How the 2024 presidential candidates compare on national debt

Summary

Marketplace Podcast Summary Episode Title: How the 2024 Presidential Candidates Compare on National Debt
Host: Kai Ryssdal
Release Date: October 11, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of Marketplace, host Kai Ryssdal delves into the pressing issue of the national debt and examines how the 2024 presidential candidates intend to address it. Alongside insights from economic experts Ana Swanson of The New York Times and David Gura of Bloomberg, the discussion provides a comprehensive analysis of the candidates' fiscal policies and their potential impact on the U.S. economy.

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Economic Context: Fed Policies and Current Data

Ryssdal opens the conversation by discussing recent economic data, highlighting the complexities the Federal Reserve faces in navigating the current economic landscape.

• Data Overload: Ryssdal notes, "The economic byword this week... is data. How much of it we have and what it means for where this economy is headed." [00:31]

• Fed's Dilemma: In a dialogue with Ana Swanson, Ryssdal explores the Federal Reserve's stance:

  "The Fed just needs to stay attuned to these indicators... hold the picture steady."
  — Ana Swanson [01:47]

• Interest Rate Decisions: David Gura elaborates on the psychological impact of rate cuts:

  "A lot of it has to do with psychology... why go big if they don't need to at this point?"
  — David Gura [03:06]

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Candidates' Positions on National Debt

The core segment of the episode focuses on the contrasting fiscal policies of the 2024 presidential candidates, analyzed through the lens of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).

Vice President Kamala Harris

• Campaign Promises: Harris has pledged to extend tax cuts for individuals earning under $400,000, expand Medicare to cover home care for the elderly, and assist first-time homebuyers with down payments.

• Projected Impact: These initiatives are estimated to add approximately $3.5 trillion to the national debt over a decade.

  "Vice President Harris would add about three and a half trillion dollars to the debt."
  — Kai Ryssdal [12:45]

• Campaign Response: Harris's campaign disputes the CRFB's analysis, asserting intentions to reduce deficits through measures like increasing the corporate tax rate.

Former President Donald Trump

• Campaign Promises: Trump aims to extend tax cuts across the income spectrum, lower corporate income taxes further, and increase defense spending.

• Projected Impact: These policies are projected to potentially add between $1.5 trillion to $15 trillion to the national debt.

  "President Trump can be anywhere from 1.5 trillion to 15 trillion in the hole."
  — Kai Ryssdal [13:13]

• Campaign Response: While the Trump campaign did not officially respond to the CRFB's analysis, Trump has rhetorically suggested that policies like tariffs could offset some spending.

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Expert Analysis and Implications

Economists and analysts weigh in on the long-term consequences of the candidates' fiscal strategies.

• Kimberly Clausing (Professor of Tax Law, UCLA): Emphasizes the lack of concern among parties regarding deficits and the potential risks involved.

  "Neither party seems particularly concerned about deficits, but they should be."
  — Kimberly Clausing [14:14]

• Mark Zandi (Chief Economist, Moody's): Warns that rising interest on the debt could outpace defense spending, leading to economic instability.

  "Interest on the debt is eating up more and more to the budget... a debt crisis is what it may take to get politicians to take deficits more seriously."
  — Mark Zandi [14:36]

• Implications of High Debt: Elevated deficits could lead to higher interest rates, increased mortgage and loan rates, and potential inflationary pressures, as highlighted by Ryssdal:

  "Higher deficits and debt become a problem when they lead to higher interest rates."
  — Kai Ryssdal [14:54]

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Conclusion

The episode underscores the critical nature of national debt management amidst the 2024 election cycle. While both candidates propose significant fiscal changes, their approaches diverge in ways that could have profound long-term effects on the U.S. economy. Experts caution that without prudent fiscal policies, the nation risks exacerbating its debt, potentially leading to economic instability.

