Marketplace All-in-One

Consumer sentiment really ran the gamut this year. But right now, Americans are feeling almost as bad about the economy as they were when inflation was at its peak summer of 2022. In this episode, we chronicle 2025’s consumer vibes rollercoaster. Plus: Kansas City’s housing market preps for the 2026 World Cup, a college professor offers an AI-driven macroeconomic theory course, and we go over the week’s headlines.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

Family caregivers in the United States are increasingly under mental and financial stress. Elizabeth Miller, founder of the caregiver resource platform Happy Healthy Caregiver, is here to help. On today’s show, Miller joins Kimberly to talk about prioritizing self-care and how you start caregiving conversations with family. Plus, we’ll get in the holiday spirit with a round of This or That!Here’s everything we talked about today:"New Report Reveals Crisis Point for America’s 63 million Family Caregivers" from AARP "How To Prepare To Be A Caregiver And Manage The Costs" from Today "5 Powerful Tips to kick off “the Talk” with Your Loved Ones" from Happy Healthy Caregiver"How to Make a Caregiving Plan (So It’s Ready When You Need It)" from The New York TimesIf our reporting has been valuable to you in 2025, consider becoming a Marketplace Investor. Give now: https://support.marketplace.org/smart-sn

It's a major Hollywood drama: Despite striking a deal with Netflix, the high-stakes bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery shows no sign of cooling off. The company turned down a renewed offer from Paramount of $30 a share, signaling a continued preference for the Netflix deal. Thing is, the transaction will likely draw close regulatory scrutiny from the Trump administration. But first: messy economic data and a deal to buy TikTok's U.S. operations.

Electricity prices are up 6.9% year over year — much higher than overall inflation — and costs are expected to go up even more in the future. So, how are energy-hungry data centers, used to power AI, crypto, and more, impacting electric bills? That's a question that several Senate Democrats had, who opened an investigation into tech firms this week. Also on the show: TikTok ownership and real estate agents' thoughts on the market.

From the BBC World Service: The Chinese owners of TikTok have signed a deal to sell the company's ‌U.S. assets to a joint venture led by American investors. This morning, we'll parse the details of the agreement. Then, Ukraine will receive a loan of more than $100 billion from the European Union to fund its war against Russia. Plus, Morocco is staging the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament, but not everyone's pleased about the money being spent on it.

Building artificial intelligence tools requires a lot of graphic processing units, and those GPUs need huge amounts of ultra-fast memory to feed them data. Micron Technology is one of a handful of memory chip makers that has been selling a whole lot of memory, thanks to the AI boom.Plus, cloud company Oracle's data center debt is coming under scrutiny. And Merriam-Webster names the word of the year for 2025: slop.Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Anita Ramaswamy, columnist at The Information, to learn more on this week’s Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review.

November inflation data came in lower than expected, according to the latest CPI report. But we can’t compare it to the previous month, since the BLS skipped several October reports. And data collection began late thanks to the shutdown, right in the middle of retailers’ Black Friday sales. In this episode, key caveats to the November CPI. Plus: Experts cautiously predict a more balanced housing market in 2026, tech stocks take a hit as data center debt climbs, and a growing number of politicians reject economists’ expertise.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

Long-term care is expensive in the United States. With Medicaid spending cuts looming and the Trump administration’s deportation plans threatening the caregiving workforce, the system is under even more pressure. On today’s show, Allison Hoffman, health law expert at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, joins Kimberly to unpack why the caregiving industry suffers from chronic labor shortages and how the U.S. could finance long-term care differently to make it more affordable. Here’s everything we talked about today:"What Role Do Immigrants Play in The Direct Long-Term Care Workforce?" from KFF"Trump’s deportation plans threaten 400,000 direct care jobs: Older adults and people with disabilities could lose vital in-home support" from Economic Policy Institute "A brief history of Medicaid and America’s long struggle to establish a health care safety net" from The Conversation "The age-old problem of long-term care" from MIT News "Solving the Home Care Quandary" from The New York TimesJoin us tomorrow for “Economics on Tap.” The YouTube livestream starts at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time, 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

In his 19-minute address to the nation last night, President Donald Trump argued that he inherited a mess from former President Biden; the president claimed he'd made historic improvements to the lives of Americans over the past 11 months. Today, we'll dig into the claims — from the accurate, to the misleading, and the wrong. Also on the show: how scammers are using AI-generated ads to trick shoppers.

