A school cellphone ban study, white collar jobs wither, and spooky candy prices

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s … Indicators of the…Eek! (Indicators of the Week.) Our regular look at some of the most fascinating economic numbers from the news.

On today’s episode: How cell phone bans in schools affect grades, white collar workers get the axe, and AHHH! Halloween candy inflation!

Related episodes:

Are you afraid of inflation?

A finance fright fest

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Julia Ritchey and Corey Bridges. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:13.2	This is the indicator for Planet Money.
0:15.5	Happy Halloween, by the way.
0:16.9	I'm your spooky host, Adrian Ma, here with the witchy Whalen Wong.
0:26.4	That's the witch music from Wizard of Us.
0:28.4	And your little dog, too.
0:30.2	And we are joined by the dreadful Darian Woods.
0:34.3	Happy Halloween to you, too.
0:36.1	We are here not to scare or to freak you out.
0:40.3	Let's leave that to your, you know...
0:42.3	Everyday lives.
0:43.3	We're here to bring you some indicators.
0:47.3	Ah!
0:48.3	Indicators of the week!
0:50.3	Yes, it is that show where we take interesting economic headlines from the week, and we bring
0:55.8	them to you.
0:56.8	It's the same indicators, but this time covered in spiders.
1:00.0	I actually am looking at a big spider right now in my studio.
1:03.4	I'm hoping it doesn't come any closer.
1:05.7	On today's show, we have got...
1:07.8	The evidence comes in on cell phone bans in schools.
1:11.0	White collar workers getting the axe.
	...

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