Ryssdal wraps up by emphasizing the urgency for voters to consider the implications of each candidate's fiscal plans on the country's financial health.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "Vice President Harris would add about three and a half trillion dollars to the debt."
  — Kai Ryssdal [12:45]

• "President Trump can be anywhere from 1.5 trillion to 15 trillion in the hole."
  — Kai Ryssdal [13:13]

• "Neither party seems particularly concerned about deficits, but they should be."
  — Kimberly Clausing [14:14]

• "Interest on the debt is eating up more and more to the budget... a debt crisis is what it may take to get politicians to take deficits more seriously."
  — Mark Zandi [14:36]

• "Higher deficits and debt become a problem when they lead to higher interest rates."
  — Kai Ryssdal [14:54]

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This detailed summary encapsulates the episode's exploration of the national debt within the context of the upcoming presidential election, providing listeners with a clear understanding of the candidates' fiscal policies and their potential ramifications.

Transcript

[Ana Swanson]

Doors take us to summers away or winter adventures and afternoon getaways. Your dedicated Fidelity advisor can help you open those doors by working with you on a comprehensive plan to help you reach your wealth's full potential. Because doors were meant to be opened, visit fidelity.com wealthinvestmentminimumsupply Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE, SIPC.

[Kai Ryssdal]

All you gotta do is figure out which way this economy is going. How hard could that be? From American Public Media, this is Marketplace in Los Angeles. I'm Kyle Rysdal. It is Friday today, the 11th of October. Good as always to have you along, everybody. The economic byword this week, as I think I mentioned yesterday, is data. How much of it we have and what it means for where this economy is headed. And that, surprisingly, is where we're going to start on this Friday. Ana Swanson is at the New York Times. David Gura is at Bloomberg. Hey, YouTube.

[David Gura]

Hey, Kai.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Hey, Kai. Ana, let me start with you and the chat that I had with Austan Goolsbee yesterday on the program, the head of the Chicago Fed, of course, and we talked data because, you know, Goolsbee's a data guy and, and I asked him a version of the question that I started the show with. You know, how tough can it be to figure out which way this economy's going? And he basically said, all we have to do now is hold the picture steady. Labor market's doing well, inflation's doing well. We just gotta hang on. And my question is, with the limited tools that the Fed has, how are they gonna do that?

[Ana Swanson]

Yeah, well, I think you know that. Yeah, you've seen data readings in recent months that have kind of come in on both sides of the equation. And the Fed is trying to, you know, parse those. Some have made us worry that the job market might be a little too weak. Others suggest that inflationary forces are a little too strong. And so the Fed just needs to stay attuned to these indicators. I mean, that's a very difficult task, but essentially, I think that's right. Just hold the picture steady. You know, when it's hard to tell if the economy is too hot or too cold, you're probably getting the balance just about right in terms of what they do. I think the data recently probably rules out another supersized 50 basis point cut from the Fed anytime soon. But most investors are still expecting a cut of 25 basis points at the meeting in November, likely in December, too. That probably feels just about right given the data readings that we've seen.

[Kai Ryssdal]

David Let me ask you this, and it's kind of a subjective question, but, you know, in the grand scheme of things, practical effects on the economy, what difference does it make whether they go 25 basis points or 50 basis points, which is to say a quarter of a percentage point or a half a percentage point? I mean, net, net, you know, what's the difference?

[David Gura]

It's such a good question. And, you know, a lot of it has to do with psychology, I think, how people feel the Fed feels about the economy. I love how you call them a data guy today, but a data dog.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Data dog. There you go. Well, you know, I really love that.

