• A millennial tax attorney braved Alaska's cold for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Project.
• The VITA program helps low-income, disabled, and limited English-speaking Alaskans with tax filing.
• Karen Lapekas faced frozen pipes and frostbite risks while assisting remote communities.

Filing and preparing taxes can be stressful. Now imagine doing it in -25-degree weather.

Karen Lapekas, a tax attorney from Miami, did just that. From the end of February through early March, she traveled to three remote towns in Alaska as part of the Alaska Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Project.

Launched this year, the program is a collaboration between the Alaska Business Development Center and the American Bar Association. It offers free tax help to residents who earn $54,000 or less, persons with disabilities, and limited English-speaking taxpayers who need assistance preparing their taxes. The two organizations have worked in previous years to help other taxpayers in the state prepare and file returns.

Lapekas spent 11 days helping to file around 85 tax returns. She said that the biggest challenge wasn't locating a stray W-2, it was working in subzero temperatures.

"The farther we got north, the more extreme the conditions got," said Lapekas. "There was one building we worked at that didn't have working bathrooms because the pipes had frozen."

Subzero temperatures presented challenges

Lapekas, 42, was formerly a senior attorney with the IRS Office of Chief Counsel before she left to start her own private tax litigation business. She's been representing clients against the IRS for over a decade.

After landing in Anchorage, Lapekas and her team of three underwent a final day of in-person training before they were flown out to villages in northern regions of the state. They volunteered in Kotzebue, Point Hope, and Point Lay — the last village had less than 300 people and temperatures reached -56 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Weather Channel.

"If you have any bit of skin showing after just a few minutes, you can get frostbite," Lapekas said. "One of the villagers did get frostbite walking to the center where we were preparing tax returns, and they lived maybe three blocks away."

Lapekas said she and her colleagues slept on the floor of a community center and schools in villages without hotels. They ate dehydrated food because it was easy to store and fresh food was scarce, Lapekas said.

Remote villagers faced hurdles filing returns

For members of these communities, the VITA program was an opportunity to get assistance filing their taxes electronically, Lapekas said. She added that villagers have had trouble filing their taxes by mail.

"When we were in Point Hope, for example, we found out that their post office was essentially closed," Lapekas said of the village that's home to 850 people.

Before the Alaska VITA program, Lapekas said villagers had to fly to Anchorage and pay accountants to prepare their taxes. The costs for villagers between flights, hotels, and accounting fees could reach $2,000 a year, Lapekas was told by Alaskans.

"This is an exorbitant amount, especially considering the simplicity of their return and their modest income," she said.

Lapekas and her colleagues worked long shifts during their 11-day stay. She said on one day they started at 9 a.m. and prepared returns until after midnight without taking a break. Many of Lapekas' clients worked in schools or support services for their communities, while others were part of subsistence communities that relied on whaling, hunting, and other natural resources.

"It's almost entirely indigenous cultures," Lapekas said. Indigenous Alaskans make up about 70% of Kotzebue's population, 88% of Point Lay's and also 89% of Point Hope's.

"What made filing taxes for Alaskans in native communities unique, was that most individuals, including children, had income," she said, adding that many clients received money through the Alaska Permanent Fund and the Alaska Native Regional Corporation.

The rewards of work

It was Lapekas's first time volunteering for this particular pro-bono initiative, and she hopes that she can return next year.

"There's something about pro bono work and volunteering that just revived me," Lapekas said. "It just gives my work purpose."

When Lapekas returned home to sunny Miami, she said she was most excited to see her two children, who are two and five years old.

"I reminded myself that I want to be an example to my children," Lapekas said. "I want them to see that volunteering and helping others in any way we can is a lifelong mission."

• Matt Rosenberg, a full-time English teacher, commutes by paddleboat to maintain a Maine lighthouse.
• Rosenberg values the peace and tradition of lighthouse keeping despite its physical demands.
• Automation in the 1990s made lighthouse keeper jobs nearly obsolete in New England.

