Is AI slopifying the job market? (Two Indicators)

Summary

Planet Money: Is AI Slopifying the Job Market? (Two Indicators)

Episode Date: December 3, 2025
Podcast: Planet Money (NPR)
Hosts: Darian Woods, Waylon Wong, Adrian, Adrienne Ma
Overview:
This episode explores the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on the job market, particularly its impact on white-collar jobs and the hiring process. The episode is divided into two main stories: the macroeconomic parallels between AI adoption and the Industrial Revolution, and the practical effects of AI interviewers on job candidates and hiring outcomes.

---

Main Theme

As AI becomes integral to many sectors, there’s a debate: is AI eliminating or enhancing jobs? The episode investigates claims that AI will drastically reduce white-collar employment, the historical context for such technological revolutions, and real-world examples of AI changing the recruiting landscape today.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Will AI Replace Half of White-Collar Jobs? (00:20–02:00)

• Ford CEO Jim Farley sparked headlines with this prediction:
  • "Artificial intelligence going to replace literally half of all white collar workers in the U.S." (Jim Farley, 00:51)
• The hosts reflect on similar alarms from business leaders about AI transforming the economy, reminiscent of the societal upheaval witnessed during the Industrial Revolution.

---

2. The Big Picture: AI, Productivity, and Historical Parallels (03:13–10:23)

a. Is AI Replacing or Complementing Jobs? (03:13–03:37)

• Examples of AI reducing manual labor and enhancing productivity in roles like coding, customer service, and data analysis.
• Listeners have reported using AI to streamline tedious tasks.

b. Economic Research with Professor Laura Veldkamp (03:37–10:23)

• Laura Veldkamp (Columbia Business School) draws historical parallels between today’s AI wave and the Industrial Revolution.
• Knowledge production, not just material goods, is the focus of AI’s impact.
• Historical Ups and Downs:
  • Life expectancy in Britain doubled post-Industrial Revolution but also triggered modern environmental crises.

    "If you look at England...the average life expectancy was less than 40 years. Today it's around 80..." (Josh Freeman, 05:18)

  • Not a smooth road to progress—working conditions for many worsened before getting better through regulation and labor organizing.

    "It took generations of organized labor activity, government regulation, and advancements in healthcare to change these conditions." (Darian Woods, 05:52)

• The concept of labor share of income:
  • Measures how much of economic output goes to workers versus owners/capital.
  • Veldkamp's research shows that in finance (an early AI adopter), AI could shrink labor’s share by 5%, similar to what happened in the Industrial Revolution.

    "We find that a worker who has AI skills in the financial sector is making about $22,000 a year more than somebody who doesn't." (Laura Veldkamp, 08:25)

  • Important nuance: The “pie” (profits/GDP) may be larger, so workers can still earn more in absolute terms even with a smaller share.
• Warnings about monopolization:
  • As in the 19th century, early adopters of AI risk gaining too much market power ("robber barons").

    "There's a risk that we could follow the same path here where...early adopters that become monopolists...squeeze us as consumers and...workers." (Laura Veldkamp, 08:58)

  • Today’s AI landscape already shows high concentration from the start, unlike past industries which took decades to consolidate.

    "We're starting from extreme concentration. That's the way it's beginning...monopolized from the get go." (Josh Freeman, 09:51)

• Open questions remain about how society will share the gains from AI, involving policymakers, regulators, workers—and computers themselves.

---

3. AI in Recruiting: The Case of "Anna," the AI Interviewer (12:34–20:26)

a. Problem: The "Leaky Funnel" in Recruiting (12:34–14:17)

• David Koch (Chief of Transformation and Innovation at PSG Global Solutions):
  • Describes hiring as a leaky funnel—lots of applicants drop out before placement.
  • Time is critical: If you call an applicant within a minute, 85% connect, but wait 15 minutes and it drops to 35%.

b. Solution: Introducing Anna, the AI Recruiter (14:17–15:59)

• PSG built "Anna," an AI-powered phone recruiter to conduct initial candidate interviews—demonstrated live by host Adrian, who fields typical interview questions from Anna.

