WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States, with its abun-dant supplies of nat-ural gas, would seem to have an easy an-swer to Europe’s fears that a strong response to Russia’s rapid takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea re-gion could prompt Vladimir Putin to shut down gas lines that keep European homes warm, facto-ries humming and electricity flowing.

Trouble is: Right now there’s no way to get meaningful American supplies across the Atlantic Ocean.

Turning U.S. natural gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG), a process that makes the fuel transportable by ship, is very expensive. Beyond that the U.S. government has — until recently — been stin-gy with permits to build those facilities. And regulations make it difficult to sell U.S. gas to nations that aren’t in free trade compacts with Washington.

That’s not good news for Europeans, who are depen-dent on Russia for at least 30 percent of its natural gas. Consequently, Europe’s reac-

tion to the Russian seizure of Ukraine’s semi-autonomous Crimea, while noisy, has little teeth.

Moscow already has a his-tory of cutting some supplies to Europe. In 2009, Europe-ans shivered through part of the cold winter because Mos-cow turned the taps off in a dispute with Ukraine over the price of gas. Some of the pipelines carrying Russian gas pass through Ukraine. And Ukraine is once again in hock to Moscow for $1.89 billion in gas bills.

European dependence on Russian gas no doubt played into Kremlin leader Putin’s calculus when his forces took

control of the Crimean Peninsula, home to Moscow’s Black Sea fleet and 60 percent populat-ed by ethnic Rus-sians. Natural gas is Russia’s trump card.

And while U.S. gas supplies might have given Putin pause before he ini-tiated the current crisis, he knew the United States could not quickly make up any shortages.

The crisis in Ukraine is expected

to drag on even after Crimea’s status is resolved, and Europe could be waiting a while for new exports of liquefied natu-ral gas from the U.S. The first are not expected until late 2015 from a Louisiana facility. Pres-ident Barack Obama’s Energy Department has approved only six LNG export applications in the past four years. All of those, aside from the Louisiana oper-ation, aren’t likely to be in op-eration until 2017.

Twenty-two LNG export projects remain pending. Ini-tial U.S. exports, even if they went to Europe rather than pricier markets in Asia, would not suffice to offset Russian domination of the market.

14 – THE DERRICK. / The News-Herald Thursday, March 13, 2014

4,368,129370,5309,540,8574,597,6692,007448,89416,922547,6283,255,367219,639

NEW YORK (AP) — For much of Wednesday, the U.S. stock mar-ket appeared to be headed for its third decline in three days.

By late afternoon, the market began to slowly pare its losses as investors bought up oil refin-ers, mining companies and tech-nology stocks.

The push was enough to nudge the Standard & Poor’s 500 index into the green by half a point. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite also finished higher.

The S&P 500 index added 0.57 points, or 0.03 percent, to close at 1,868.20. The Dow Jones indus-trial average lost 11.17 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16,340.08.

The Nasdaq composite re-bounded in the early afternoon, gaining 16.14 points, or 0.4 per-cent, to 4,323.33.

Petroleum- Crude Grades

Ergon American North Sea BrentW. Texas Intermed

$1,370.30, up $23.80

$21.328, up 54.4 cents

On Wall Street

Gasoline pricesPRECIOUS METALS

Wed.

New York Stock ExchangeMost active shares

Leading losersLast Pct

Tables from LPL Financial

Gold:

Silver:

RegularMid-gradePremiumDiesel

MARKET

$3.69 $3.79$3.99$4.45

Bank Of America Corporation 17.28 +0.01 83,453,166General Motors Co. 34.86 -0.32 46,332,125Verizon Communications Inc 46.36 -0.34 45,523,424Rite Aid Corporation 6.92 +0.48 35,521,976Pfizer Inc 31.98 -0.44 32,517,984Ford Motor Co 15.40 +0.10 31,274,074Citigroup Inc 47.98 -0.45 25,831,260EMC Corp 27.10 +0.27 25,561,965AT&T Inc 32.38 +0.15 25,025,677General Electric Co 25.76 -0.14 23,485,930

Hyperdynamics Corp 1.48 -67.47% Taomee Hldgs Ltd 6.69 -17.81% Express Inc 16.05 -12.01% Noranda Alum Hldg Corp 4.39 -10.59% Citigroup Inc 0.04 -9.67% Concord Med Svcs Hldgs Ltd 8.06 -9.54% Resolute Energy Corp 0.08 -9.22% Box Ships Incorporated 2.44 -8.27% China Dist. Ed. Holdings Ltd. 20.77 -7.57% Global Ship Lease Inc 5.05 -7.51%