For the last 14 years, Matt Rosenberg has taken an unusual mode of transportation to his side gig after wrapping up his day job as a high school English teacher in York, Maine: A paddleboat.

Rosenberg is one of the last lighthouse keepers in Maine, where he maintains the Nubble lighthouse, a popular tourist attraction that draws a million visitors each year to York.

In 1889, there were over 70 lighthouse keepers throughout Maine that manned vital beacons of light warning sailors of hazardous conditions along the New England coastline. But automation in the 1990s made these full time jobs nearly obsolete.

Rosenberg shared with Business Insider what his duties are like on a day-to-day basis and why he loves his job so much.

His daily duties painting and repairing the lighthouse

The thousands of tourists that visit the Nubble Lighthouse aren't actually allowed to step foot on the island. Rosenberg's biggest challenge to keeping the lighthouse running smoothly is actually keeping it safe from the environment.

"We're surrounded by salt water and in Maine we have a lot of fog and it carries a ton of moisture with it," said Rosenberg, who is employed by the City of York. He said wood is constantly rotting and metal is turning to rust. He frequently has to repaint the lighthouse.

For Rosenberg, repairing the Nubble Lighthouse is a balance between updating outdated infrastructure and preserving its history of over 100 years.

"If we can't keep up with the paint, the rust eats it, and we grind that out to stop the rust. But when you're grinding out, you're grinding out history," said Rosenberg. "So we have to be really careful to preserve what's there. Because once you lose that piece, it's not the same lighthouse anymore."

The Nubble Lighthouse sits on an island about 300 feet from the mainland, making it difficult to transport supplies and make repairs. Little setbacks like leaving a box of screws on shore become huge derailments to projects on the lighthouse.

"That's going to take me more than an hour to get to the hardware store and back," said Rosenberg of having to launch his rowboat to his car to run small errands. Patience is a key part of his job and seeing his work to completion.

Being a lighthouse keeper is also a physically demanding job for Rosenberg. He's often alone carrying heavy building materials to the island across treacherous terrain.

"Where I launch the boat and land the boat, they're very slippery, the crossing," he added.

Rosenberg's job is only seasonal from April through January because weather conditions off the island become unpredictable. Waves reach heights of over 20 feet during Nor'easter storms in March and April.

"Power lines are probably 70 feet above the water," said Rosenberg. "We've had those taken out by the energy from the waves when they hit the shore and then go up into the power lines and twist them up and tear them down."

Why he loves lighthouse keeping so much

Despite the challenges of being a lighthouse worker, Rosenberg loves his job and wants to continue for the next decade into his sixties, as long as he's physically able. He is paid $21 an hour to maintain the popular tourist attraction, a duty he describes as a labor of love.

"A lot of jobs bring you stress," said the 51-year-old. "This job brings you peace, because you're spending so much time in a beautiful place by yourself." Rosenberg occasionally sees wildlife from a 20-foot basking shark to a pregnant doe giving birth on the island.

Autonomy and self-reliance are big parts of Rosenberg's daily life. He's proud to have been part of the tradition of Nubble Lighthouse stewards from its earliest days.

"They didn't have running water, they didn't have modern heat at that early in the lighthouse's history," Rosenberg said. "Lighthouse keepers of that day were also the primary rescue squad for the vicinity."

The Victorian-style, white-painted lighthouse with its gingerbread trim around the eaves stands out on the shore, a stalwart reminder of the past that is just out of reach of the public.

Rosenberg believes that the elusive nature of the lighthouse is what continues to draw around a million visitors each year to their small town of 10,000 people.

Foot traffic has generated $800,000 in gross sales annually at the gift shop, funding overhauls to the lighthouse instead of using tax payer dollars. The most recent preservation project cost around $450,000 over five years, according to Rosenberg.