  Anna: "Can you describe a situation where you had to manage multiple competing demands while handling a customer call?" (14:50)

c. Evaluating Anna: Does AI Interviewing Work? (15:59–19:39)

• PSG partnered with economist Brian Jabarian (University of Chicago) to test Anna's effectiveness with a randomized study:
  • Three applicant groups: human interviewer; AI interviewer; or choice of either.
  • Human recruiters still reviewed final interview transcripts or audio before hiring.
• Surprising Results:
  • 78% of candidates chose AI over human interviewers.

    "Given a choice, 78% of candidates choose to be interviewed by an AI voice agent." (Brian Jabarian, 17:45)

  • Applicants felt AI was less judgmental; women, in particular, preferred the AI and reported feeling less discrimination.
  • Candidates who used Anna were:
    • 12% more likely to get a job offer.
    • 18% more likely to start and stay in the job for at least a month.
  • Linguistic analysis revealed that Anna’s interviews brought out desirable traits in candidates—more interactivity and vocabulary richness.

    "If you display a lot of interactivity...or you display a high level of vocabulary richness, you increase your chances of getting a job offer." (Brian Jabarian, 19:00)

d. Implications for Recruiters & The Industry (19:39–20:26)

• AI interviewing means fewer human recruiters are needed, but the humans who remain focus more on complex tasks.

  "The role of the recruiter is changing, and I think it's a positive change...it becomes a much more meaningful job, I think." (David Koch, 20:16)

• Dozens of competitors are developing similar tech—AI interviewing may soon be the norm.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• AI Anxiety:

  "Artificial intelligence going to replace literally half of all white collar workers in the U.S."
  — Jim Farley, Ford CEO (00:51)

• On Long-Term Change:

  "You and I and everyone else is facing a planetary crisis from the Industrial Revolution that may seriously impact the future of our species. So, you know, in the biggest scale, you can see both the upsides and the downsides."
  — Josh Freeman, Historian (05:18)

• Market Power Warning:

  "There’s a risk that we could follow the same path here where...early adopters that become monopolists...have an enormous amount of market power and squeeze us as consumers and...workers."
  — Laura Veldkamp (08:58)

• AI in Practice:

  "Given a choice, 78% of candidates choose to be interviewed by an AI voice agent."
  — Brian Jabarian, Economist (17:45) "Anna allowed people to be better versions of themselves."
  — Waylon Wong (19:28)

• Human + AI Future:

  "The role of the recruiter is changing...it becomes a much more meaningful job, I think."
  — David Koch (20:16)

• Humor on AI "Suck-Ups":

  "There's been all this talk about how AI is too sycophantic. Yeah, it's always sucking up, but I feel like now we have to study up on how to suck up to machines."
  — Adrian and Waylon Wong (20:39)

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:20–02:00: Jim Farley’s bold AI job loss forecast
• 03:13–10:23: AI and the labor share—historical and economic analysis
• 12:34–20:26: AI interviews in practice—PSG, Anna the AI recruiter, and the University of Chicago study

---

Tone & Style

The episode strikes a playful yet thought-provoking tone, with self-deprecating humor, spirited banter, and engaging real-life experiments. The hosts blend rigorous economic research with accessible explanations and witty asides, making complex labor issues relatable.

---

Conclusion

The episode concludes that while AI is indeed shifting the job market—especially in areas like recruiting—it’s not all doom and gloom. There are historical parallels that suggest both risk and opportunity. AI can, as the study with Anna shows, sometimes make processes fairer and more effective. But the long-term division of economic benefits, and the risk of tech monopolies capturing most gains, remain open—and pressing—questions.

---

For listeners curious about AI’s immediate effect on the job market and what history can (and can’t) teach us about big tech shifts, this episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank for details. Capital One NA member FDIC.

[Adrian]

This is Planet Money from NPR.

[Waylon Wong]

A couple of months ago, Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, took the stage at an event called the Aspen Ideas Festival. He was there to talk about the future of the economy and the importance of skilled trades. And as he sees it, something of a crisis.

[Adrian]

Hiring an entry worker at a tech company has fallen 50% since 2019. Is that really where we want all of our kids to go?

