Much ado about affordability
Marketplace
American Public Media
4.6 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“Affordability” — it’s a hot-button issue across the political spectrum. But how does one define or quantify a subjective idea? We called up a linguist and a few economists to hear their thoughts. Plus: Flat wholesale inflation is a warning sign for higher overall inflation, September retail sales merely inched up, and the U.S. dollar is showing signs of recovery after a troubling first half of the year.
Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.
Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | One word, six syllables, the new, new way to talk about this economy from American public media. |
| 0:10.3 | This is Marketplace. |
| 0:30.5 | In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizzdahl. It is Tuesday. Today, this one is the 25th of November. Good as it always is, to have you along, everybody. |
| 0:38.4 | We are going to get to the newest buzzword about and for this economy in just a little bit. But we're going to start with data of the government kind, delayed though it was. Up first, the producer price index. Inflation at the wholesale level |
| 0:45.0 | is another way to think about that. Three-tenths of one percent higher in September than it was in |
| 0:50.9 | August. Yes, this is old data. But that's not so bad given, you know, everything. |
| 0:56.1 | Core PPI came in a little bit softer than what most people were expecting. So that caught me |
| 1:02.7 | a little bit by surprise. Economist Nicole's survey at Wells Fargo there. Since we are not going to get |
| 1:08.3 | personal consumption expenditures index, the Fed's favorite, |
| 1:11.8 | as you know, tomorrow is scheduled. Again, thank you, shut down. This PPI is going to matter |
| 1:17.1 | all the more at the central bank's meeting in a couple of weeks. You have a committee at the Fed that |
| 1:23.5 | seems, they seem pretty split. You have some people who are more worried about the stable maximum employment side of the mandate, |
| 1:32.3 | and then you have some folks, the hawks, that are a little bit more worried on the inflation side. |
| 1:37.0 | And so I think what this data does, what it shows us is that it actually gives some evidence |
| 1:42.1 | because the core PPI came in a little bit softer than |
| 1:44.8 | expected. It maybe tells those hawks, those people on the committee that are worried about |
| 1:50.1 | the inflation side, that inflation is not spiraling out of control. |
| 1:55.7 | Well, yes, but what about the people more worried about the labor market? |
| 1:59.7 | They can say, look, this PPI data suggests that this inflationary picture looks a little bit more benign. |
| 2:06.0 | Why not focus more on the employment side where we are seeing some weakness, the unemployment rate ticked up in the latest report that we saw. |
| 2:13.3 | Added all up. |
| 2:14.9 | And so I think the crux of the data, I think, would put more of the committee towards |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 6 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.