The lighthouse has been the subject of many of Rosenberg's posts on Instagram, where he shares landscape portraits of the lighthouse in different seasons and his day-to-day duties with thousands of followers.

"What I've been trying to do is give people the views of the lighthouse that they can't have," he said. "I think of it kind of like a snow globe where you just appreciate it in a different way, because you can't touch it."

• Worries about large-scale ICE arrests have affected neighborhoods with large immigrant populations.
• This comes after Trump's campaign promise to carry out the "largest deportation program" in US history.
• Two small business owners shared how these fears are affecting their workplaces and sales.

Since President Donald Trump's second inauguration, McDonald Romain has seen a drop in foot traffic at his Brooklyn grocery store Labay Market.

"We had more people in the pandemic," said the 64-year-old business owner, who sells exotic and tropical fruit to customers in Little Caribbean, an Afro-Caribbean neighborhood. Many of his customers come from as far as Delaware searching for a nostalgic taste of home, he said. He estimates that 25% of his customers have stopped walking through his doors since the start of the year due to fears of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

Since Trump took office, rumors and worries about large-scale ICE arrests have plagued neighborhoods with large immigrant populations from New York City and Chicago to Los Angeles. Romain is one of two entrepreneurs who told Business Insider how these concerns have negatively affected his workplace, including decreased shoppers and frightened employees.

And that could have long-term consequences on the survival of small businesses, which are more vulnerable, said Giovanni Peri, a professor of economics at UC Davis who also studies how migration impacts the labor markets at the National Bureau for Economic Research.

"They don't have the margins that the big companies have," Peri said. "If they lose some of their revenues in a few months, they may be out of business, while big companies may draw from savings of bigger investments."

Rumors and fears abound

On Trump's first day back in the White House, he issued a flurry of executive orders pegged to immigration and, on the campaign trail, promised to carry out the "largest deportation program in American history," he said at a rally in November. However, the number of people deported in his first month in office was smaller than the monthly average of returns and removals from President Joe Biden's last year, Reuters reported.

There isn't data on how the threat of ICE raids has affected businesses. Even so, the threat of mass deportations has made some people who live in areas with strong immigrant populations afraid to leave their homes, Romain said. As a result, some of the fruit he sells is spoiling.

"It's a tight community, so if something happens down the road, somebody's gonna call somebody," Romain added.

In early February, one of his customers told him she had been detained by an unmarked vehicle and asked to show her identification. "Even people that are documented are worried because it's such a fluid situation and there's a lot of rumors and innuendos that's going on," Romain said.

Ted Paizis said his Mediterranean restaurant Nupa has suffered financially after an ICE raid occurred in the parking lot of one of his two locations on February 12. Two employees were taken away from the Rochester, Minnesota establishment, he told Business Insider in an email.

Paizis closed one of Nupa's locations for several days to figure out the staffing shortage created by the raid. And Paizis has been distraught by the loss of one of his trusted employees.

"Most of our staff has been with us for over seven years," wrote Paizis. "We lost an extremely valuable person to our organization."

Paizis said replacing those employees won't be easy due to the national worker shortage. Additionally, many service and hospitality businesses, including those in the restaurant industry, rely on workers who live in the US illegally, Peri said. Removing large chunks of that population from the workforce could make it harder to fill staffing vacancies. In fact, 8.3 million workers in 2022 were living in the US illegally, per Pew Research.

Meanwhile, at Paizis's restaurant, his remaining employees are frightened about what could happen next.

"Many of our Hispanic staff are scared because they know of legal working Hispanics being obtained by ICE," he added.

Has your business been affected by ICE raids or immigration policies? Contact this reporter at [email protected] or securely via Signal at jdeng.20.

• Chipotle is using AI chatbot "Ava Cado" to hire 20,000 workers for burrito season.
• AI hiring tools streamline recruitment but can frustrate applicants.
• It's unlikely AI hiring chatbots are going anywhere soon, they just have some kinks to work out.