[David Gura]

But look, I think they have models for this, how it's worked out in the past. And they've done 25 or 50. I'm sure that they're looking at those now. But I think so much of it has to do with, as Ana was talking about, the data that's come in, where they think things are headed and kind of this impulse of why go big if they don't need to at this point? So if you're getting readings on both sides of the equation, as Ana said, why would you go for a larger rate cut if a smaller one might do the trick going forward? But it just highlights, I think, the delicacy of this dance. And I was struck after we got this cpi, this inflation reading this week, what all of these Fed officials were saying, and Austan Goolsbee said he's going to be content staying the course. I think John Williams, Tom Barkin of Richmond said the same thing. Rafael Bostic from Atlanta, you talked to a lot, said he feels like it's going to be a quarter point cut. So I think my main takeaway from that conversation that you had, aside from the dog thing that Gulf really liked, was he loves all of the data, he loves consuming all of it. He loves listening to his colleagues on the committee. That stood out to me. And I think that, you know, this week going into next, we're just going to be paying more attention to sort of how folks on that committee are feeling about the path forward.

[Kai Ryssdal]

I love the way you call me out on my own show, man. Thanks very much. I appreciate that. Ana, one last quick note on the Fed and David alluded to this. There have been, and I think I said this yesterday, 20 fed talkers this week. Goolsbee did three of them. They do seem to be saying slightly different things. And so I wonder if it's okay for consumers to go, eh? You know, the Fed can't figure it out, we're just gonna keep on spending money.

[Ana Swanson]

Yeah. I mean, there is a little bit of a spread, and you even saw that with the big 50 basis point cut that most Fed officials agree that was the right course, but you certainly had a strong debate about it. And I think that's the experience of most people in the economy as well. There are some signs that things are strong, some concerns about weakness. So it is kind of a mixed picture for everybody. But basically we're on, on a path for a soft landing. You don't get any more soft landing than this. So that's where they want to be.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Wait, keep going with that thought. What about the no landing scenario where the economy, I mean, it's growing at 3%, unemployment's doing well. What do you think, Ana?

[Ana Swanson]

Yeah, well, I mean, you did still see inflation come down a little bit last month, but not as fast as expected. You know, I think that is still a concern, but it is still ticking down. So for now, we're still on that course.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Yeah. David Gurr, a word here about the politics of this economy. You know, voter sentiment on the economy was baked in probably a long time ago, yet still the candidates seem to be trying to squeeze every last dropout. Not too surprising, right? Yeah.

[David Gura]

We got this new read on consumer sentiment, and that was more negative than I think a lot of economists thought going into it. So there's some fear among consumers that prices are going to climb more than maybe they thought they would, a fear sort about the direction of the economy. But I have to flag this piece by Heather Long, who's a columnist for the Washington Post. And the headline is, this is a great economy. Why can't we celebrate it? And I think it gets to the delicacy that you're talking about, which is as you set the table with Austan Goolsbee noting how good GDP is and inflation is and the jobs market is, things look so good by so many measures, yet there's a reluctance to talk about it in that way. And I think no politician this close to the election wants to be sort of trumpeting a good or an improving economy, knowing that there are people in this country who are still suffering as a result. But something that really stood out to me in Heather's piece is if you listen to folks on Wall street, if you listen to economists, academic economists and Wall street economists, so many of them echo what Ana said just a moment ago, which is the expectation is there's going to be a soft landing. The Fed has pulled this off and things directionally are going well. The politics is tricky, as it's bound to be before an election. But I think looking at an unvarnished way, the economy is looking pretty solid.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Anna, last word to you and we're going to change gears here a little bit. And I want to give a shout out to a great piece you had on the fragility of global trade in the Times. The interesting I do wonder though, just bringing you back domestically and politically here, did you have trade on your bingo card for this election? We're getting tariffs all over the place. Former President Trump was talking about renegotiating the usmca, the NAFTA successor, which he negotiated in the first place. I just, I think this is really interesting.

[Ana Swanson]

Yeah, absolutely. There's been plenty to dig into and I don't think, you know, with, with President Trump again on the ballot that there was any mystery that trade would be a topic. It's really been an interest and kind of an obsess his for years. And obviously he's really doubling down on his plans for tariffs. But I think the mystery is kind of what Kamala Harris thinks about all of this. Right. So she said that she would use targeted tariffs. In some ways she's kind of modeled Biden's approach, but it's kind of hard to tell if she's more of a protectionist or more of an internationalist. And I think she's just not as focused on economic policy issues. So, yeah, I think we know what the direction with Trump is bigger more of what we saw in the first term with Kamala Harris. It's a little more of a question mark for me.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Ana Swanson at the New York Times, David Gura at Bloomberg on a Friday afternoon. Thanks you two.

