Gilded Age 2.0?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To hear President Trump tell it, the late 1800s, i.e. the Gilded Age, were a period of unparalleled wealth and prosperity in the U.S. But this era was also marked by corruption and wealth inequality. Sound familiar? On today's show, is history repeating itself?

Related episodes:
Trump's tariff role model (Apple / Spotify)
Worst. Tariffs. Ever. (Apple / Spotify)

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 Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	NPR.
0:11.7	Dary, has anyone ever asked you this hypothetical?
0:15.2	If you could go back to any decade in the past, what would you pick?
0:19.3	Probably like 80,000 and 10 BC. I want to know about
0:24.3	the Neanderthals. What was up with them? Were they smarter than us? Were we marrying them? I don't know.
0:29.5	Personally, I don't think I want to go back to any period before now. Like, I'm good with the
0:34.9	present. I don't want to stay there, to be clear. I would have to come back, but maybe for three days.
0:40.4	Well, if President Donald Trump were playing this game,
0:43.3	I think I know what he would pick.
0:44.9	And we're actually probably wealthiest of any time, relatively speaking,
0:50.8	at any point in the history of our country.
0:54.0	In the 1890s, we were so wealthy.
0:56.9	We had commissioned.
0:57.4	So 1890, that is in the late 1800s, a period that historians know as the Gilded Age.
1:06.9	But Trump is not the only one nowadays thinking about the Gilded Age.
1:11.4	In recent months, some have even argued that we're living through a second Gilden Age.
1:16.0	And they say, that's not a good thing.
1:18.6	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
1:20.1	I'm Adrienne Ma.
1:21.4	And I'm Darren Woods.
1:22.6	What was the U.S. economy like during the Gilded Age?
1:26.3	We ask a couple of Gilded Age historians, and we ask,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 3 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.