[Waylon Wong]

And then Jim Farley kind of just drops in this huge prediction.

[Adrian]

Artificial intelligence going to replace literally half of all white collar workers in the.

[Darian Woods]

U.S. half of all white collar workers. That is quite a pronouncement from the CEO of a major company. And Jim Farley's not the only executive talking in these dramatic terms about how AI might upend the economy as we know it. Like it could be a 21st century version of the industrial Revolution. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Darian Woods.

[Waylon Wong]

And I'm Waylon Wong. Normally we're co hosts over at Planet Money's daily podcast, the Indicator. But today we're here to bring you two stories about how AI is changing hiring. Today on the show, we'll visit one slice of the job market where people are already feeling the interview. AI is screening candidates. We'll test it out and check the data that suggests having an AI interview might not be all bad. But first, that big pronouncement. Will it get harder for white collar job seekers to find entry level work? What then? Stay tuned.

[Darian Woods]

Foreign.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

This message comes from Babson College. Ever notice how one idea can change an entire market? At Babson College, graduate students learn to turn bold ideas into real world impact. Whether launching a startup or rethinking business as usual, in Babson's MBA and specialized master's programs, you'll gain the skills and experience to lead change. Ranked number one in entrepreneurship, Babson is shaping leaders who don't just study the economy, they build it [e-mail] gradschool. This message is sponsored by DSW, the birthplace of the humble brag. Full of all kinds of shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. And when there are never ending options for every style, mood, occasion and budget, there is unlimited freedom to play. And that's something to brag about. So go ahead, stock up on fresh sneakers from your favorite brands or try those boots you Always secretly knew you could pull off. Find the shoes that get you at prices that get your budget dsw let them surprise you.

[Waylon Wong]

When it comes to AI and the future of work, we've seen evidence that AI is doing what Ford CEO Jim Farley talked about. It's replacing jobs in fields like coding and customer service.

[Darian Woods]

We've also seen how AI can help people be more productive or efficient at work. We did a recent episode where we heard from listeners who are using AI for manual or tedious tasks like writing emails and analyzing data.

[Waylon Wong]

This is a burgeoning area of research for economists like Laura Veldkamp. She's a professor at Columbia Business School. And the debate over whether AI is replacing or complementing jobs got her mental wheels turning.

[Laura Veldkamp]

I started thinking about the process of knowledge production because AI doesn't produce cups and plates and goods, it produces knowledge. And so, in thinking about the knowledge production process and how it was changing, I was looking to history to guide my thinking about, well, when else have we seen major changes in production processes? And it seemed like the Industrial Revolution was the most natural parallel.

[Darian Woods]

The Industrial Revolution took more than a century to unfold and spanned multiple continents. It is really difficult, probably verging on irresponsible, to try to summarize such a large, complex era of human history, but that's what Josh Freeman is here for.

[Josh Freeman]

I'm a historian and I studied the history of labor and industry in particular.

[Waylon Wong]

If you had lived during this period of history, what job do you think you would want?

[Josh Freeman]

Ah, well, I would like to be a rentier, where you didn't have to have a job, you just lived off the labor of your tenant farmers or the interest off of your bonds. You know, early industrial work was mostly not pleasant.

[Waylon Wong]

Passive income is the dream, Darian.

[Darian Woods]

Or at least so many emails are informing me in my spam folder.

[Waylon Wong]

Those are sent by AI. Anyway, Josh says that when you zoom out on the Industrial Revolution, you can see how it both improved and diminished human life on practically a cosmic scale.

[Josh Freeman]

If you look at England, which is usually considered the first place for the Industrial Revolution, in the mid 18th century, 1750, the average life expectancy was less than 40 years. Today it's around 80. So that's the most basic measure. And you've doubled. On the other hand, you and I and everyone else is facing a planetary crisis from the Industrial Revolution that may seriously impact the future of our species. So, you know, in the biggest scale, you can see both the upsides and the downsides.

[Darian Woods]

Of course, this increase in life expectancy was not a straightforward or linear path. People's health actually got worse as they moved into crowded, polluted cities and worked dangerous factory jobs. It took generations of organized labor activity, government regulation, and advancements in healthcare to change these conditions.