95.03 96.12 95.03 96.12 108.02 108.39 98.21 100.03

Stocks finish mostly higher

Last Chg Volume

Leading gainers

Epl Oil & Gas Inc 37.50 +28.82% 11,882,114Verso Paper Corp 2.50 +23.76% 628,428American Realty Investors 10.46 +12.47% 24,669Intrexon Corp 30.55 +11.46% 1,268,753Verifone Holdings Inc 32.48 +11.04% 8,983,915Endeavour Silver Corp. 5.36 +10.74% 1,954,891Mcewen Mng Inc 3.38 +10.10% 4,958,613Valley Natl Bancorp 0.52 +8.33% 125New Jersey Resources Corp 47.39 +8.12% 646,886Summit Midstream Partners 41.86 +8.03% 5,978,41

VolPctLast

Gas prices as of 3:30 p.m. the previous day from the Gulf station on Riverside Drive

Vol

Tue.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, many Americans followed a simple career path: Land an entry-level job. Accept a modest wage. Gain skills. Leave eventually for a better-paying job.

The workers benefited, and so did lower-wage retailers such as Wal-Mart: When its staffers left for bet-ter-paying jobs, they could spend more at its stores. And the U.S. economy gained, too, because more consumer spending fueled growth.

Not so much anymore. Since the Great Recession began in late 2007, that path has narrowed because many of the next-tier jobs no longer exist. That means more lower-wage work-ers have to stay put. The resulting bottleneck is helping widen a gap between the richest Americans and everyone else.

“Some people took those jobs because they were the only ones available and haven’t been able to figure out how to move out of that,” Bill Simon, CEO of Wal-Mart U.S., acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press.

If Wal-Mart employees “can go to another company and another job and make more money and develop, they’ll be better,” Simon explained. “It’ll be better for the economy. It’ll be better for us as a business, to be quite honest, because they’ll contin-ue to advance in their economic life.”

Yet for now, the lower-wage jobs once seen as stepping stones are in-creasingly being held for longer pe-riods by older, better-educated, more experienced workers.

The trend extends well beyond Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest em-ployer, and is reverberating across the U.S. economy. It’s partly why average inflation-adjusted income has declined 9 percent for the bot-tom 40 percent of households since 2007, even as incomes for the top 5 percent now slightly exceed where they were when the recession began late that year, according to the Cen-sus Bureau.

Research shows that occupations that once helped elevate people from the minimum wage into the middle class have disappeared during the past three recessions dating to 1991.

One such category includes book-keepers and executive secretaries, with average wages of $16.54 an hour, according to the Labor Depart-ment. Since the mid-1980s, the economy has shed these middle-in-come jobs — a trend that’s become more pronounced with the recover-ies that have followed each subse-quent recession, according to re-

search by Henry Siu, an economist at the University of British Colum-bia, and Duke University economist Nir Jaimovich.

That leaves many workers re-maining in jobs as cashiers earning an average of $9.79 an hour, or in retail sales at roughly $10.50 — jobs that used to be entry points to high-er-paying work. Hourly pay at Wal-Mart averages $8.90, according to the site Glassdoor.com. (Wal-Mart disputes that figure; it says its pay for hourly workers averages $11.83.)

Since the Great Recession began, the share of U.S. workers employed by the retail and restaurant sector has risen from 16.5 percent to 17.1 percent.

“It really has contributed to this widening of inequality,” Siu said.

The shift has injected new pres-sures into the economy. Older and better-educated retail and fast food workers have become more vocal in pressing for raises. Labor unions helped launch protests last year against such employers as Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and Burger King.

Fewer teenagers are staffing cash registers, prepping meals or stocking shelves, according to government data. Replacing them are adults, many of whom are struggling with the burdens of college debt or child rearing. Some are on the verge of what was once envisioned as retire-ment years.

They are people like Richard Wil-son, 27, in Chicago. More than 2½ years ago, a Wal-Mart store manager spotted Wilson cleaning the cafete-ria at Liberty University in Lynch-burg, Va.

A double major in biblical studies and business communications, Wil-son had $3,000 in tuition due and had maxed out on student loans. He said the recruiter suggested that a management job could eventually be within reach for him because, “Wal-Mart is where people’s dreams be-come a reality.”

Wilson first worked at a Wal-Mart near college before returning to his Chicago hometown without a degree but with $50,000 in student debt and another job at a boutique Wal-Mart specializing in groceries.

Today, Wilson earns $9.45 an hour at that Wal-Mart and lives on the city’s western edge with his grandmother. He boards a bus most mornings at 3:30 a.m. and arrives for his 5 a.m. shift in the more upscale neighborhood of Lakeview East. He has applied for promotions. So far, no success.

If he had the money for a ring and

a wedding, Wilson said he would propose to his girlfriend.

Last year, 17.4 million Americans between ages 25 and 64 earned less than $10.10 an hour, the minimum wage proposed by President Barack Obama (The current federal mini-mum is $7.25.) That’s equal to an income of nearly $19,000 for a full-time employee — less than half the median pay of a U.S. worker.

