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Advocates for ex-offenders are hailing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report they hope will improve job opportunities for individuals often turned away because of criminal histories.

The EEOC, in an “enforcement guidance” issued last week, ruled that  undue emphasis on an ex-offender’s background in some some instances violates federal statutes governing employment discrimination. 

The EEOC said the specter of discrimination becomes even more pronounced when hiring managers factor race or ethnicity into employment decisions.

Citing studies reflecting a felony conviction rate of African American men that tops 25 percent, the National Employment Law Project welcomed the new guidelines as an antidote to what it termed “especially severe” discrimination against ex-offenders of color.

Michael Holmes, executive director of the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE), says the obstacles encountered by individuals with a criminal backgrounds cuts across racial lines.

“We have a major public institutions that discriminate against both white and black people because they have a criminal record,” said Holmes. “Now they can’t use that as a way to eliminate (an ex-offender) with the skills they are looking for.”

The ruling could give a boost to thousands – by some estimates up to 18,000 - ex-offenders in the St. Louis region who are currently-out-of-work and searching for employment.

“Some businesses do have a blanket policy about not hiring ex-offenders,” said David Kessel, chief operating officer of the Employment Connection, a St. Louis non-profit that helps ex-offenders overcome job barriers. “(The EEOC) guidance gives employers clarification on what they should be doing to make better hiring decisions.”

Kessel believes the unemployment rate for ex-offenders in the St. Louis area runs as high as 75 percent.

The EEOC guidelines were not universally acclaimed.

The National Retail Federation criticized a recommendation that employers eliminate queries about criminal and arrest records on application forms.

A ban on the “box” that alerts a company of an an applicant’s brushes with the law will restrict an “employers’ ability to ensure the safety of their workers and customers,”  Senior Vice President for Government Relations David French said in a statement.

A 2011 NRF survey revealed that 87 percent of its members turn to criminal background checks prior to hiring bad credit personal loan lenders.

Les Johnson, the vice president for grant and management services for ARCHS, an advocate that sponsors programs that support at-risk populations including ex-offenders, praised the EEOC initiative.

But he cautioned the hiring process will continue to require discretion and common sense on the part of applicants with criminal records.

A paroled bank robber, for instance, needs to make a better choice than seeking employment with a financial institution. Just as a convicted drug offender may want to steer clear of opportunities at a pharmacy.

“We’ve always said that a criminal record should not be the sole qualification for an (ex-offender) applying for a job as fork lift driver at a warehouse producing pallets,” Johnson said. “But we also ask ex-offenders to take responsibility on the front end, explain to the employer what the offense (entailed), that time has been served, amends have been made and that they are now trying to earn a decent wage.”

The EEOC report also points employers to the difference between a conviction and arrest.

“The fact of an arrest does not establish that criminal conduct has occurred, and an exclusion based on an arrest, in itself, is not job related and consistent with business necessity,” the EEOC said.

Holmes questioned why ex-offenders have a particularly difficult time landing job offers from governmental institutions.

He understands why a local or state government office would want to avoid public backlash over tax-payer supported salaries going to people with criminal records.

But points out that many of those same institutions welcome state and federal funds for job training.

“You’re taking training money, but not hiring ex-offenders? That’s crazy,” Holmes said.

Companies that stiff-arm ex-offenders, he added, need to take responsibility for contributing to a vicious cycle.

“In prison, they get three meals a day, healthcare and a roof over their head and when they get out they don’t have any money. If they can’t provide for themselves, they’re going do what they know in order to survive and go back to crime rather than starve to death,” Holmes said. “If you do your time, and you’re qualified for a job, then you should be given another chance.”

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Swedish retail sales unexpectedly rose for a sixth month in March as lower interest rates and falling unemployment fueled consumer confidence.

Sales rose a monthly 0.2 percent and climbed an annual 4.5 percent, compared with 3.5 percent the previous month, Stockholm-based Statistics Sweden said today. The median estimate in a survey of six economists by Bloomberg was for a monthly drop of 0.3 percent and an annual gain of 3.4 percent.

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Germany’s top central banker is rejecting calls for the European Central Bank to cut interest rates and offer more support to banks and bond markets.

Jens Weidmann says that “monetary policy is not a panacea and central bank firepower is not unlimited,” particularly within the constraints of a currency shared by 17 countries.

Weidmann heads Germany’s Bundesbank and sits on the 23-member governing council of the ECB.

He was responding to calls by some international finance officials for the ECB to do more to support the eurozone economy and its indebted governments. Weidmann said the central bank system in Europe has already done a lot and can’t be a substitute for inaction by governments on budget-cutting and pro-growth reforms.

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The Bank of England

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday that fallout from the European debt crisis along with fears of Iran and higher oil prices posed the biggest threats to the U.S. economy.

