Marketplace

Everyone’s favorite aircraft manufacturer is back in the news — 30,000 Boeing machinist union members are on strike over pay. Typically, flyers don’t care what plane they’re on, as long as it gets them to the right place safely. But Boeing has had a year of high-profile controversies. Will the strike put the company into free fall? Also in this episode: Dollar stores struggle, Sierra Mist fizzles out and Jack’s Family Restaurants thrives in rural towns.

Today in Econ 101, we’re talking yield curve. In a typical economy, the longer a bond’s duration, the more interest it yields. The inverse — shorter duration, higher yields — usually means a recession is coming. We’ve been seeing an inverted yield curve in the U.S. financial system for nearly two years. So, where’s the recession? Also in this episode: Credit card delinquencies hit a 12-year high and we visit U.S. troops preparing for climate change.

Annual inflation, according to the consumer price index, fell to a multiyear low in August. That’s great, but we’re still half a percentage point away from the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal. What’s holding up prices? Also in this episode: Campbell’s wants us to know it sells more than soup, recession alarm bells are ringing — but maybe not for the reason you think — and will companies that already collect our data please stop sending us surveys?

Since 1970, Amtrak has run U.S. passenger rail service and — per a formal agreement with private railroad companies — those passenger trains get preference over cargo carriers on the tracks. But now, the Department of Justice says freight companies are breaking the rules. Also in this episode, more moving: New pipelines carry excess natural gas out of Permian Basin fields, programs that help families move into affordable housing assist with repairs too, and farmers pressure Congress to budge on the delayed farm bill.

When the August consumer price index is released Wednesday, it’ll be the final major inflation report before the Federal Reserve’s policymakers meet next week, when they’re expected to cut interest rates. But how important is the CPI as a gut check this time around? Also in this episode, backup generators are too expensive for many older Texans who need them most, China makes electric vehicles that seem impossibly cheap, and U.S. leaders show interest in a sovereign wealth fund.

The Inflation Reduction Act set aside $369 billion to invest in climate change programs and energy security two years ago. So far, when it comes to the percentage of IRA dollars claimed by state, Nevada ranks No. 1. In fact, the states that spent the most per capita last year aren’t Democratic strongholds either. In this episode, why Republican governors are leaning into clean energy. We’ll also hear from three “Marketplace” regulars about their jobs in the “analog” age, and dig into the August jobs report.

As the presidential race heats up, we’re sure to hear more about immigrants and how they affect the U.S. economy. In this episode, we break down immigration’s impact on housing, tax revenue, consumer spending and the labor market. Plus, 8 million student loan borrowers are in limbo while President Joe Biden’s SAVE plan is challenged in court. Also: Lots of small businesses can’t afford to hire, and energy storage batteries may be coming to an electric grid near you.

The job market is the tightest it’s been in over three years — but don’t freak out. There are still more open positions than there are job seekers right now. But some experts are stressing about what the labor market may look like in a few months. Would potential interest rate cuts influence job creation in 2025? Also in this episode: The services sector is looking better than manufacturing, U.S. war stockpiles have climate-friendly uses and we check in with a former restaurateur who pivoted to consulting.

Nearly a quarter of overweight or obese adults in the U.S. have taken a GLP-1 — a class of weight loss drugs that includes Ozempic. But in some states, Medicaid doesn’t cover GLP-1s, though low-income Americans are more likely to be overweight or obese. In this episode: Who can access or afford this new medicine? Plus, striking hotel workers want higher pay and a return to pre-pandemic norms, the Federal Trade Commission is making it easier to cancel unwanted subscriptions, and the manufacturing sector is in a rut.

Consumers’ long-term economic outlook were a bit more positive in August, data from the University of Michigan shows. So if your in-laws were in a better mood on Labor Day than they were, say, on the Fourth of July, that could be why. In this episode, we get into why some Americans are feeling good about the economy while others still feel like they’re struggling to make ends meet. Plus, pediatricians have to make tough decisions about how many COVID-19 vaccine doses to purchase and new Department of Transportation rules require airlines to reimburse passengers’ costs for canceled and significantly delayed flights, no matter the cause.

New data shows that while consumer spending is strong, Americans aren’t saving like they used to. But the pandemic made year-to-year comparisons a bit misleading. So are consumer habits normalizing after an unusual economic period, or should we be concerned that savings have taken a dip? Also in this episode: Some businesses prefer to operate on a “fiscal” calendar, public swimming pools try to stay afloat and corporate tax changes may be important in this year’s election.

Why is the U.S. dollar losing steam? The short version: Falling demand for the currency drags its value down. Since the Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates soon, investors aren’t racing to buy U.S. bonds. And you need U.S. dollars to buy U.S. bonds … you get the picture. In this episode, more on currency fluctuations — and why the dollar losing value isn’t all bad. Plus: Businesses investing in themselves drove up second-quarter GDP, China has a burgeoning black market for Nvidia semiconductors and human bodies make great compost.

