Planet Money
Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world. Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Planet Money.
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Recent Episodes
The history of light (classic)
Nov 04, 2026How do you measure human progress? Light is the answer. For thousands of years, getting light was a huge hassle. You had to make candles from scratch. This is not as romantic as it sounds. You had to...
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This Planet Money episode explores the economic history of light, from ancient candles to modern LED bulbs, as told through economist Bill Nordhaus's groundbreaking research. The episode demonstrates how productivity improvements and innovation have transformed our lives, using light as a case study to explain how economic growth works and why billions of people today don't have to worry about basic survival.
- The Ancient Challenge of Making Light
- Measuring the Cost of Light Through History
In recent months, there have been serious whispers about an outrageous possibility: that one day soon, France — the seventh largest economy in the world — might not be able to pay back its debts. Righ...
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Planet Money examines the growing debt crisis facing wealthy nations, with France emerging as a critical case study. As rich countries have been on an unprecedented borrowing spree for over a decade, investors are increasingly worried about France's ability to repay its debts. The episode explores how interest rates, political dysfunction, and market confidence determine which countries can sustain high debt levels, and what the U.S. and other nations might learn from France's predicament.
- The Global Debt Spree: A New Normal
- France's Debt Crisis: When Investors Lose Faith
Connecticut’s property tax system has been broken for decades and the politicians have failed to fix the problem. So now, they’re trying something new: a citizens assembly. (Citizens assemblies are al...
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Planet Money follows Connecticut's radical experiment in democracy: a randomly selected citizens' assembly of 100 people tasked with solving the state's decades-old property tax crisis. Over several months, these ordinary citizens—from occupational therapists to insurance managers—learned about tax policy, debated solutions, and attempted to accomplish what politicians had failed to do for 70 years. The episode explores whether random citizens can succeed where elected officials have failed, and reveals the complications that arise when democratic experiments meet political reality.
- Connecticut's 70-Year Property Tax Crisis
- Ancient Greek Democracy and Modern Experiments
How surveillance crept up on us
Oct 23, 2026For years, police have spent billions of tax dollars on watching us, tracking us, and recording us. In the largest police department in the country, these surveillance systems were paid for and adopte...
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Planet Money explores how the NYPD built one of the world's most advanced surveillance systems over two decades, spending billions of federal dollars post-9/11 to create a massive network of cameras, databases, and tracking tools - largely without public knowledge or consent. The episode reveals how a secret agreement allowed police to purchase surveillance technology off the books, and examines the ongoing fight for transparency as civil liberties advocates work to expose thousands of hidden contracts.
- From Beat Cop to Digital Surveillance: The Evolution of NYPD Technology
- Building the Batcave: The Domain Awareness System Launch
We try to fix election polling (update)
Oct 21, 2026Polling is facing an existential crisis. People aren't picking up the phone. Nobody wants to talk to pollsters. Trust is on the line. We pluck a solution from the economics canon and convince a pollin...
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Planet Money revisits their 2022 investigation into the crisis facing modern polling. As response rates plummet below 5%, pollsters struggle to achieve representative samples that once made telephone polling the gold standard. The team visits Marist College's polling center to understand the challenges firsthand, explores polling's history of infamous blunders, and tests a 'wisdom of crowds' approach to potentially improve accuracy. The episode provides an update on how their experimental questions are still being used, though not quite as expected.
- The Crisis in Modern Polling
- Polling Blunder #1: The Literary Digest Disaster of 1936
Anatomy of a movie market
Oct 16, 2026Before an independent movie makes it to a streaming platform or a theater near you, it first needs to survive an artistic and economic gauntlet. And even for those movies that make it into elite film ...
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NPR's Planet Money explores the hidden market of independent film distribution through the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, following veteran sales agent John Sloss and his nephew Eric as they navigate the high-stakes world of selling indie films. The episode reveals how movies make it from festival screenings to streaming platforms and theaters, detailing the strategic negotiations, buzz-building tactics, and crucial buyer relationships that determine a film's commercial fate.
- The Art of Film Sales at Sundance
- The Downplay Strategy: Napoleon Dynamite's Secret Success
Wanna slow down AI? These biologists can help.
Oct 14, 2026Fifty years ago, scientists pioneering a terrifying gene-splicing technology figured out a way to collectively hit pause. Can we do it again with AI? We ask because some top AI industry leaders are ...
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Planet Money explores a fascinating historical parallel between today's AI race and the 1970s recombinant DNA revolution. When breakthrough gene-splicing technology promised both miraculous benefits and potential catastrophe, scientists faced the same collective action problem that AI companies grapple with today: how to slow down when individual incentives push everyone to race ahead. The episode follows the story of the Asilomar Conference, where scientists successfully self-regulated their dangerous research, offering lessons for modern tech leaders wrestling with AI safety.