Evalyn Mendoza has applied to work at Chipotle twice in the last 12 months. Last June, submitting her materials was a breeze. This January, the 33-year-old worked with a new kind of recruiter: an AI chatbot named "Ava Cado."

After asking some simple questions about her name, contact information, and availability to work, Ava Cado scheduled an interview for Mendoza at a Chipotle location 35 minutes away in Selma, California.

But the chatbot misled her. "There was pretty much no way to really contact them," Mendoza said of trying to reach the store. Upon arriving, the manager told her there were no open positions and that the AI system had mistakenly scheduled the appointment.

"I was really frustrated at that time because I had that problem with McDonald's and other AI," Mendoza said. "Having this problem be the third or fourth time that I've had issues with AI — it was just getting to me."

Chipotle is one of several major companies that use AI-powered recruiting. Paradox, the company that supplies the software for Chipotle's Ava Cado, has been working with other large retail, fast food, and service companies like Lowe's, FedEx, and McDonald's to hire new talent using AI. Other workplaces like Mastercard and Stanford Health Care partner with Phenom's AI-recruiting platform. A recent survey by Resume Builder found that 70% of surveyed business leaders were using AI to hire.

We're about to enter "burrito season," Chipotle's busiest time of the year from March through May when customers awaken from their winter slumber craving the fast-casual Mexican grill. This year, the chain is firing up Ava Cado to help hire 20,000 new workers to meet the demand.

"'Ava Cado' has helped streamline our processes in order to capitalize on top talent faster and remain competitive in high volume hiring," Ilene Eskenazi, Chipotle's chief human resources officer, wrote in an email to Business Insider.

While companies like Chipotle are reaping the benefits of expediting their hiring process, it hasn't necessarily made it easier for every candidate to apply.

Mendoza said the opaqueness of the AI hiring process has left applicants like her stranded and isolated.

"It's made the whole process a lot less personal and I feel like that's why it's become a harder time finding a job through AI because it just treats the people like me like a number," she added.

Pros and cons of AI hiring

In a press release, Chipotle said applications have nearly doubled since it started using the recruiting software Paradox to power Ava Cado last October. The completion rate has increased from 50% to over 85% and the average time it takes for a candidate to start work after applying has been cut from 12 days to just four.

Adam Godson, the CEO of Paradox, said the key to recruiting for these kinds of roles is making it easy and fast.

"That's actually the paradox for which we're named," Godson said. "By using technology, you actually spend more time with people and not software."

Answer a few fact-based questions like contact information, availability to work, and ability to physically lift items and voilà, a candidate is scheduled for an interview that could happen as soon as the next day.

"If you make it easy with the device they have, through text messaging, for example, and you can make it fast, then people will come to work," Godson said.

More and more companies are trying it out, said Andrew Chamberlain, a former chief economist at Glassdoor, even if small businesses aren't likely to use such technology.

"Less than 1% of employers have 500 or more employees, but those are really huge companies, and they employ a lot of people," Chamberlain said, referring to Glassdoor's US research. "This is the future that they're going to increasingly invest in this technology, and they'll be more and more automated."

He added that young people, those without a college degree, and lower-skilled workers in retail and customer service are most likely to encounter AI in their experiences. While companies stand to gain dividends from this hiring technology, candidates applying for roles might not equally share those benefits.

"I wouldn't be very excited about going through an interview process just dealing with a chatbot," Chamberlain said. "The tools are better today than ever before, and they're getting better. They're definitely not as good as talking to a human being."

On Reddit, at least half a dozen posts in Chipotle-themed forums discussed the difficulty in scheduling an interview. Candidates described arriving at a store for an appointment with a manager only to be stood up. Managers described having AI schedule appointments outside of their stated availability.

In written statements to Business Insider, Paradox said that clients have the option to integrate their calendar to schedule interviews automatically. Chipotle said that Ava Cado notifies managers when interviews are scheduled.