[David Gura]

Thanks, Kai.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Thanks Sky Wall street to end the week highs of the record variety will have the details when we do the.

[Kamala Harris]

Number.

[Kai Ryssdal]

As surely as day follows night. The producer price index follows the consumer price index CPI we got a couple of days ago. David talked about that PPI inflation at the wholesale level. We got this morning September data. The core number actually went up more than analysts had been guessing because services got more expensive goods, which is stuff went down not a lot either way on either one of them. So alarm bells aren't quite sounding. But let's talk trends here, shall we? Marketplace's Kaylee Wells made some calls to do just that.

[Matthew Martin]

Looking at the aggregate numbers, senior US Economist Matthew Martin at Oxford Economics is feeling optimistic. He says the fact that final demand was pretty much flat really tells the.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Story of a really stable economic environment.

[Ken Simonson]

Which is at the end of the.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Day what the Fed's looking for.

[Matthew Martin]

But there are two big pieces in this report, goods and services. Martin says the rising price of goods has stabilized and landed right about where it should be. Service price increases are taking a little longer to get there.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Core goods is running at 2%. Core services is running at 4%.

[Ken Simonson]

So services in general have been the.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Really sticky side of things.

[Matthew Martin]

Martin says the Fed wants to see the services number come down and the fact that services is the number that increased is not a step in the.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Right direction and it's actually rising faster than it was in September, October of 2023.

[Matthew Martin]

Daniel Lacaye is Chief Economist with the investment bank Tressis.

[Kai Ryssdal]

The services indicators show a very hot and probably hotter economy than one would like.

[Matthew Martin]

The other big drag on the index is the recent plummet in energy prices, specifically gasoline and diesel. Chief economist Ken Simonson of the Associated General Contractors of America says that dip is making construction appear more affordable, affordable even though copper and lumber prices increased last month.

[David Gura]

So I don't want to give the picture that everything is calm or declining in price.

[Matthew Martin]

These numbers are also from a month ago, Simonson says, and a lot has happened since then.

[David Gura]

We've had some pretty dramatic things that potentially could affect costs, two hurricanes and.

[Kai Ryssdal]

A brief dock strike.

[Matthew Martin]

But he also says these prices are still just the ones that producers are paying. And he's hopeful that the dips and peaks are small enough this month that they won't be all that noticeable for U.S. consumers, at least in the short term. I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Have you noticed amid all the policy proposals and promises the two major party candidates are making in their runs for the White House that the words debt and or deficit are crossing nobody's lips, which nobody likes to talk about unpleasant things, right? But with the federal budget deficit at $1.8 trillion for the fiscal year just ended and the national debt at $35.69 trillion as of today and counting, of course, that's real money. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released an analysis of the campaign promises of the presidential candidates for both parties this week and what they are projected to cost. Both are likely to increase deficits and the national debt trumps by a good deal more. Marketplace spree Benishore has that one.

[Kamala Harris]

Vice President Kamala Harris campaign has promised to extend tax cuts for Those making under $400,000 a year, have Medicare cover home care for the elderly, help with down payments for first time home buyers, among many other things the debt price tag on all that.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Vice President Harris would add about three and a half trillion dollars to the debt.

[Kamala Harris]

That's over ten years. And Mark Goldwine is senior vice president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Budget, and that's inclusive of their pay.

[Ken Simonson]

Fors and their tax increases.

[Kamala Harris]

Former President Donald Trump has promised to extend tax cuts up and down the income spectrum, lower the corporate income tax and increase defense spending, to name a few items. Price tag there.

[Kai Ryssdal]

President Trump on net would add about $7.5 trillion to the debt.