As the year draws to a close, it's clear that the post-COVID hiring bonanza has ended, and job-hunting has gotten trickier. Experts are predicting next year to be marked by more of the same: a low-hire, low-fire labor market. Plus, the Nasdaq asks the SEC for permission to allow close to 24/7 trading, and a federal appeals court is blocking the firing of most workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

From the BBC World Service: The European Union says it's close to agreeing a trade deal with the South American economic bloc Mercosur, which represents Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The agreement covers all aspects of trade, but the most controversial area is agriculture. Farmers have been protesting because they fear a glut of cheap imports. Then, the European Commission unveiled its first-ever roadmap for tackling a Europe-wide housing affordability crisis earlier this week. We'll discuss it with the EU's housing Commissioner.

Search engines, social media, e-commerce, and mobile games all make money by selling advertising. But making ads work in AI search might not be so straight forward. Perplexity, for instance, reportedly pulled back on plans to integrate ads into their AI search engine. And internal documents showed the company made only $20,000 in ad revenue in the fourth quarter last year. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Garrett Johnson, professor of marketing at Boston University to get a sense of why jumping into the ad business is difficult.

A U.S. blockade of Venezuelan oil tankers may sound disruptive, but global oil is plentiful, and Gulf Coast refiners remain tied to Venezuela’s heavy crude after decades of investment. If sanctions are lifted and Venezuelan oil flows again, it could benefit refiners and drivers alike. Also in this episode: why bank deposits are growing, how the Gap staged a successful turnaround, and where trade workers are experimenting with AI.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

We get a firehose of economic data this week. As these numbers come in, one thing is becoming clearer: Wage gains are stalling, and inflation has been heating up. What's that mean for affordability and consumers? Then, we check on oil prices after President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of Venezuelan oil tankers. Plus, we bring you the second part of our conversation with June Hagin, a night shift worker at a West Harlem Christmas tree lot.

It's an annual tradition in New York City: Each December, pedestrians fight for walking room on sidewalks populated by lush firs and frasers. Staffed by seasonal workers, these Christmas tree lots are often open 24 hours a day. We visited one of these tree stands on a sidewalk in West Harlem just after midnight to learn about the biz. But first, holiday season retail sales numbers out yesterday from the Census Bureau were unexpectedly flat.

From the BBC World Service: FIFA has said it will release $60 seats for next year's World Cup, following complaints from fans over high prices. After all, average ticket prices are about seven times what World Cup tickets cost when the event was hosted in Qatar. Thing is, there's a catch. Then, French soccer player Kylian Mbappé has been awarded $70 million in compensation for unpaid wages in a court case against his former club, Paris-Saint Germain.

A career in tech was once seen as a safe bet — the jobs were plentiful, the pay was ample. But this year the tech sector had another “meh” year for hiring according to the job site Indeed. Tech jobs have been declining now for several years, but this year, the losses at least seemed to stabilize, according to Indeed's latest Jobs & Hiring Trends Report. Still, job postings in the industry remain well below their pre-pandemic baseline. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Indeed senior economist Cory Stahle for a look at how this year turned out for the tech job market.

The U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 4.6% in November, according to the latest BLS jobs report. There’s also data showing more Americans are reentering the workforce and more part-time workers are looking for full-time roles. In this episode, we explain what it all means for the broader economy. Plus: Advertising revenue is projected to top $1 trillion in 2025, hiring in the once-strong health care sector may slow soon, and artificial intelligence drives some young people into trade school.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

Roughly 1 in 4 Americans now identifies as a family caregiver. That share has risen dramatically over the past decade. With more people needing care and limited options for affordable long-term care services in the United States, caregivers are strained—often mentally and financially. On today’s show, Debra Whitman, chief public policy officer of AARP, joins Kimberly to unpack how this “invisible workforce” fits into the broader economy and how we can make caregiving more sustainable for families.Here’s everything we talked about today:"Caregiving in the US 2025" from AARP"The number of “sandwich generation” caregivers is growing" from Marketplace "If Americans Were Paid For Their Caregiving, They Would Make More Than $1.1 Trillion" from the National Partnership for Women and Families"Returning to the Workforce After Being a Caregiver" from Harvard Business Review"Invisible crisis: America’s caregivers and the $600 billion unpaid cost of their labor" from ABC News"Caregiving in the US 2025: Caring Across States" from AARPWe love hearing from you. Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email makemesmart@marketplace.org.

The cost of health insurance is becoming increasingly unaffordable. With many Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidies set to expire, coverage is about to get even more pricier for more than 20 million people next year. These growing costs are fueling interest in a market for cash-only doctors. Today, we'll hear more. But first, all of those government layoffs and employee buyouts have hit the labor market. We’ll discuss.