Godson said Paradox incorporates a short survey that allows candidates to rate their interactions with AI chatbots in the hiring process—98% of applicants, he said, report satisfaction. For Chipotle, that rating is nearly 89% positive, according to the fast-casual chain.

With any emerging technologies, there will be bumps in the road. One of the drawbacks and risks of using automation in the hiring process, said Chamberlain, is that it could negatively impact how they perceive a company's work culture. This could impact hiring as more and more young people are already feeling more alienated from work.

"If they get a reputation from their AI tool, that somehow this terrible place to apply, it definitely will hurt them in the long run," Chamberlain said. He said that companies might lose out on the best candidates if their reputation is tarnished. "It'll cancel out the benefits they're expecting to get."

So far, there's been no AI backlash at Chipotle. Since announcing their hiring spree, the company has seen a 20% increase in applications, Chipotle representatives said. And it doesn't seem they plan on firing Ava Cado any time soon.

"We will continue to leverage AI to relieve General Managers of administrative tasks, so they can focus on their day-to-day operations and providing excellent hospitality for guests," Eskenzani wrote.

Do you have a story to share about AI and the job search? Contact this reporter at [email protected] or securely via Signal at jdeng.20. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Wages in the US are beating those in other rich democracies.
• Adjusting for inflation, Canada and the US are the only G7 countries where paychecks have increased since 2019.
• Inflation has slowed a lot since its high in 2022, with price increases driven mostly by housing and gas.

The United States is leading the world's richest democracies in real wage growth.

Data from the OECD shows that between 2019 to 2023, the United States and Canada saw their average wages increase by 5.2% and 3.6%, respectively, when adjusted for inflation.

Meanwhile, workers' pay in other G7 countries, a group of industrialized democratic economies, has not kept up with inflation, meaning their paychecks have effectively shrunk since 2019.

Italian average wages fell 5.7% between 2019 and 2023. Inflation in Japan this year has hit a 19-month high, marking a continuing trend of a weakened yen and dropping real wages in the country.

The OECD's measure accounts for the differences in cost of living and inflation to accurately compare someone's purchasing power between counties.

While Americans are still feeling the pain of inflation — largely due to housing, energy, and gasoline — overall price growth has slowed significantly from 2022 highs. As of January, inflation was 3% year-over-year, compared to a rise in the consumer price index of 1.8% in France and 2.4% in Canada.

Eggs have been a particular pain point in the US recently. The price for a dozen Grade A large eggs has doubled over the past year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

While inflation is slowing, the Federal Reserve has opted to hold on further interest rate cuts so far this year despite pressures from President Donald Trump to continue cutting.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave a policy report to the House Financial Services Committee in February expressing that "the economy is strong overall." He stated that his priorities in policy restraint were to keep prices stable and maximize employment.

While new jobs increased less than the forecast in January, unemployment crept down to 4%, low by historic standards. And overall, the real GDP in 2024 grew 2.3% year-over-year as consumer spending made up for losses in investment, the latest data said.

Economic data aside, Americans are split along party lines on the future of the economy in 2025. Per Pew Research's polls published this month, 64% of Democrats say the economy will get worse, and 73% of Republicans anticipate it will get better. A majority of people are optimistic about the costs of gasoline improving while also pessimistic about a hike in the cost of housing, food, and healthcare.

Trump ran on campaign promises of bringing grocery and gas prices down and installed pro-oil and gas cabinet members to execute his "drill baby drill" plan. It's unclear, however, whether companies will be able or willing to expand oil production beyond current record highs.

When it comes to food, Trump has since walked back his vow, saying lowering grocery prices is "very hard." Economists and companies have also indicated that Trump's proposed tariffs could increase prices for a variety of products.

In the meantime, Powell has stated that the central bank operates independently of politics and he continues to watch the markets closely before intervening.

"If the labor market were to weaken unexpectedly or inflation were to fall more quickly than anticipated, we can ease policy accordingly." Powell said to the House committee last week.