[Kamala Harris]

The CRFB actually imagines several different worlds where things go better or worse for the budget.

[Kai Ryssdal]

And in that range we found that Vice President Harris could be anywhere from.

[Kamala Harris]

Deficit neutral to $8 trillion in the.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Hole, whereas President Trump can be anywhere from 1.5 trillion to 15 trillion in the hole.

[Kamala Harris]

The Harris campaign sharply disagreed with the analysis and said it'll reduce deficits. The Trump campaign didn't respond to requests for comment, but in speeches the has claimed the same There are models that suggest Harris could reduce or freeze deficits, but no independent models that suggest Trump might. Harris would raise revenue through increasing the corporate tax rate, for example. Trump has pointed to tariffs as a way to raise money.

[Ana Swanson]

No, we've included the most revenue you could get from those.

[Kamala Harris]

Erica York is with the Tax foundation and did the math.

[Ana Swanson]

That doesn't even offset the full cost of just making the 2017 tax cuts permanent.

[Matthew Martin]

And Trump has identified several more tax.

[Ana Swanson]

Cuts on top top of that that he would like to pursue.

[Kamala Harris]

Neither party seems particularly concerned about deficits, but they should be, says Kimberly Clausing, professor of tax law at ucla.

[David Gura]

We're in a booming economy, but you never know when the next recession is coming. You never know what national security threats the United States might be subject to. And if you're already maxing out the credit card, then when something bad happens, you're not ready.

[Kamala Harris]

More immediately, interest on the debt is eating up more and more to the budget, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's.

[Kai Ryssdal]

The government's shelling out more on interest than they are on defense budget for the first time in history.

[Kamala Harris]

Deficits can also eventually start to push buttons in the economy that you really do not want pushed because they end up limiting economic growth.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Higher deficits and debt become a problem when they lead to higher interest rates.

[Kamala Harris]

Suddenly injecting more money into the economy can cause inflation, says Mark Goldwine, which can force the Fed to raise interest rates.

[Kai Ryssdal]

But then instead of inflation, what you have is a higher mortgage rate and a higher rate on your car loan.

[Kamala Harris]

Plus, if the government sells more and more bonds to pay for its spending, somebody has to buy those.

[Kai Ryssdal]

If there's so much debt, if there's a lot of bonds out there that need to be purchased, those people who are buying it begin to say, hey, look, are you going to be able to pay me back? They begin to question it and they say, you got to pay me in higher rate of interest to compensate for the risk that you might not.

[Kamala Harris]

In other countries, that's led to a spiral where the debt gets so big investors don't want to lend, so rates go up and the debt gets even bigger and investors want to lend even less. That is what you call a debt crisis. And Zandi says a crisis is what it may take to get politicians to take deficits more seriously. In New York, I'm Sabree Benishore for Market.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Coming up.

[Matthew Martin]

A lot of people are sharing these pictures of the roads broken up online, but not sharing exact road names and locations.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Details matter after natural disasters. But first, let's do the numbers. Dow industrials up 409 points today, 1% 42,863. The Nasdaq up 60 points. Six zero points, one third of 1%, 18,342. The S&P 500 gained 34 points, about 6. 10%, 58 and 15 there. For the five days gone by, the Dow lifted 1.2%. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 both rose about 1.1%. Today was a big day for bank earnings. JP Morgan Chase said profits declined 2% less than what was predicted. So shares went up 4 and 4, 10% today. Wells Fargo reported a profit decline of 11%, also less than analysts expected. Wells Fargo shares up 5 and 6, 10% today. Insurance companies. Oh good. I'm glad you asked. Progressive Insurance picked up nine, ten percent. Allstate ascended one and three tenths percent today. Bond prices went down. The yield on the ten year treasury note rose 4.09%. You're listening to Marketplace. You turn to Marketplace for up to the minute news for stories that show you the connections between global events and your personal economy. And you're not alone. Marketplace is the most widely consumed business and economic news program in the country. We're proud to make fact based journalism freely accessible and Marketplace investors make it all possible. Your year end donation today will make a real difference in our nonprofit newsroom and in the lives of millions of Marketplace listeners every single day. So please contribute what you can [e-mail] donate. This is Marketplace. I'M Kai Ryssdal. It has been a wild couple of years. Well, for a lot of things, but most specifically for us right now, the price of lithium. It is, as you may be aware, a crucial component in batteries, and lithium prices shot up a couple of three years ago as investments in electric vehicles and sales of same took off. Then more supply came online and EV sales started to level off and prices tumbled. Despite the down market, though, the mining giant Rio Tinto is spending $6.7 billion to buy a lithium company, Marketplace's Henry Epp reports.