- The Birth of a Collective Action Problem
- Janet Mertz and the Dangerous Experiment
Should we all be getting tariff refunds right now?
Oct 09, 2026Companies are getting billions of dollars back. How about us? It seems simple, right? We paid higher prices for imported goods because of tariffs. Then the tariffs were ruled illegal. Courts said th...
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Planet Money examines the messy world of tariff refunds after the Supreme Court struck down Trump's IEEPA tariffs. While the U.S. government has paid billions back to companies, consumers who actually bore those costs face an uncertain path to getting their money back. The episode follows one consumer's experience buying a Playdate gaming console and explores why some companies are refunding customers while major corporations like Sony and Microsoft are keeping the money.
- The Tariff Payment That Started It All
- Inside Panic: The Decision to Pass Along Tariffs
Charles Ponzi's scheme (plus a new scam)
Oct 07, 2026Charles Ponzi was down on his luck. In 1919, the Italian immigrant had spent a decade and a half in the U.S. He was looking for a way to get rich and tried his hand at everything — including bookkeepi...
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This Planet Money episode tells the fascinating story of Charles Ponzi, the Italian immigrant whose seven-month investment scam in 1920s Boston became so infamous that his name lives on in language. The episode explores how Ponzi exploited a loophole in the international postal system to promise impossible returns, and includes a modern warning about scammers impersonating podcasters.
- The Man Behind the Name: Charles Ponzi's Early Life
- The Brilliant (But Flawed) Postal Coupon Scheme
Where all those weird new drinks are coming from
Oct 02, 2026It's getting pretty wild in the beverage aisle these days — from the rainbow wall of seltzers, to the increasingly strange flavors of Pepsi, to the new "functional" sodas with added fiber or supplemen...
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Planet Money explores the dramatic transformation of the beverage industry, investigating why grocery store aisles have exploded with new drinks and flavors. Host Jeff Guo visits Flavorman, a secretive beverage development lab in Kentucky, to uncover three key reasons behind this shift: advances in flavor science, the rise of functional beverages, and lower barriers to entry for new brands. The episode culminates in the creation of a custom Planet Money beverage, revealing the science and economics behind modern drink development.
- The Transformation of the Beverage Aisle
- Inside Flavorman's Secret Labs
Who’s gonna pay for your Social Security?
Sep 30, 2026Very soon, Social Security may not have enough money to make full payments to retirees. Very soon. Like by 2032, just six years from now. So what are we gonna do about it? Today on the show, we look...
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This Planet Money episode examines Social Security's looming insolvency crisis. By 2032, the program will only be able to pay 78% of promised benefits unless Congress acts. The episode explores various proposed solutions—from raising payroll taxes to increasing the retirement age to boosting immigration—through conversations with experts and former Chief Actuary Steve Goss, who explains why no single fix will solve the problem and why the longer we wait, the harder it becomes.
- The Social Security Crisis: A Century-Old Experiment in Trouble
- Solution #1: Raising the Payroll Tax
Middlegarchs are the new Oligarchs
Sep 25, 2026Wanna know who is really in the top 1%? And how they use their influence? It may not be who you think. Look beyond Silicon Valley. Look beyond Wall Street. Look beyond the “oligarchs”. There's a much...
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Planet Money explores the rise of America's 'stealthy wealthy' - three million multimillionaires who own pass-through businesses and collectively hold 13 times more wealth than the Forbes 400 billionaires. Through groundbreaking IRS data analysis and interviews with millionaire business owners, the episode reveals how 40 years of preferential tax policies have created a powerful class of Main Street entrepreneurs who shape everything from car sales to dental practices, often wielding more influence than the flashy oligarchs.
- Introducing the Middle-Garky: America's Hidden Wealthy Class
- The Tax Ninjas Discover America's Blind Spot
Is our national debt finally too much? (update)
Sep 23, 2026(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2024.) $40,000,000,000,000. Four commas. Thirteen zeroes. It’s an eye-popping, almost infinite-sounding pile of money. And every time the debt passe...
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Planet Money revisits its 2024 deep dive into the national debt, which has now crossed $40 trillion. The episode examines when national debt becomes dangerous for an economy, featuring debates between economists about debt thresholds, the famous Reinhart-Rogoff paper that sparked controversy in 2010, and new updates showing that even formerly dovish economists are becoming hawks as interest rates rise and debt continues to grow.
- The Debt Debate Begins: Lessons from 2009
- The Ice Analogy: The Uncertainty of Debt Thresholds
The Domino’s Pizza Tracker Theory of Everything
Sep 18, 2026Did a pizza restaurant’s humble status page change how we wait forever? When you order a Lyft or Uber, you get texts every few minutes about your car approaching and arriving. When you have a packag...
