While Americans are known for their generosity, the U.S. government, increasingly, is not. The Trump administration’s cuts to SNAP benefits among other aid programs have forced states, foundations ...
Karissa Tang is a 17-year-old in California who got curious about the impact of AI on typical teen jobs like cashiers and fast food counter workers. She embarked on an ambitious economic research p...
President Trump claims Venezuela stole American oil. Is that true? We trace Venezuela's oil industry from its 1920s birth through nationalization and then collapse. Today on the show, how did the V...
When you're in a grocery store nowadays, chances are your data is being collected. From a swipe of the loyalty card to the purchase of an ice cream pint, your data tells stores what you like, how m...
Former Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, appeared in a New York court yesterday. He’s facing drug-trafficking and weapons charges after the U.S. abducted him and his wife in an explosive operation...
Japan’s new prime minister Sanae Takaichi made waves last fall after saying her country might intervene if China invaded Taiwan. In response, China launched state-organized boycotts against Japan —...
At The Indicator, we’ve been following the conditions in Venezuela over the years. In 2024 we covered how Venezuela’s economy went into freefall, and have been checking in with an economist th...
2025 is finally over. We had bad consumer sentiment vibes, tariffs, and a seemingly ascendant stock market. And those are just a few indicators from last year! As we enter 2026, wha...
Americans are moving at record lows for work. What’s driving people to, well, not drive cross-country for jobs? On today’s episode, we explore the rising homebody economy. This episode origina...
To hear President Trump tell it, the late 1800s, i.e. the Gilded Age, were a period of unparalleled wealth and prosperity in the U.S. But this era was also marked by corruption and wealth inequalit...
Seasons greetings from the The Indicator! On today's show, the story of a man who started buying and selling stocks as a hobby — and got seriously addicted. We also speak with a neuroeconomist abou...
Many men in the U.S. feel like they're not doing as well as their fathers. But what does the data say? This episode, we're sharing an extended conversation between Darian Woods and Richard Reeves, ...
For the next week, we're running some of our favorite shows from this year. On today's show, a brief history of Nintendo and how a small playing card company in Japan became a gaming juggernaut.&nb...
Happy Holidays from The Indicator! For the next week, we're running some of our favorite shows from this year. On today's show, why celebrities are increasingly investing in their own brands.T...
As Warren Buffett aged, he became a different sort of figure. He transformed from short-term investor into long-term builder. He used Berkshire Hathaway to start buying companies and build an empir...
With an unprecedented decades-long run of success, Warren Buffett is retiring on December 31, 2025. Buffett’s turning point began with the acquisition of a failing textile mill called Berkshire Hat...
2025 was a wild year for the U.S. economy. Tariffs transformed the global economy, consumer sentiment hit near-historic lows, and the stock market hit scary, spooky, blood-curdling new heights! So ...
After a firehose of economic news in 2025, we wanted to check back on some of the people we’ve heard from on our show. Today, we check in with a former federal employee caught in the Trump administ...
Absent a holiday miracle, premium subsidies for the Affordable Care Act are set to expire at the end of this year. This will greatly increase the cost of health insurance for many who rely on the m...
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made a lot of changes to the federal student loan system. One of those changes put a new cap on the amount of loans students in graduate school can take on. Today on ...