[Chris Berry]

If the lithium market has been struggling so much, it's fair to wonder why a big mining company decided to spend billions to increase their footprint in it right now. Chris Berry is president of House Mountain Partners.

[Kai Ryssdal]

This is a countercyclical move on the.

[Chris Berry]

Part of Rio Tinto and pretty opportunistic Translation. Rio Tinto is following the first half of an old investing adage buy low. Their expectation is that lithium's a good bet in the long run.

[Kai Ryssdal]

They're looking out 5, 10, 15 years from now and want to be a part of this shift regardless of near term fluctuations with respect to EV demand.

[Chris Berry]

Because even though that demand has fallen well short of car companies very lofty expectations from a few years ago, it's a technology that's probably not going away, says Jessica Trancic at mit.

[Ana Swanson]

There are good reasons to expect that growth in demand for EVs to continue, and therefore continued growth and demand for.

[Chris Berry]

Lithium in the US that demand growth could really start to climb again in the next decade, says Tom Murinout, a professor at Columbia University. Because he says, costs of EVs could keep falling and the other element is.

[Ken Simonson]

Availability of charging infrastructure and that is also improving.

[Chris Berry]

And lithium batteries will probably still be powering EVs five to 10 years from now, says Adam Megginson, a senior analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Because lithium is special, you kind of.

[Ken Simonson]

Can'T get past that chemistry fundamental, which.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Is how light it is versus how much energy it's able to store, which.

[Ken Simonson]

Is so important for EV applications, where you're carrying that weight around.

[Chris Berry]

And while it's waiting for the price of lithium to rebound, Rio Tinto has other ways to make money, including iron ore and aluminum, says Tom Murinout at Columbia.

[Ken Simonson]

That means that they can carry risk for a longer time. That means that they can wait for the lithium price to increase for a.

[Chris Berry]

Longer time and eventually, if all goes to plan, they can complete the other half of that old investing adage and sell high. I'm Henry app for Marketplace.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Western North Carolina is a couple of weeks ahead of Florida in hurricane cleanup. The Sunshine State is still, of course, assessing the damage and sorting things out. From Milton in North Carolina, though, things are slowly coming back together. Among the many things very nearly wiped out when Helene hit was the communication network in the remote mountain parts of that state. Family and friends on the outside were able to get updates and information into relatives sometimes. Now, two weeks later, cell service is slowly being restored from wfae. Zachary Turner has more. Thank you.

[Ken Simonson]

After Hurricane Helene, many conversations at the grocery store here in Boone, North Carolina began like this one.

[Matthew Martin]

I hope you and your family and friends have all been safe.

[Ken Simonson]

Taylor Okey is a cashier here at Earth Fair in Boone, a college town and base camp for folks looking to explore the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway. Because floods severed communication between western North Carolina and the rest of the world. A lot of information about road closures, distribution centers and police checkpoints traveled by word of mouth.

[Kai Ryssdal]

I heard Capone's was giving free food.

[Matthew Martin]

I saw they were cooking pizzas. Another hospitality house is having a lot of people drop off like cooked food.

[Ken Simonson]

Boone saw some damage, but when Oki's Wi Fi returned, she got her first look at the devastation outside of town on TikTok and Instagram. Still, social media posts could only tell her so much.