[Waylon Wong]

Ultimately, Josh says, the Industrial Revolution redefined people's relationship with their home life, with nature, even with their basic sense of time. And it's too early to know whether AI is upending human civilization in the same way.

[Darian Woods]

But economists like Laura Veldkamp are trying to study AI related changes in smaller doses. And they're doing this by zooming in on things they can measure. Laura set out to capture essentially how bosses and workers are splitting profits. There is a technical term for this. It's called the labor share of income.

[Waylon Wong]

So think about the money that a business makes. Some of that money comes back to workers in the form of wages, and that percentage is the labor share of income.

[Laura Veldkamp]

It both represents how important labor is in the output, what share of value it's adding, but it also represents what share of the income that labor should receive.

[Darian Woods]

Laura says the labor share of income fell during the Industrial Revolution. This is because the adoption of new machines meant less human labor went into producing goods.

[Waylon Wong]

Laura wanted to know if this is happening with AI and today's knowledge workers. So she and a colleague studied workers in the financial sector. They picked that industry because it's been an early adopter of AI.

[Darian Woods]

There is entry level work that Laura thinks will require less human involvement over time, like maintaining databases and then moving up the career ladder. AI is more of a compliment than a substitute. For example, Laura says workers at financial firms are using AI to analyze data to make investment decisions.

[Waylon Wong]

And here's what Laura and her colleague found in their research. They predict that AI could lead to the labor share of income in knowledge work dropping by 5%.

[Laura Veldkamp]

So if you think of, you know, profits or GDP as a pie, among firms that are adopting AI, workers are receiving a smaller slice of the overall pie.

[Darian Woods]

Laura says this 5% decrease is similar to what happened to the labor share of income during the Industrial Revolution. So that's one potential parallel between then and what's happening with AI today.

[Waylon Wong]

And Laura says it's not necessarily bad news for workers that they're getting a smaller slice of the pie, and that's because the overall pie is getting bigger.

[Laura Veldkamp]

We find that a worker who has AI skills in the financial sector is making about $22,000 a year more than somebody who doesn't. So they may be getting a smaller slice of the pie at their firm, but their firm's likely to be much more profitable. And so as a result, that smaller slice is still more take home pay.

[Darian Woods]

A smaller slice of a bigger pie. So this gets us into big questions about fairness, like how should workers and corporations split profits? Laura says the Industrial Revolution offers lessons here too.

[Laura Veldkamp]

What we saw in the Industrial Revolution is that there were a few firms that adopted these new technologies and became monopolists. And this was the era of robber barons, right, and the, you know, great capitalists. And they were insanely rich at a time when most people were desperately poor. And so I think there's a risk that we could follow the same path here where they're early adopters that become monopolists and have an enormous amount of market power and squeeze us as consumers and us as workers to get most of the rents.

[Waylon Wong]

Concerns about a small group of companies controlling those rents, or, you know, the AI pie, are on Josh Freeman's mind too. He points out that in the US there used to be lots of automakers and steel makers and airplane manufacturers. These industries got concentrated over multiple decades. Josh says so far, AI seems to be different.

[Josh Freeman]

We're starting from extreme concentration. That's the way it's beginning. So that is a somewhat different dynamic, kind of monopolized from the get go. And will that shape the way this unfolds across the society?

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

And who benefits?

[Josh Freeman]

You know, those are still very open.

[Darian Woods]

Questions, open questions that Laura says policymakers and regulators will have to grapple with. You know, if AI is going to make all those companies more productive and wealthy, how should those spoils be divvied up?

[Waylon Wong]

And if the Industrial Revolution is any guide, figuring out how to share this pie could take generations of struggle between government regulators and bosses and workers and computers. Oh, I forgot about the computers.

[Darian Woods]

Yes, they're waiting in the wings. Do not cut them out.

[Waylon Wong]

After the break, my colleague Adrienne Ma is going to speak with Anna. She's a recruiter whose job has been totally upended by AI. In fact, she doesn't know what her job was like before AI at all.

[Adrienne Ma]

Hi, aid.

