The Indicator from Planet Money

Elections are more expensive than ever, but are campaign donations going to the races where they’ll make the most impact? Today, we talk to the startup co-founder of Oath who believes there’s a smarter way to allocate individual donations.Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.Your Next

Should money and class figure more prominently in how we identify ourselves? Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist Mona Chalabi thinks yes. Today on the show, a conversation with Mona, author of the forthcoming book Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are.Fact checking by

The United States national debt is running at more than $40 trillion dollars. It’s a potential crisis in the making, but President Donald Trump suggested it can all be solved just by inflating the debt away. Today, we dig into the nitty gritty on how and when inflating the nation

Oracle, the multinational tech giant has taken on a lot of loans to build up its AI capacity. But Oracle’s investors are not happy with this piling debt load. We explain why Oracle is such a pivotal player — and potentially weak link — in the AI-fueled economy.Fact checking by Si

Is AI coming for our jobs? Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes AI could wipe out many white-collar jobs in the next few years. While Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argues AI will reshape existing roles and create even more jobs than we have now. So which future are we really facing: a j

This week’s indicators: Why is inflation so super (derogatory)? How did Bumble go from dating app doldrums to a stock market sweetheart?; And oh, bother! Could Winnie the Pooh be moving home to England from New York City?Fact checking by Leyla Doss.Your Next Listen –Retiree benef

The 2026 midterm elections are fast approaching, and it’s gearing up to be the most expensive election in American history. So how did we get here, where every election feels more expensive than the last? Today on the show, we’re exploring what’s causing the flood of money into o

A labyrinthine rebate process. Shrinking cereal boxes. Mystery rental car charges. Cockroaches?! We share listener tales of Consumer Rage and unpack the economic forces driving that ANGER.Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.Your Next Listen –Consumers are mad as hell and aren't gonna

This year's Nobel Prize for Economics went to American economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford! Their research focused on macroeconomic models and economic shocks.But … How did we get a Nobel Prize in economics, or as it’s actually called, the more long-winded “Swedish Cen

Nearly 30 million bison once roamed North America, from modern Canada to Mexico. In the late 1800s, white settlers and the U.S. military annihilated the population of bison, bringing these creatures to the brink of extinction. The consequences for the people who relied on the bis

This week our top indicators include changes to the funding model for SNAP, private equity’s influence on youth baseball and Meta’s attempt to find flaws in its brand new AI assistant. Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.Your Next Listen –Why Trump's spending bill could close your gro

Federal immigration enforcement arrests reached record highs this past summer, and under the second Trump administration, immigration agents can now more easily access so-called sensitive areas, including hospitals. Today on the show: how both patients and healthcare workers are