The Indicator from Planet Money

122 episode briefs available

Venezuela didn't steal U.S. oil. Here's what happened

How Pakistan is revving up a fight against tax dodgers

Is Obamacare doomed without extended subsidies?

Moochers, monopolists and market-based poverty help

Take a penny, leave a penny, get rid of the penny

Why beef prices are so high

Will new loan limits lower the cost of grad school?

Why the Federal Reserve wants to avoid an aggressive rate cut

How close is the US to crony capitalism?

Why do we live in unusually innovative times?

No AI data centers in my backyard!

The winner's curse

Why are veterinarian bills getting so ruff on the wallet?

A little doomsday feeling is weighing on the economy

50-year mortgages, falling real wages, and doing your rideshare due diligence

Trump's backup options for tariffs

The Fed cuts rates, America's FICO dips, and forever ends for sweepstakes winners

Bitcoin miners are betting on AI over crypto

How beef climbed to the top of the food pyramid

The economic challenges facing men without college degrees

When AI is your job interviewer

Should "surveillance pricing" be banned?

This indicator hasn’t flashed this red since the dot-com bubble

Can American cities grow AND stay affordable?

One Fed battle after another

How Apple's market power blocked ICEBlock

Why isn’t corporate America standing up to Trump?

An indicator lost: big disaster costs

How to make switching jobs not terrifying

Target, Klarna and Sesame Street's new addy

Are U.S. defense contractors lavishing their investors too much?

Scam compounds, sewing patterns and stolen dimes

A huge EU-India deal, Heated Rivalry, and a hefty $200k to Olympians

Why Americans don't want to move for jobs anymore (Encore)

How a former Fed vice chair would approach rate cuts

Can you trust you're getting the same grocery prices as someone else?

The secret to Nintendo's success (Encore)

Why China pulled the plug on Japan

Why U.S. workers keep getting more productive

Nvidia chips for China, frozen Russian funds, and a lot of self-checkout stealing

The crypto market is hot. But is it an illusion?

America's next top Fed Chair

All these data centers are gonna fry my electric bill … right?

A school cellphone ban study, white collar jobs wither, and spooky candy prices

ICE raids, cooling on capitalism, and a Murdoch settlement

Can Europe sell America?

The rise of the credit card airport lounge

Teamwork actually does make the dream work

Can air traffic controllers keep calm and carry on — without pay?

Who’s buying all the beef?

How Marxism went from philosophy to cudgel

Who's financing Meta's massive AI data center?

Gilded Age 2.0?

How the French pensions débâcle is a warning to us all

Why is everyone buying gold?

Why "free" public education doesn't always include school supplies

Hawaii’s worker shortage goes NUTS

How Japan’s new prime minister is jolting markets

The cost of saving a species

The worst year of Warren Buffett’s career

Who is the World Cup for anymore?

How far can philanthropy go to fill government gaps?

How doctors helped tank universal health care

Argentina's bailout, a new way to cool data centers, and a cold holiday hiring season

Who should get mom's ring?

OpenAI's deals are looking a little frothy

How Trump is making coin from $TRUMP coin

Why Trump resurrected the Monroe Doctrine

Vice Series: The evolving business of crime

Chips up, rent down, and are people really skimping on holiday gifts?

Are we in an economic 'doom loop'?

What media consolidation means for free speech

Government shutdown fallout, price floors, and AI slop against the machine

Can a good story change economic reality?

Pay transparency. The WhatsApp and Instagram decision. Our beef with screwworms.

No, your doctor isn't getting rich off of vaccines

Who's propping up Russian oil?

Why Americans don't want to move for jobs anymore

How AI might mess with financial markets

What’s supercharging data breaches?

Warming your house the green way just got more expensive

The Art of the deal ft. Beyoncé

Looking for love in the auto supply chain

Why the US chose not to have a passenger train system like Europe

Gilded Age 2.0? (Encore)

How to make $35 trillion ... disappear

Tariffs. Consumer sentiment. Cape Ratio. Pick The Indicator of The Year!

What would it mean to actually refund the tariffs?

Why are so many public schools closing?

We resolve to watch these 2026 indicators

Is Greenland really an untapped land of riches?

The new language of AI tech workers

Just how bad are these job numbers?

Bond market nightmares

How AI is shrinking the job market for teens

How cocaine smuggling through Latin America really works

How college sports juiced Olympic development

We're about to lose a lot of foreign STEM workers

How to avoid scammers after a natural disaster

The spite acquisition that launched Warren Buffett

Brain-controlled iPhones, a Japanese asset buy-a-thon, and Trump tax cut debt

The cautionary tale of a recovering day trading addict (Encore)

Venezuela’s economic descent (Updated)

The old trade war that brought foreign carmakers to the U.S.

Fighting AI with AI

Davos drama, credit card caps and tariff truths

Why every A-lister also has a side hustle (Encore)

Catching up with a fired federal worker, a shrimper and a fraudster

Are concert tickets UNDER priced?

The ghosts of Obamacare past, present and future

Inside the growing industry to defend schools from mass shootings

When cartels start to diversify

Amazon's outage, anxious retirees, and LA brings the Heat, too

Should we ditch quarterly earnings reports?

Can shareholders influence Elon Musk's trillion dollar pay package?

The dawn of search engines

We read your mail on AI-proof jobs and how to fix crime labs

Where the US got $20B to bail out Argentina

Are China and India BFFs now?

ICE influencers, a world-record trade surplus, and the moon goes nuclear

Can LA host a 'car-free' Olympics?

Why Gen Z is feeling 'money dysmorphia'