Planet Money: episodes

60 recent episodes from the show's feed. Back to the show

1. How bodegas led to the Yemeni coffeehouse explosion

   Nov 11, 2026 · 24 min

   There is a long-standing tradition of different immigrant groups arriving in the U.S. and specializing in one particular type of business. Think, nail salons run by people from Vietnam or Gujarati Indians owning motels and hotels. Yemenis are another immigrant community that has largely clustered around one industry, in their case, bodegas and small grocery stores. There are thousands of these sh

2. Inside the insurance industry’s destruction lab

   Nov 6, 2026 · 32 min

   When you think of someone burning down a house for insurance purposes, you don’t imagine it would ever be the insurance company itself lighting the match. But that’s essentially what’s happening inside a giant destruction laboratory, funded by the insurance industry, in the woods of South Carolina. Scientists and engineers there build household structures — from decks to sheds to single family hom

3. The history of light (classic)

   Nov 4, 2026 · 21 min

   How 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 get a cow, raise the cow, feed the cow, kill the cow, get the fat out of the cow, cook the fat, dip wicks into the fat. All that — for not very much light. Now, if we want to light a whole room, we j

4. Is this how the great international borrowing spree ends?

   Oct 31, 2026 · 26 min

   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. Right now, protesters in France are complaining about crumbling schools, the lack of teachers, and the overall high cost of living. But the government is struggling to find the money to address all the co

5. Politicians are afraid to fix taxes. So 100 citizens tried.

   Oct 28, 2026 · 31 min

   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 also old. They go back to Ancient Greece, when lawmakers were chosen not through elections, but through random lotteries.)  Today on the show, Connecticut’s citizens assembly. It's like jury duty, but

6. How surveillance crept up on us

   Oct 23, 2026 · 35 min

   For 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 adopted without the kind of public oversight cities usually require.  In the wake of 9/11, the New York Police Department built one of the most sophisticated and omnipresent surveillance systems in the cou

7. We try to fix election polling (update)

   Oct 21, 2026 · 30 min

   Polling 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 polling firm to let us test it.  Today on the show, we head to Marist College — home of the Marist Poll — to learn how to be pollsters ourselves. We learn the great moments in polling history, the latest s

8. Anatomy of a movie market

   Oct 16, 2026 · 32 min

   Before 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 festivals like Sundance – it can take everything from performance stunts to corporate spycraft to seal the deal. Today on the show, we follow the ‘King of Sundance’ as he and his team try to sell thei

9. Wanna slow down AI? These biologists can help.

   Oct 14, 2026 · 29 min

   Fifty 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 saying the technology they’re pushing forward is moving too quickly … and might kill us all. They’re effectively saying, ‘Please, please regulate us! Slow us down! Tie our hands!’  But, by and large,

10. Should we all be getting tariff refunds right now?

    Oct 9, 2026 · 30 min

    Companies 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 the money paid to the U.S. government had to be refunded. Companies are getting that money now.  It would seem like we, the customers, should get paid back, too. But … it’s not so simple.  Once again,

11. Charles Ponzi's scheme (plus a new scam)

    Oct 7, 2026 · 26 min

    Charles 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 bookkeeping, sign painting, grocery clerk, dishwasher, and librarian. He caught a lucky break in August, when he received a letter from Europe. In the envelope was an International Reply Coupon, a clever way

12. Where all those weird new drinks are coming from

    Oct 2, 2026 · 30 min

    It'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 supplements that supposedly offer health benefits. Where are all these new drinks coming from? And why does it seem like the options are multiplying faster than ever? Today on the show, we go behind the scene

13. Who’s gonna pay for your Social Security?

    Sep 30, 2026 · 29 min

    Very 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 at some of the most talked about possible solutions; and exactly whose wallets we’ll have to rifle through to find the money to pay for each. Then we’ll run the options by the Social Security Adminis

14. Middlegarchs are the new Oligarchs

    Sep 25, 2026 · 31 min

    Wanna 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 larger class of wealthy Americans hiding in plain sight. And, often, they got rich in mundane ways. They own car dealerships. They sell hot dogs and frozen mini-quiches. They run waxing salons. They

15. Is our national debt finally too much? (update)

    Sep 23, 2026 · 30 min

    (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 passes a big round number, almost everyone asks the same question: How much debt is too much? It’s maybe the most important question in macroeconomics. It’s also surprisingly hard to answer. When two econ

16. The Domino’s Pizza Tracker Theory of Everything

    Sep 18, 2026 · 32 min

    Did 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 package coming, you get a notification when it’s shipped, when it’s en route, and when it’s out for delivery. Why do so many companies send these constant updates? We have a theory: It’s because of Domino’

17. How investing is getting riskier (Two Indicators)

    Sep 16, 2026 · 18 min

    Margin 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 getting riskier. According to one study, more than half of Gen Zers are using investment dollars for sports gambling. On average, this is not a smart strategy for the long term. It might be that sports bet

18. The loan at the heart of a new foreclosure crisis

    Sep 11, 2026 · 29 min

    There 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 funneling billions of dollars into these loans.  But these loans are also raising questions. Are they a financial innovation that’s helping the housing market? Or ... a sign that Wall Street might be

19. Cost-cutting, quiet guilt and the inflation generation

    Sep 9, 2026 · 24 min

    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 hand, the stock market is on a prolonged, upward trajectory. Unemployment is low and inflation has come down from its peak. But on the other hand, inflation is frustratingly sticky and higher than we

20. Trump drinks Venezuela’s milkshake

    Sep 5, 2026 · 25 min

    One 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 nature of this deal has been … obscure, to say the least. But today, we wanted to know, from someone who’s been through this before, what does this mean for Venezuela? José Ángel Pereira Ruimwyk is bo