NPR.

This is the Indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Darian Woods, joined by Whalen Wong.

Hello.

And we have our very special guest, Mary Charles.

Hi, thanks for having me back.

I would like to formally welcome our listeners to Indicators of the Week.

Indicators of the week.

That's right, Dary and Mary, we are going back to our favorite Friday activity.

We're highlighting numbers from the news.

We're going to have some fun and make sense of what's happening in the economy.

Today, we're looking at just how rich Trump's nominee is for Federal Reserve Chair.

We're going to talk about how Allbirds, the shoe company, became an AI firm.

And we're going to talk about why so many people with an affordable care act plan did not pay their

first monthly bill. That's all after the break. Indicators the week, Mary, why don't you go first?

I would love to go first. I actually never get to go first. I don't know if you knew that. This is an

exciting day for me. My indicator this week is 14%. That's how many people who are signed up

for the Affordable Care Act plans this year that have not paid their first monthly bill.

This is according to an analysis from the actuarial firm Wakely Consulting Group reported in the

Wall Street Journal. So people are just letting their care insurance lapse and is this common?

There is actually a drop every year in membership, but normally it's like 5%, 6%.

This year, it's more than twice that. And in some states, it was 25% or more.

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