“Europe is still facing a very difficult, very challenging period. They are likely to have weak growth,” Geithner said in an interview with Fox Business TV.

“You have, obviously, the fear of Iran and oil prices, even though that is not hurting the economy today, people can still feel that in their pocketbook today,” he said.

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Thousands of people from across Poland demonstrated noisily Friday outside Parliament to protest government plans to raise the retirement age to 67.

The law currently allows women to retire at age 60 and men at 65, but Prime Minister Donald Tusk wants to raise the retirement age to 67 for all Poles, saying it will increase pensions while reducing state debt.

The plan, supported by many economists, has angered the public. The unions are deeply unsatisfied by a new agreement the ruling coalition parties reached Thursday that would allow people to go into partial retirement earlier but with lowered monthly payments for the rest of their lives.

Piotr Duda, head of the Solidarity trade union, said the plan gives Poles the choice of “either working until death or quickly dying of hunger.”

The protesters, blowing horns and carrying Solidarity white-and-red banners, were equally vocal.

“People are not strong enough to work as long as machines, 48 years, it is physically impossible,” said Arkadiusz Maziar, a 40-year-old coal miner from Zory, in southern Poland no faxing payday loans.

“Tusk is an office clerk and he will never understand this. I am here to defend the people,” he said.

Danuta Nowaczek, a 50-year-old cook from Zabrze, in the South, does not believe that longer work would markedly improve her pension, or that she will live to benefit from it.

“This is a joke, this plan and I don’t want to work longer,” Nowaczek said. “My father did not even live to get his retirement” at 65.

The crowd showed their anger as the lawmakers were debating a motion signed by some 1.4 million Solidarity supporters to hold a referendum on the matter.

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Leung Chun-ying, a former property surveyor, pledged to address Hong Kong

The U.S. economy is growing again but faces tough challenges that call for action to create jobs and foster expansion, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday.

Geithner, speaking to the Economic Club of New York, singled out rising oil prices as a stumbling block for the economy because they force consumers to pay more for gasoline at the pump.

He said the economy was now more productive than it was before the 2007-2009 financial crisis but cautioned that confidence remains fragile.

“That is why it is so important that policy makers continue to work to get the economy growing faster in the short term and not shift prematurely to fiscal restraint,” he said.

“We can’t cut our way to growth. Severe austerity now would be very damaging,” he added.

He cited a number of factors that together mean Americans are facing “a dangerous and uncertain world,” including escalating energy costs.

“There is no quick and easy fix to this problem, but it reinforces the need for more progress to develop additional sources of energy of all forms,” Geithner said.

Earlier on Thursday, Reuters reported that Britain was ready to cooperate with the United States on a release of strategic oil stocks, likely within months.

Geithner noted that at the end of 2012, the country faces a simultaneous expiry of tax cuts and big across-the-board spending cuts that together would amount to about five percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The prospect of such a blow to national output should be a strong incentive for lawmakers to reach some compromises on taxes and spending, he suggested.

Geithner said the Obama administration is aiming for a package of measures that includes some tax increases for wealthy Americans, though that is opposed by Republicans.

“If you do not raise revenues through tax reform, then you have to find another 1 percent of GDP or roughly 1.5 trillion dollars over 10 years in additional savings from defense, Social Security, Medicare, education or low income programs,” he said.

During a question period later, Geithner said the country now faces “stark choices” about the best course for boosting growth and getting deficits down.

He suggested there was “no alternative” to raising some taxes along with reducing spending and said reductions in some benefit programs were “manageable” if they were made over time.

People are going to be reluctant to see their benefits cut unless they think that those benefit cuts are not going to sustain tax rates we can’t afford,” he said.

“They go together. There’s no alternative. It’s going to have to happen and it’s better for us if it happened sooner and with design in it than happen too late without the opportunity for people to adjust,” Geithner added.

He noted that research shows that recoveries that follow financial crises tended to be “more tentative and uneven” and said it likely will take years to fully repair damage caused by the last one.

In response to questions, Geithner said that actions by the European Central Bank to keep markets liquid as well as actions by new governments in Italy and Spain had “substantially calmed the really acute financial tensions of the past 18 months” and reduced downside risks to the global economy.

“For that to be sustained, we’re going to need to keep a close eye on oil and Iran and gas prices plus we’ve got to make sure Europe keeps moving to sustain its progress,” he added.

If Europe builds a stronger financial firewall, Geithner said it would be appropriate for the International Monetary Fund to raise more resources and play a larger role in helping Europe. “If Europe moves on that front, I think you’ll see the IMF try to reinforce that,” he said.

Geithner said the United States must also prepare for a future in which emerging-market countries like Mexico, China and Brazil are getting better at competing and are putting pressure on American jobs.