[Anna (AI Recruiter)]

Hi, Adrian. This is Anna, the AI recruiter from tp, calling to discuss the customer.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

This message comes from adt. You're ready for the holidays. The turkey's in the oven, the sides are perfectly seasoned and out of towners have a place to crash for the night. All that's left to take care of is your peace of mind. With ADT's professionally installed home security systems, you get protection that helps you feel safe. So you can focus on the pie you forgot to bake. When every second Counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com this message comes from Superhuman.

[Adrienne Ma]

The AI productivity suite that gives you superpowers everywhere you work with Grammarly, mail and coda coming together. You get proactive help across your workflow so you can outsmart the chaos experience. AI that proactively helps you go from to do to done faster. Unleash your superhuman potential today. Learn [e-mail] podcast that's superhuman.com podcast this.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Message comes from LinkedIn ads one of the hardest parts about B2B marketing is reaching the right audience. That's why you need LinkedIn ads. You can target your buyers by job title, company role, seniority and skills. All the professionals you need to reach in one place. Get a $250 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Just go to LinkedIn.com nprpod that's LinkedIn.com nprpod Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads.

[Adrian]

PSG Global Solutions is a company that specializes in recruiting, a company you might call if you need to hire a lot of, say, call center agents or warehouse workers or nurses, but don't have a lot of time.

[Waylon Wong]

David Koch works for psg, where his title it's a very fancy one, Chief of Transformation and Innovation. Though funnily enough, his metaphor for recruiting is a very analog piece of technology, a funnel. And it's like a leaky funnel at that.

[David Koch]

The funnel is essentially a number of candidates going in, a number of candidates actually being placed right. And every step of the way, every step in the process, you lose people.

[Adrian]

So typically PSG posts a job online, a bunch of people apply, and the ones that seem promising are contacted by a recruiter for an interview. David says this is where the funnel starts to leak.

[David Koch]

You know, it's one thing attracting talent, and it's one thing identifying talent. The next step is you have to get them on the phone.

[Adrian]

And the more time that passes after a candidate applies, the harder that is. David says if a recruiter calls an applicant within one minute of applying, there's an 85% chance of them actually connecting. But if just 15 minutes go by, that connect rate drops to just 35%.

[Waylon Wong]

And that's why recruiters end up spending hours a day just dialing and redialing the same numbers.

[David Koch]

The amount of time they're spending just trying to connect and how much they actually talk to someone is crazy. And then those that are connecting too very often are like, I'm not interested.

[Waylon Wong]

I Feel like if David were an actor in one of these made for TV infomercials, this is the part where he would look directly into the camera, distraught, and he would say, there's gotta be a better way.

[Adrian]

Yeah. And so what did they end up doing? They brought in a robot, of course.

[Anna (AI Recruiter)]

Hi, Adrian, this is Anna, the AI recruiter from tp, calling to discuss the customer service representative role you recently applied for. Is this a good time to talk?

[Adrian]

Yes, it is.

[Anna (AI Recruiter)]

Awesome. Just a quick heads up.

[Adrian]

So this is their AI interview bot that they developed called Anna, and to show me how it worked, they had Anna interview me for a call center job.

[Anna (AI Recruiter)]

Can you describe a situation where you had to manage multiple competing demands while handling a customer call?

[Adrian]

Are you talking about, like, multitasking?

[Anna (AI Recruiter)]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm referring to.

[Waylon Wong]

Nice one, Adrian. Stalling for time. Vamping.

[Adrian]

Thank you. I handled it just like a real interview because I'm often interviewing or having conversations with people.

[Anna (AI Recruiter)]

That's interesting. I'm listening. Please go on. How do you handle multiple tasks or interview?

[Adrian]

Yeah, sometimes things come up in the conversation where it's going pretty well, don't you think?

[Waylon Wong]

I think so.

[Anna (AI Recruiter)]

Could you think of any advice you might give to someone who is just starting out in this role?

[Adrian]

I guess I would say try to imagine yourself in the other person's shoes and have some empathy for what a person might be going through when they call.

[Anna (AI Recruiter)]

That's a great approach. Having empathy for the customer's situation can go a long way in providing excellent service.