[Matthew Martin]

A lot of people are sharing these pictures of the roads broken up online, but not sharing exact road names and locations.

[Ken Simonson]

Cell coverage in Boone returned faster than in many other towns elsewhere in the mountains, a different story played out. Sarah Paddock lives in Durham, North Carolina. The morning of the hurricane, her father sent a video from where he lives in Silva, a town of about 2,600 people situated along a creek.

[Kai Ryssdal]

It was flooding I had never seen before in the area in my lifetime, says someone born and raised in Silva.

[Ken Simonson]

After that, she didn't hear from her parents for 24 hours. When they finally called, they told her they could only get a signal by standing on a small stretch of highway near town.

[Kai Ryssdal]

It was like a 15 second phone calls in and out. Just hey, we love you, we're okay, house is okay, dogs are okay. Don't know when we're going to be able to call again.

[Ken Simonson]

Paddock and others who were not in the storm's path fell into a similar role. Through text, social media and piecemeal phone calls, they've been providing information about road closures, Internet access and neighboring towns to their loved ones in the hardest hit areas. That is if they could reach them. And now, almost two weeks after the Storm service is still spotty in some areas. So how is it that so much of western North Carolina lost connectivity for so long? Well, Hurricane Helene toppled power lines. Around 86,000 are still waiting on power in the most flooded areas. It may take months to repair damaged substations. Cell towers typically have backup power, but the fiber optic lines connecting some were damaged or the generators washed away. But those explanations haven't satisfied everybody. Zeb Smathers is the mayor of Canton, a small town 30 minutes west of Asheville. He wishes cell providers could have done more to prepare for the storm. Blackouts have hindered everything.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Search and rescue, recovery, communication. I'm still getting messages from loved ones looking for their loved ones, not only Canton, but the region because they can't place a phone call.

[Ken Simonson]

Cell providers mobilized repair equipment before the storm, but no one could have predicted the extent of the damage Helene wrought. Stacy Tindall, emergency management director, AT T Mobile, said the company had been monitoring the storm a week before it made landfall.

[Kai Ryssdal]

We're in this for the long haul. I anticipate we'll be out there refueling generators for weeks.

[Ken Simonson]

In a written statement, an AT&T spokesperson said cell coverage had been returned to 98% of North Carolina communities. Verizon's most recent update stated that repairs in the southeast were 90% complete. In western North Carolina, cell towers might not be fully operational for a while. But when Smathers, the mayor of Canton, finally connected to the Internet, he did get one message from his provider.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Verizon Wireless did send me a cell phone bill by text a few days ago, which I thought was a nice touch. So again, if you can send me a bill, you can turn the cell phone on for myself and others.

[Ken Simonson]

He only got the notification because he connected to satellite WI Fi in Boone, North Carolina. I'm Zachary Turner for Market.

[Kai Ryssdal]

This final note on the way out today, cause, effect and the American housing market. This data is from Redfin, the real estate site. So far this year, Redfin says just two and a half percent of the homes in this economy have changed hands. Back in the days of low, low mortgage rates, which would be 20, 21 or so, that number was 4%. Now, of course, what's going on is that people who bought with low rates are simply not feeling the need to move. Our theme music was composed by BJ Lederman. Marketplace's executive producer is Nancy Fargali. Donna Tam is the executive editor. Neil Scarborough is the vice president and general manager. And I'm Kai Rysdal. Have yourselves a great weekend, everybody. We are back on Monday. All right. This is apm. You turn to Marketplace for up to the minute news for stories that show you the connections between global events and your personal economy. And you're not alone. Marketplace is the most widely consumed business and economic news program in the country. We're proud to make fact based journalism freely accessible and Marketplace investors make it all possible. Your year end donation today will make a real difference in our nonprofit newsroom and in the lives of millions of Marketplace listeners every single day. So please contribute what you can [e-mail] donate.