraud, tax dodging and enables police call corruption, explain that? >> well, the very secrecy of this allows you to misuse it i mean this world is for the most part, you imagine, you can't prove t legimate there's nothing illegal with using, buying an offshore company, there is knock illegal with setting up a secret bank account. it's only if you don't report that to the authorities if you need to report it, where it becomes illegal. but because it's so secret, i mean rogue nations can use this we came across a company that was a front for the iranian shipping line, you know, which has since been outlawed by the european union, by the u.s. authorities, you know, so basically the way that they use it is because they can get away with anything th nt. >> reporter: and so included in this list of names that you have access to is 4,000 american names. were there any surprises there? or how are we going to find out about that report? >> well, again, it was very difficult for us to work out whether or not any of these people were breaking any laws. and our first duty as reporters was to, you know, look after the public interest. a lot of these people are not public figures, so therefore it didn't jump that barrier for us which was-- there has to be some-- there have to be public figures in some way. >> rorter: and you also outline that the scope or scale of this, the 121 to 30 trillion dollars-- 21 to 30 trillion are floating around in this almost second bank network? >> the advocacy group has the best figures on what they think is the size of this offshore world and they say half of all world trade and a third of all world wealth now resides in the offshore world. and this is the first time that anyone has been able to really see into that world. and i'm not saying that we've got it all comprehensively covered here. we're only loong at a vy small slice of a very large world. but it's a very deep slice of that world. >> reporter: so what are people using this for? just to try to buy art without telling the irs about it? how are they moving money around? what are they doing it with it. >> some people are hiding money from their spouses during divorce pridings. you have some superwealthy people who like to own a yacht and they like to have companies that own those yachts for privacy reasons, in some cases. you have to assume that some of it isn't just for privacy reasons. that it's to try to hide it from authorities. not st t u.s. authorities. we're talking about data and names from 170 countries. >> reporter: what do you think some of the consequences are going to be from the release of this information when we saw wikileaks initially we didn't know what to make sense of it eventually it had huge political consequences around the world. >> it's hard to know what is going to happen here. but the first, i guess, consequence is that a secret world is no longer secret. and it's going to send shivers through this world. we discovered that there is a whole service industry out there all providers who, you know, are used by big banks and other, you know, every day institutions. and they provide, you know, the means to set up offshore accounts, offshore companies, the means to, you know, to basically conduct your business through secrecy. >> reporter: i got to ask a question on the journalism side of it. how do you keep 80 different newspapers and everybody together and sort of keep a secret as they are developing this process. this idea of distributed reporting is pretty novel. >> we were able to convince everybody that if they shared information and shared resources that we would all end up with a better product. and because this world has no borders and it doesn't have any borders, the reporting took people flew one country and into another. and they were able to-- able to share information that helped each other. and that became apparent very quickly. and of course we grew the number of reporters over time. so it was for the time it got to 86 reporters, the reporters who started with us were able to tell the others that it was worth their while. >> reporter: so you would show them a list of names and say are these people significant or not is so how are we going to see these reports come out? is it the next few weeks or next few months? >> our plan is to do probably another two weeks of reporting on it. and then to go back in. we think we have only schemed about 20% of the data, even after 15 months of looking at it, because there is so much in there that it is kind of impenetrable. there are even files we haven't yet to look at because we couldn't read them. it took a lot of technical no-how to be able to rea sell tbl all, to use special softwarto read s we think there are a lot more stories in there. but this is our first attempt, basically, at breaking it open. >> reporter: thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> brown: and you can find a link to the reporting by the group of journalists on our >> brown: you'll find a link to the reporting by the group of journalists on our homepage. >> woodruff: finally, tonight's edition of pbs's "need to know" examines a vermont program that offers low-income workers with money problems, short-term loans with no questions asked. employers say it's boosted productivity and reduced turnover. here's an excerpt. the correspondent is william brangham. >> we were trying to avoid-- avoid workers having to go to what we call predatory lending places. we didn't want them to get in worse financial shape. >> so they come in and they need to get this loan. does this take a week for the money could tomorrow-- to come? how long does this take? >> it could be that afternoon. if somebody comes in the morning, it can be that afternoon. >> that they get the ney. >> correct. a very short process. >> the employers make arrangements with local credit unions in ver month who actually handle the loans which can range anywhere from about 200 to about $1,000. you are are only allowed to take out one loan at a time. and the employee pays the loan back by having a small amount of money automatically deducted from their paycheck. >> the credit unions charge roughly 17% interest on the loan. that's higher than loans given to people with better credit but considerably less than the sky-high rates offered by many other short term lenders. within rhino foods these loans have proven to be incredibly popular. while workers earn from 123 to 16 dollars an hour with full benefits nearly half the employees have taken out loans since the program began in 2007. >> i thought about the fact that we're now just facilitating helping people borrow money, and be in debt. and that's a hard thing to rationalize, is that okay. but i have seen all the benefits from it. >> eric took out a loan to help pay his bills until his girlfriend got a new job. >> when they brought this to my aenti, i was just ecstatic, you know. i think it is a beautiful thing. for people in the middle class that are struggling, you know, to haves that, you know, security, that security blanket is a good thing. >> need to know's report is called savings & loans. tand airs tonight on most pbs stations. >> brown: again, the major developments of the day: unemployment dropped to 7.6% in march, but employers added only 88,000 jobs, the smallest in nine months. and tensions continued to mount on the korean peninsula with reports the north has loaded two meium-range ssiles ont mobile launchers. >> woodruff: what's the big deal about images of a parachute flapping in the wind on mars? the answer is online, as kwame holman explains. >> holman: that's the topic today for our "lunch in the lab" story. and judy explores the myths surrounding the epidemic of drug addiction with david sheff, author of a new book titled "clean". that's on the rundown. plus, april is the coolest month, according to poetry lovers. jeff asks the executive director of the academy of american poets how you can help celebrate national poetry month. all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. judy? >> woodruff: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on monday, we'll have a state by state look at gun laws in the u.s. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. and a brand new online feature follows that: gwen ifill's "webcast extra" will be streamed live at 8:30p m eastern time. we'll see you online and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bns the engine that connects us. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy, productive life. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. a by ntributionto yr pb station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org