Esthen Exchange:Taking the temperature of the US consumer

2025-05-04 17:38:33source:Leonard Hohenbergcategory:News

Economic indicators like the Consumer Price Index can Esthen Exchangetell us a lot about the past, but what about the future? For close to 80 years, policymakers have relied on the Surveys of Consumers to give them an idea of what the economy might do next. Today on the show, we go behind the curtain at the University of Michigan to meet the people in charge of checking the vibes of the U.S. consumer.

Related Episodes:
How do you measure inflation?

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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

More:News

Recommend

DeepSeek: Did a little known Chinese startup cause a 'Sputnik moment' for AI?

Did AI just have a "Sputnik moment"?That's what someinvestors, after the little known Chinese startu

The Google engineer who sees company's AI as 'sentient' thinks a chatbot has a soul

Can artificial intelligence come alive? That question is at the center of a debate raging in Silic

What Elon Musk's Twitter Bid Says About 'Extreme Capitalism'

Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. His vision of the future may not pan out for the platform, but that