What if every American household and business had access to high-speed internet? That’s what the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, a federally funded project, aims to accomplish. As part of our “Breaking Ground” series, we visit a town in Kentucky that’s had universal fiber-optic internet connections since 2014, thanks to a cable utilities cooperative and Great Recession-era stimulus funding. Could McKee be a model for what the U.S. might look like if the BEAD program achieves its goal?

Roughly 200,000 Kentucky households lack internet access or are “underserved,” according to Meghan Sandfoss, executive director of the state’s Office of Broadband Development. It’s her job to open digital doors for all those residents, rural and otherwise — a tricky task that involves coordinating federal, state and local offices as well as internet service providers, nonprofits and engineers. In this episode, we’ll upack the process of hooking up homes to a fiber-optic network, including getting local buy-in, developing detailed maps and navigating environmental challenges.

Bringing high-speed internet access to every U.S. household is one goal of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. To do that, we’re gonna need a lot more fiber-optic cables. Per the Build America Buy America Act, the $42 billion in federal funding designated for expanding high-speed internet access has to be spent on American-made cables and the optical fibers that make them up. So in this episode, we’ll visit a factory in Claremont, North Carolina, to see how they’re made and learn why the U.S. wants fiber prioritized over other ways to connect to the internet.

In this century, reliable internet access isn’t just a want — for many, it’s a need. The federal government is spending billions to bring broadband to underserved areas, but in the meantime, for residents of those hard-to-reach places, libraries are often the only place to access high-speed internet. In this episode, we visit an internet-providing library in rural Kentucky. Plus: Automakers expected a faster EV investment payoff, and prospective homebuyers play the falling-mortgage-rate waiting game.

For many old hotels and motels, the most reliable guests may be ghosts in the attic. Unfortunately, they’re not paying the nightly rate. Worse, many hotels with empty rooms are surrounded by communities suffering housing shortages. Instead of closing their doors, they’re being converted into transitional housing for low-income people with the help of nonprofit organizations. In this episode, we visit one. Plus, retirees feel financially stable while working Americans don’t, Fortune 500 firms fear AI and rural parents struggle with living in “child care deserts.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just revised its count of new jobs created between March of last year and March of this year. Although revisions are routine, this was a big one: 818,000 fewer than it initially calculated. In this episode, what the new numbers means for the labor market and the Federal Reserve. Plus, a pig farmer keeps tabs on the presidential race, retailers use “newness” to reel in shoppers, and the U.S. counties with the best and worst employment growth.

The gap between median household income and median income for homebuyers in the U.S. has been growing, putting housing affordability in its “worst spot” in the last 40 years, an economist told us. In this episode: How homeownership got so out of reach. Plus, a tax deduction business owners love expires in 2025, community colleges that are more training ground than stepping stone, and the debate over open-source AI.

When consumers can’t afford what they used to, many are drawn to inexpensive luxuries. Take the so-called lipstick index: When the economy slumps, lipstick sales go up. So what does it mean, economically, that luxury beauty brand Estée Lauder reported sales were down 2% compared to last year? In this episode: shifting consumer beauty habits in the U.S. and China. Plus, everyone’s signing NDAs these days, convenience stores are upping their grub offerings and California fast-food workers got a major raise, but what about prices?

The presidential campaign has been full of economic promises. Do you pick the contender vowing to reduce food costs and invest in housing? Or the one promising more tariffs and oil drilling? Promises can become targets for the opposition, even if they have little chance of being carried out in their original form. Which leaves some voters wondering: Do policy goals pitched on the campaign trail matter? Plus: The insurance boogeyman creeps up behind condos and a Pennsylvania town navigates life without a coal plant.

Even though unemployment has bumped up, retail sales are going strong. Consumers spent $7 billion more in July than in June, the Census Bureau reported. Food, clothing, appliances and other categories saw sales growth over 2023. In this episode, is all that spending the force that’s keeping our economy afloat? Plus, the pros and cons of “dual agency” in real estate transactions and why Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic counsels patience.

For the first time in years, the consumer price index — one measure of inflation — fell below 3%. That’s good for Americans and the Federal Reserve, which has a dual mandate to maintain stable prices and maximum employment. But as inflation has chilled out, so has the job market. What can the Fed do about it? Also in this episode: Mars bets that America will keep snacking, the lag in housing inflation data, and one interest rate to rule them all?

When you think “high prices,” you might think of stressed family budgets. But small businesses have to pay up too. Nevertheless, small-business optimism hit a two-year high last month, but it remains under the 50-year average. We’ll visit a boutique in New York and a bookstore chain in Georgia to get entrepreneurs’ on-the-ground perspectives. Also in this episode: New labor data could signal that interest-rate cuts are imminent, snack companies cook up Ozempic-friendly treats and Canada steps into the crude oil supplier spotlight.

