Fewer Americans are earning a living wage
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A new report from Dayforce and the Living Wage Institute found that just over half of full-time workers earn enough to provide for themselves and their families. Wages have been rising, just not as quickly as costs. Familiar racial and gender gaps persisted, too — and got wider in 2025. But first, GameStop is trying to buy eBay for $56 billion, though it's unclear where all that money would come from. Then, is the robotaxi revolution ever coming?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Marketplace Morning Report is brought to you by you. Yep, the most important piece of our budget is donations from you, our listeners. We call the folks who donate Marketplace investors because every dollar you give comes back to you in the form of trustworthy, grounded reporting with a sense of humor. |
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| 0:24.4 | in our show notes. |
| 0:27.8 | When your eyes are bigger than your wallet, the business edition from Marketplace. |
| 0:34.4 | I'm Sabree Beneshore in New York. |
| 0:36.0 | GameStop, the gaming company, is trying to buy eBay, the not gaming company, and e-commerce site. GameStop is the smaller of the two, but it says it is down to spend about $56 billion on the acquisition. Marketplace's Nova Saffo has more. |
| 0:51.2 | GameStop's chairman and CEO Ryan Cohen sent a letter yesterday to eBay's |
| 0:55.6 | board of directors offering the cash and stock buyout. He plans to take over as CEO of the combined |
| 1:01.6 | company. Cohen says GameStop has already accumulated about a 5% stake in eBay, but the video game |
| 1:08.6 | retailer faces challenges because it is the smaller of the two companies |
| 1:12.5 | with a market value that's about a fourth of eBay's. Cohen says his company would finance the purchase |
| 1:18.4 | with $9 billion in cash and up to $20 billion in debt from TD securities. It did not account for |
| 1:24.7 | the rest of the purchase cost. Cohen told the Wall Street Journal that the tie-up could create a competitor to Amazon. |
| 1:30.9 | He also told the paper that he would launch a hostile bid if eBay's board rejected a merger. |
| 1:37.2 | I'm Novosha, for Marketplace. |
| 1:39.9 | Fewer and fewer working Americans are earning a living wage. |
| 1:43.9 | A new report from DeForest and the Living Wage Institute found that just over half of full-time workers earn enough to provide for themselves and their families. |
| 1:52.4 | That's down five percentage points compared to four years ago. |
| 1:55.8 | Marketplace's Kaylee Wells reports. |
| 1:57.7 | What counts as a living wage depends on how much stuff costs. And right now, |
| 2:02.6 | the cost of housing, food, child care, and other essentials are elevated. Energy prices have |
| 2:07.8 | recently spiked, of course. Jason Rollin with day four says, meanwhile, wages have been going |
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