One way to do that is by reforming a corporate tax system that Geithner described as “a complex and unfair mess of subsidies…with a very high statutory rate” of tax that varies across industries. It needs to be reformed to encourage U.S. businesses to keep production at home, he suggested.

Geithner has previously indicated that he is staying in the Obama administration through this year’s elections but, even if President Barack Obama is reelected, would not be back in a second term.

He said the country can’t let up on the effort to reduce deficits and said Americans should beware of promises that tax cuts can pay for themselves.

“No responsible politician can offer the nation fiscal sustainability through trillions in unpaid-for tax cuts,” Geithner added.

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U.K. house prices fell in February for a third month in four, as economic uncertainty weighed on demand for housing, Halifax said.

Prices (UKHB3MYR) dropped 0.5 percent from January to an average 160,118 pounds ($253,400), the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LLOY) said in a statement in London today. From a year earlier, values were down 1.6 percent.

While inflation is cooling, a recovery in consumer confidence is being kept in check by rising unemployment and concern about the impact of Europe

Signs bearing a skull and crossbones dot the banks of a reservoir and canal near this town on the U.S.-Mexico border, but the fishermen standing in the reeds nearby ignore them, casually reeling in fish that are contaminated with toxic chemicals and banned for human consumption.

Some do it to quell their hunger, others to make some cash by selling the carp, catfish and gar in nearby neighborhoods.

“It’s a great little lake,” says Joe Garcia, 43, among those fishing here one day recently, where a carp with the highest levels of toxic PCB chemicals ever tested in a fish was caught years ago. He says he throws back his catch but a lot of others here can’t afford to pass up the meal.

The reservoir is one of thousands of sites along the U.S.-Mexico border where industry, pesticide use and population growth left hazards in past decades that still await solutions. Donna is among the worst _earning a place on the Environmental Protection Agency’s priority list _ and illustrates how slowly the government cleanup process moves and how those struggling for subsistence in poor areas like this sometimes do not wait.

Four years after the site made the priority list, the EPA plans to begin soon extensive sampling of the water, sediment and fish that could become the foundation for a cleanup plan.

But with limited funds and an elaborate process, the effort could take years, leaving authorities to educate a population that is often more concerned with daily survival than warnings of potential problems. Donna reservoir is surrounded by fields of swaying sugarcane and green leafy rows of celery. Workers who toil in migrant agriculture live in sparse neighborhoods of trailer homes and campers that border the canal. Some stubbornly believe they can cook the chemicals out of the fish, state environmental officials say.

“They just don’t tend to pay attention to that (sign),” said Juan Salazar, 41, who became so frustrated by the fishermen crossing his yard to reach the water that he erected a small fence.

“There are too many low-income families here that may make a living selling this stuff.”

State and federal officials have repeatedly gone door-to-door to warn residents since PCB contamination was discovered in 1993. Twice federal authorities used electric charges to kill more than 35,000 fish in the reservoir and the 6 1/2-mile canal that brings water from the Rio Grande. But the fish _ at least 22 species, including tilapia and largemouth bass _ repopulate.

Every day, people are drawn to the tranquil scene, where birds feed along the shores and fish constantly break the surface. Officials believe many area residents fish there to supplement their diet. But in the fatty tissue of the fish are polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, an industrial residue apparently emanating from something dumped in the canal years ago. Officials say it could be a submerged piece of machinery but haven’t been able to find it.

PCBs, typically found as oily liquids in electrical equipment, have been banned in the U.S. since 1979 after causing cancer in animal testing. Researchers believe the chemicals can lead to lower birth weights, suppress the immune system and increase the risk of cancer.

A carp caught in the Donna canal 19 years ago contained more than 1,500 times the limit of PCBs believed safe, the highest such reading ever. Members of the family who ate it had elevated PCB levels in their blood. Readings taken since then in the lake have been lower but still in the hazardous range.

However, the health impact on those eating Donna reservoir fish is unknown because no health survey has been conducted. A 2010 study by Texas Department of State Health Services estimated nearly 4,000 people living within a one-mile radius.

The EPA is planning a community meeting in late March to begin the process that could lead to a cleanup plan. One of the best-known PCB cleanup efforts _ on a much larger scale _ continues in New York’s Hudson River more than 27 years after it made the priority list. Tons of sediment have been dredged from the riverbed.

Though nearly a dozen people were interviewed near the reservoir for this story, only one admitted to eating the fish he caught, but he then declined to speak further _ there is a $500 fine for taking the fish, but not if you throw them back.

Officials said some men in the area tend to shrug off the danger but women have been more receptive. Rafael Casanova, EPA project manager, said a pregnant woman he talked to during a local canvas told him she had bought lake fish from someone selling it in the neighborhood.

When he described the health danger, “She was very impressed by that,” he said. “I felt good about that one.”

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