NPR: Planet Money

If you pay MoviePass 10 dollars a month, you can go to the movies every day. Great for customers, but hard on a company's bottom line. Today on the show, what's the plan, MoviePass?

Politicians have argued for decades that CEOs are overpaid. But there's this precise moment in the 1990s when CEO pay suddenly shot up. We find out what happened.

The teen summer job is a vaunted tradition...one that is fading. Today's teenagers just aren't working as much as their forebears. And that could have serious implications for America's labor market.

President Trump says China is stealing U.S. technology. So we looked into one case. And things got a little complicated.

The Death Master File is a list kept by the government. It keeps track of everyone who has died. But what happens when you end up on the list while you're still alive?

Venezuela's economy has collapsed, and the normal economic indicators have gotten so bad they're almost unfathomable. So one economist created an indicator to capture the awful human cost.

The U.S. and China are on track for a trade war. Economists generally say that's a bad idea... but if the U.S. wants to get tough on China, what are some alternatives?

Despite the proliferation of apps like Lyft, TaskRabbit, and Uber, a new report found no growth in people primarily doing this kind of work. Here's how the "gig economy" is and isn't changing.

California has a ton of solar power. But as soon as night falls, it's gone. Today on the show: How to bottle the sun.

The New York Stock Exchange — that bastion of American capitalism — owes its existence to two dozen men, a buttonwood tree, and a coffee shop. Today on The Indicator: the history of Wall Street.

The medical world has been trying to cure color blindness for centuries. Then a glass scientist figured it out. By accident.

One way to think of President Trump's trade policy is as a sort of soap opera. Today, we catch you up on the latest dramatic twists and also answer a big, looming question: are we in a trade war?

The Congressional Budget Office has a long history of disputes with the White House, including the current administration. But the first-ever director of the CBO says this time is different.

The marshmallow test is one of the most famous social experiments of all time, but we may be thinking about it all wrong.

When Florida outlawed partisan gerrymandering, politicians tried to sneak it back in ... in disguise.

Why is one of the busiest blocks in Manhattan littered with empty storefronts? And what does that say about the changing landscape of American retail?

So how much should you have saved for retirement? We wanted to know, so we asked the guy who invented the 401k.

Meet Sue, the dinosaur who sparked a gold rush for fossils buried in the badlands of North Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana.

Social Security has traditionally paid for itself, with money leftover. Until this year. Social Security has a funding problem and it's getting bad quickly.

Unemployment is low, wage growth is picking up, the stock market is strong; by most measures the economy is doing pretty well. And yet, millions of Americans live on the edge of financial ruin.

Vaccines are expensive and time-consuming to develop and there's no guarantee the investment will ever pay off. This means promising vaccines often sit in laboratory freezers during major epidemics.

Meet the man who figured out how to reshape national politics by making tiny investments in the smallest of places.

The monthly jobs report. Economists watch it, financial markets move on it, but it may not be as accurate as you'd think.

A new study tries to put a dollar amount on free internet services... by looking at how much money it would take for people to give them up.

In game theory, sometimes the best way to win, is to lose.

After six years of preparation, an ambitious new experiment will study the effects of income on the development of infant brains.

Last week, Congress and President Trump passed a bill rolling back regulation put in place by the 2010 Dodd Frank banking reform bill. We look at what changed and what it means.

The earnings call is a peculiar Wall Street ritual, one that's almost designed to be boring. So when something interesting does happen it's news. Today, the lessons of those earnings calls gone rogue.

Today on the show: A small town stakes its future on writing, directing, and starring in a musical.

Recent news has cast a spotlight on a little-known regulatory agency quietly working behind the scenes of our economy. What is FinCEN and why is it so important?

Gene Freidman built a taxi empire. We visited him before he was in legal trouble.

The mortgage interest deduction is popular, but it has numerous distorting effects on the economy – and economists also say that it does exactly the opposite of what people think.

Finance is notorious for being a boys club. Marilyn Cohen has worked in the bond market for 30 years. She talks about what it takes to succeed in her field and why there aren't more women.

Congrats, Class of 2018! Rather than listen to another meandering cliche-riddled commencement speech, let Stacey and Cardiff guide you through young-adult life with advice backed up by research.

Timekeeping software is becoming the standard across the U.S. And it turns out, it can be used to steal workers' wages, a few minutes at a time.

The World Trade Organization: Can't live with it, hard to crush your trade opponents without it.

Congress may soon expand work requirements for people who receive benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But do these work requirements match the reality of work itself?

Class actions run from big civil rights cases to arguments about pepper. Are they noble, or silly?

Thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, legal sports betting may be coming to a city near you.

Interest rates are on the rise for the first time in years. What that means for the housing market is far from obvious.

What one embattled smartphone-maker can tell us about China's plan to transform its economy

We meet the man who invented duty free shopping and find out if these tax free stores are really saving us any money.

Assigning a grade to a bottle of wine might seem counterintuitive, or even a little absurd, but wine scores have can have a big impact the people who sell wine — and the people who drink it.

Colleges are seeing fewer and fewer students apply every year. To try and stay solvent and attract students, they're trying all kinds of things, from lazy rivers to M&A.

Today on the show: A chicken index, some Wall Street investors, and an unlikely whistle-blower.

It's the 100th Indicator! To celebrate, we look to the future... and to alternate futures. The Indicator takes a break from economics to tackle infinity.

The corporate tax cut passed in December was supposed to compel businesses to boost investment. Is it working, or are companies just passing the savings on to their owners?

The LIBOR interest rate was at the center of a huge international scandal back in 2012. Regulators believed it had to replaced. But is that even possible?

California is way more than Hollywood. Today on the show, we look at what else is going on in this powerhouse state economy.

It's jobs day! But the unemployment number might not be the most important thing to watch.