The share of Americans in their prime earning years who earn the equivalent of $10.10 an hour or less, adjusted for inflation, has risen to 13.4 percent from 10.4 percent in 1979, according to government data analyzed by John Schmitt, a senior economist at the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Nearly a third of low-wage em-ployees last year had had some col-lege education. An additional 10 percent had graduated. By contrast, in 1979 less than 25 percent of low-wage employees had college experi-ence. Most had not completed high school. For millions of lower-wage workers, more schooling hasn’t led to higher pay.

“Where you start out in terms of wages helps to predict where you move over time,” Schmitt said.

That principle has become an alarming reality for many. Only 5.5 percent of people with jobs at the fast food chain Wendy’s will earn more than $70,000 in today’s dollars at that company, based on a review last year of 8 million resumes by the analytics firm Bright.com.

Just 8 percent of Home Depot employees will be so fortunate. For Macy’s, 9.4 percent. By contrast, more than a quarter of Amazon staff-ers will exceed $70,000 a year. The ratio is even better for Verizon and AT&T workers. A majority of Ford employees will achieve that income at least once in their career. Just 10 percent of Wal-Mart workers will.

Wal-Mart promotes itself as a source of opportunity, and in some cases, that’s proved true. Over 11 years, for example, Tonya Jones rose from staffing a checkout line to managing a section of a Wal-Mart supercenter in Hendersonville, Tenn. Jones, 41, said her pay exceeds $15 an hour — enough with scholar-ships, including one from Wal-Mart, to help put her daughter through col-lege.

Asked whether she represents an average Wal-Mart worker, Jones said opportunities at the company boil

down to personal choices.“I want to be No. 1,” she said. “I

am very competitive.”That said, the data show why it’s

harder now for workers to rise intohigher-paying fields despite an eco-nomic recovery now nearly 5 yearsold. About 1.9 million office andadministrative support jobs were lostto the Great Recession, according togovernment data. That includes714,370 executive secretaries withannual incomes averaging $50,220.And 252,240 fewer bookkeeperswith average incomes of $36,640.

By comparison, the number oflower-wage jobs increased: The La-bor Department says restaurantsadded 777,800 jobs since the reces-sion began, general merchandisestores 345,600.

“You see adults moving into theserelatively generic services (jobs) thatdon’t require expertise, just dexteri-ty, attention and showing up,” saidMIT economist David Autor. “Youwant people to be in jobs that havegood trajectories. I can imagine youonly get so efficient as a checkout clerk or a stocker.”

Wal-Mart customer service man-ager Janet Sparks of Baker, La.,trained as a bookkeeper. She owneda video rental store and worked foran accountant, a nuclear power plant,a McDonald’s and a bank beforejoining Wal-Mart about eight yearsago.

Sparks, 53, said Wal-Mart onceoffered a path to the middle classwith merit raises of up to $2 an hour.The company ended those raises,while making more employees eli-gible for bonuses based on a store’soverall performance. It also intro-duced what’s called “optimal sched-uling” to match employees with ex-pected sales. It can mean that work-ers whose shift ended at 11 p.m.might have to begin their next shiftat 7 a.m., Sparks said.

Sparks said the erratic schedulemakes it hard for employees to earnadditional income from a secondjob. She joined Wal-Mart in 2005with the expectation that the since-cancelled merit pay raises wouldeventually let her clear $21 an hour.She instead received smaller raisesand now earns $12.40.

Wal-Mart said it began to changeits bonus system in 2006. It nowpays bonuses of up to $2,500 tosome employees based on theirstore’s performance.

And it says its scheduling systemconsiders the preferences and avail-ability of employees and gives themthree weeks’ notice of their workcalendars.

Low-wage jobs unexpectedly a way of life for many

Last year, 17.4 million Americans between ages 25 and 64 earned less than $10.10 an hour.

The share of Ameri-cans in their prime earning years who earn the equivalent of $10.10 an hour or less, adjusted for in-flation, has risen to 13.4 percent from 10.4 percent in 1979.

Nearly a third of low-wage employees last year had had some college education.

About 1.9 million of-fice and administra-tive support jobs were lost to the Great Recession, according to government data.

Scraping by

U.S. gas boom: A tool against Russian coercion

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bypassing Congress, Presi-dent Barack Obama intends to order changes in overtime rules so employers would be required to pay millions more workers for the extra time they put in on the job.

The rules, which would not likely take effect until 2015, are aimed at workers currently des-ignated as supervisory employ-ees but who are exempt from overtime because they get paid

a salary of more than $455 a week. Obama plans to order his Labor Department to recom-mend regulations that would increase that salary threshold and change the definition of what constitutes a supervisor.

Obama’s attention to over-time dovetails with his em-phasis on correcting wage disparities, a theme that he has said will be central to the remainder of his presidential term.

An engineer checks the pressure in gas pipelines in Vecses, Hungary. It would seem the U.S. gas boom would be an answer to European fears over a shut-down of gas supplies by Russia, but the solution is not that simple.

AP

Obama wants overtime pay for more salaried workers