Last week, when the stock market took a tumble, some investors put their cash into bonds instead. Why? Well, we tend to think of the stock and bond markets as having an inverse relationship: when stocks do well, bonds do worse. But when the economy gets wonky, that relationship doesn’t necessarily hold. Also in this episode: Aging Chinatown residents struggle to pass the baton, consumers guess where the economy is headed next, and we ride an Amtrak train from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon.

A lot of folks like to weigh in on what the Federal Reserve should do with interest rates; Donald Trump said this week that if he were to reoccupy the White House, he should have a say in setting monetary policy. But keeping the Fed free of political pressure is important for several reasons. We’ll get into them. Also: Oklahoma tribal nations fill a gap in federal food aid for kids, Oregon ranchers deal with major wildfire losses, and theme park attendance dips.

The back-to-school shopping season is well underway. But with stubborn high prices in this economy, how will parents get their kids ready without feeling financially burdened? Also: decoding quarterly earnings, what goes into pricing mortgage rates, and why airport food is so expensive. Plus: A projectionist remembers his reel life.

Since the 1970s, the Federal Reserve has been officially tasked with a dual mandate: keeping prices stable and maximizing employment. But has the Fed ever found that sweet spot? It would be easier to answer if the economy wasn’t always in flux. Also: Disney’s streaming service posts its first profit, what we can learn from women entrepreneurs of the 19th century, and noise from a bitcoin mine haunts people in a rural Texas town.

How are people feeling about the economy after the dramatic drop in stocks? They’re “Googling the word ‘recession’ like crazy,” an economics professor told us. On the show today: Why perception is so important in economics. Also: The not-so-bad reasons for the higher unemployment rate, what the Google antitrust ruling could mean for Big Tech, and stealth shopping — hiding purchases from partners — is on the rise.

These aren’t words you want to hear about the stock market, but here we are. Global markets, including the major U.S. indexes, tanked today. Along with stocks, crude oil prices also took a hit. We’ll look at the causes and what might happen next. Also, the critical role of exporting services in this economy and a status report on a possible TikTok sale.

Job creation slowed sharply in July, the Labor Department reported today. One sector that took a hit is information and entertainment. That includes data processors, moviemakers, software publishers and — ahem — broadcasters and news websites. Do  those job losses signal a meaningful change or was it just an off month for the field? Plus, shipping rates may come down next year, the Spanish-language interpretation industry is expected to grow, and remember when cellphones had antennas?

Strong productivity growth last quarter coupled with recent wage growth means we’re generating more output and, at least to some extent, getting paid for it. In this episode, why productivity growth prevents a wage-price spiral. Plus, California wants to build an offshore wind turbine assembly plant, national economics impact national performance in the Olympics and equity-rich homeowners can’t do much with their housing wealth right now.

The Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate as is today, but rate adjustments aren’t the only monetary policy tool at the Fed’s disposal — don’t forget quantitative tightening and easing. In this episode, we explain why buying and selling government debt can help to balance out the economy. Plus, companies look for smaller but swankier offices, New Jersey has 70,000 units of affordable housing thanks to a decades-long legal saga and the oil industry tries to guess when oil demand will peak.

When Big Tech earnings reports come out this week, traders will scrutinize how much was spent on artificial intelligence. The billions of dollars invested haven’t translated into profit — at least not yet — and Wall Street is getting impatient. Also in this episode: We’ll break down the latest job openings data, uncover why housing contract cancellations are rising and hear from a real estate broker about the market in Houston.

McDonald’s reported weak sales in its second quarter. A slowdown in restaurant spending — if that’s what’s happening — may signal an economic downturn is brewing. Or, are the chain’s underwhelming results a byproduct of pandemic spending trends or rising wages? Also in this episode: Being a firstborn kid has its economic advantages and three major central banks are meeting this week. Plus, we’ll explain how maximum employment is measured.

The good news? The Commerce Department says personal income and consumption were up in June. Bad news is savings didn’t rise with ’em. In fact, high interest rates and high prices have battered the personal savings rate down to an almost two-year low, leaving many households without a financial security cushion. In this episode, we’ll also get into why national manufacturing growth depends on where you are, and Boston is incentivizing office to residential real estate conversions.

New gross domestic product data just came in — GDP grew a healthy 2.8% annually in the second quarter, better than predicted. Meanwhile, consumers are focused on buying essentials and credit card debt is growing. In this episode, we’ll examine why GDP is strong while many everyday people feel squeezed for cash. Plus: New real estate broker fee rules take effect next month and the number of Americans who predict they’ll retire young is up.