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Planet Money explores how Domino's Pizza Tracker, launched in 2006, revolutionized consumer expectations around waiting and transparency. The episode traces how a simple IT tool designed to manage pizza delivery times became the template for status tracking across industries—from Uber to banking apps—fundamentally changing how we experience waiting in the digital age. Through investigative journalism and expert interviews, the hosts reveal both the psychological power of these trackers and their potential for deception.
- The Crisis That Sparked Innovation
- From Internal Tool to Customer-Facing Innovation
How investing is getting riskier (Two Indicators)
Sep 16, 2026Margin borrowing and sports gambling “investments” are both on the rise! Today on the show, two stories from Planet Money’s daily podcast The Indicator about the ways investing is changing, and gettin...
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This Planet Money episode explores the risks of leveraged investing and gambling, examining how record-breaking margin debt in U.S. markets and the blurring line between investing and sports betting are affecting younger generations. The show investigates South Korea's recent stock market crash caused by leveraged ETFs, the growing trend of Gen Z treating sports betting as investment, and new state regulations attempting to address gambling addiction.
- Record Margin Debt in U.S. Markets
- South Korea's Leveraged ETF Disaster
The loan at the heart of a new foreclosure crisis
Sep 11, 2026There is a new type of loan that is sweeping through the country right now. It’s advertised as a super quick and super easy way to get a mortgage to buy a home. In recent years, Wall Street has been f...
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Planet Money investigates how two mysterious investors borrowed $100 million through a new type of mortgage called DSCR loans to build a 700-home portfolio in Baltimore, then watched it collapse into foreclosure. The story exposes how Wall Street money is flooding into these 'no-income verification' loans for real estate investors, raising questions about whether the financial industry is repeating mistakes from the 2008 crisis.
- The Mysterious $100 Million Portfolio
- DSCR Loans: The No-Income Mortgage Revolution
In this economy it is boom times and doom times all at once. The statistics aren’t really capturing it. K-shaped only goes so far as a metaphor. So … we asked you to help. And you delivered! One one...
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Planet Money examines how Americans are experiencing the economy in vastly different ways, from retirees living comfortably to professors struggling with basic expenses, while exploring how this economic volatility is shaping the habits and expectations of the youngest generation of consumers entering the workforce during a period of historically high inflation.
- The Tale of Two Economies: K-Shaped Recovery in Action
- Gen Z's Introduction to Economic Life: Learning to Navigate Inflation
Trump drinks Venezuela’s milkshake
Sep 05, 2026One week ago, President Trump announced a deal that would give the “U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer.” The exact n...
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Planet Money examines President Trump's recent oil deal announcement with Venezuela through the lens of Jose Angel Pereira, a third-generation Venezuelan oil executive who lived through the country's previous 'Apertura' (opening) to foreign investment in the 1990s. The episode explores Venezuela's century-long cycle of opening and closing its oil industry to outsiders, the lessons from the last apertura that ended badly, and what this new deal might mean for Venezuela's people and economy.
- The Trump-Venezuela Oil Deal Announcement
- Venezuela's Oil Paradox: The Can't Live With Them, Can't Live Without Them Problem
Love in the time of Palantir
Sep 02, 2026To a lot of people, Palantir is a mystery — what does the company know, what data do they have, and (if they have it) what do they do with it all? We dig into that mystery and take you to a singles ev...
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In this Planet Money episode, host Amanda Aronchick explores the mysterious tech giant Palantir through an unusual lens: a satirical dating event in New York called 'Singles Dating Matching Using Palantir Data.' The event, organized by tech entrepreneur James Steinberg, demonstrates modern data surveillance capabilities by creating detailed dossiers on attendees using only their names and phone numbers. Through interviews with attendees, Palantir expert Mike Steinberger, and revelations from the event itself, the episode examines what Palantir actually does, how its software enables unprecedented government surveillance, and the growing concerns about digital privacy in America.
- The Palantir Dating Experiment
- What Palantir Actually Does
The brilliance of "9 to 5" is that it is catchy even though it’s also kinda depressing. You will be dancing along. You're enjoying it. And, then when you really listen to the lyrics, you're like, Wait...
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This Planet Money episode explores the true story behind the 1980 film '9 to 5,' revealing how it emerged from a real labor movement started by secretaries in Boston. The episode traces the connection between the movie's workplace reforms and an actual organization fighting for clerical workers' rights, examining both the cultural impact and the lingering workplace inequalities that persist decades later.
- The Genesis of 9 to 5: From Activism to Office Work
- Creating the 9 to 5 Movement and Organization