The last time Congress raised the federal minimum wage, it went up 70 cents — from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. That was in 2009. Today, we’ll get into why there hasn’t been a successful push to boost it since then and who suffers as a result. Plus, officials in China promise major tax reform, apartment vacancies in Sun Belt cities rise and the Federal Reserve keeps an eye on GDP estimates.

“Act your wage,” “coffee badging,” “ghost jobs” — the internet is always vomiting up new workplace phrases. You may even use some of them to describe the bizarre job market of the past few years. So when popular work slang shifts from silly — “lazy girl jobs” — to grim — “quiet cutting” — are there hints about where the labor market is headed? Also in this episode: Tech firms ditch user counts, car sales motor on despite high costs and educators get educated about jobs at the Port of Baltimore.

In the face of major news, some say the bond market can signal what comes next economically. But so far, bond yields don’t seem to be reacting to Biden’s dropping out of the presidential race. In this episode, what the crystal ball of the economy does care about in regard to elections. Plus, business investments outpace GDP gains, Nvidia employees cash in on the chipmaker’s hockey stick-shaped earnings growth and Friday’s CrowdStrike crash reveals a common cybersecurity weakness.

Nearly every economic sector relies on secure technology networks: retailers, airlines, hospitals and more. After a faulty software update by cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike, businesses across the globe came screeching to a halt, dragging customers with them. In this episode, the tech firm behind today’s maddening “blue screen of death.” Plus: why the Federal Reserve plans communication blackouts, a former delivery driver remembers using chickens to mark her routes, and industry upheaval threatens an Alaskan fishing community.

The number of people filing for jobless benefits in each of the last two weeks rose. That means it’s taking job seekers longer to find employment. It’s also offers mild support to those who want to see lower interest rates. Also: Who’s spending and who isn’t? And what AI means for authors and publishers.

Now’s the time of year when many families look for a new home. But it’s a seemingly impossible market for first-time buyers: high prices, high mortgage rates, high insurance, low inventory. We’ll explain how some are pulling it off and why some experts believe lower home prices and rents are in sight. Also: State and local governments have been on a hiring spree, and business inventories are up.

Retail sales numbers released today show spending was flat last month. But if you look a little deeper, you’ll see Americans spent more in June than May. What does this mean for the Federal Reserve as it considers lowering interest rates? Also: Homebuilders are feeling a little less confident, and AI is trying to read emotions. Plus, the nocturnal sprint at UPS’ one-day-shipping hub.

The economy seems to be coming in for a soft landing, and that’s a big reason banks are doing so well. Markets are up, emboldening companies to make merger deals, which they pay investment banks to execute. JPMorgan Chase just posted the highest quarterly net income for a bank in U.S. history — $18.1 billion. Also: On the eve of Amazon Prime Day, how a shipping hub handles quick turnarounds. Plus, another decline in China’s GDP, and a DJ looks back at her analog life spinning vinyl.

Nearly a million Texans are without power after Hurricane Beryl damaged an already fragile energy grid. As they wait for the lights come back on, we’ll explain why pretty much the whole country needs costly energy grid updates, especially as climate change makes weather more extreme. Also in this episode: Students who attended for-profit colleges are drowning in debt, and legal experts break down what might happen to federal regulatory agencies without the Chevron deference.

Inflation cooled for the third straight month in June, and borrowers hope rate cuts come soon. But will enough “good data” show up to ease the risks of a flare-up in prices? We break down the Fed’s decision-making process — and explain why shelter prices are one thing holding the central bank back. Also in this episode: Workers at the Port of Baltimore are full steam ahead as the region recovers from the Key Bridge collapse, and a SCOTUS decision opens the door to changes in tribal nation health care management.

Inquiring minds want to know: When will the Federal Reserve cut interest rates? Fed Chair Jay Powell isn’t ready to answer that question. But when rates are cut, there’s gonna be a lag before the Americans feels it. Also in this episode: Egg-freezing rates skyrocket as more employer benefits cover the procedure, the U.S. is less trade-oriented than other countries, and nearly half of Gen Xers aren’t financially on track to retire, a new study says.

The job market has cooled in recent months. The days of two openings per available worker may be over, but some sectors still have to struggle to find employees. One industry on a hot streak is health care, thanks in part to the continued workforce disruptions caused by COVID. Also in this episode: Small-business optimism rises despite cost concerns, tweens concoct potentially harmful “skin care smoothies” and steel prices sag as demand drops.

Paramount just announced a merger with Skydance, a film production company. The hope is that adding Skydance’s offerings to its streaming platforms will boost subscriptions. But streaming is a finicky business, where you have to be a top-tier service to thrive. Also in this episode: Dynamic pricing technology could be profitable for retailers, some Chinese families seek gentler school environments and Americans visit South Korea as skin care tourists.