[Adrian]

Yeah. So I'm not feeling great about making it to the next round, to be honest.

[Waylon Wong]

No, I thought that was a good answer. Anna said it was a good answer.

[Adrian]

Nailed it.

[Waylon Wong]

A plus. So PSG Global has this new technology, and the problem was they didn't have the data to prove Anna could do the job as well as a human. So they turned to an economist at the University of Chicago named Brian Jabarian.

[Adrian]

Yeah, and coincidentally, Brian had been looking for a company just like this. Like one that was trying to use AI at a broad scale and importantly, willing to give him access to detailed data on how it was going.

[Brian Jabarian]

It took me three to four years, basically in total, to find a firm willing to partner with me.

[Adrian]

Were there any companies that just, like, laughed in your face when you approached them with this idea?

[Brian Jabarian]

Well, most of them even didn't reply.

[Waylon Wong]

But then. Then PSG said yes because it really wanted to know what effect Anna would have on the recruiting process.

[Adrian]

To test these questions, Brian devised an experiment where job candidates were split into three randomly assigned groups. The first group would go through the normal interview process with a human. The second would be assigned to an interview with Anna, and the third would be given a choice, human or AI, whatever they preferred. Now, importantly for all the job applicants, a human recruiter would still review the transcript or the audio from the interviews and make the actual decision of whether or not to offer a job.

[Waylon Wong]

Brian's hypothesis was that Anna would not do as well as a human. And you can imagine why, right? Like, who among us actually enjoys calling up a business just to get that automated voice that is like, why don't you read me a 16 digit number and I'll, you know. And then you're just like, operator, operator.

[Adrian]

And yet, Brian says, after running this experiment on some 70,000 interviewees, it was.

[Brian Jabarian]

Quite shocking or like, surprising. Which is when Given a choice, 78% of candidates choose to be interviewed by an AI voice agent.

[Waylon Wong]

Given a choice, 78% of people chose AI. Who would have thunk?

[Adrian]

I was also very surprised to hear this. And one explanation seems to be that people felt the AI would be, for lack of a better term, less judgy. And in fact, Brian says job applicants who interviewed with Anna were about half as likely to report feeling discriminated against based on their gender compared to those who interviewed with a human. And interestingly, women were also more likely than men to choose the AI over the human interview.

[Waylon Wong]

But the surprises went even further. Brian also found that people who went through the AI interview process were 12% more likely to get a job offer and about 18% more likely to start and stay in the job for at least a month. So it seems like Anna was better at interviewing than the human recruiters. Of course, the next obvious question is why? Brian says when he analyzed the interviews, he noticed some patterns that people who got interviews tended to display certain, what he calls linguistic features.

[Brian Jabarian]

If you display a lot of, like, interactivity, you have a lot of back and forth, or you display a high level of vocabulary richness, you increase your chances of getting a job offer.

[Adrian]

On the flip side, if a candidate used a lot of so called back channel cues like mm, uh huh, that decreased their chance of getting an offer. And here is the kicker. Candidates interviewed by Anna did better on all these measures compared to those interviewed by a human.

[Waylon Wong]

Okay, so putting this all together, it's almost like Anna allowed people to be better versions of themselves. And Brian says the psychological aspect of all this is definitely worth more study.

[Adrian]

And as for the company psg, you could imagine that having a recruiter that can work 24 hours a day and be infinitely replicated, that is seemingly less prone to human bias and pretty good at its job to boot, is a big freaking deal. And you would be right. David Koch at PSG says they plan to roll Anna out in 80 countries and use it to recruit for a lot of different kinds of jobs. And while it will definitely mean the company hires fewer human recruiters, David says the ones who remain will get to spend more time on analytical tasks and a lot less time just dialing numbers.

[David Koch]

The role of the recruiter is changing, and I think it's a positive change. It's going to get more difficult, but it becomes a much more meaningful job, I think.

[Waylon Wong]

By the way, David says there are dozens of competitor companies developing technology like Anna, so maybe sooner than we think, robots will be interviewing us for jobs.

[Adrian]

You know, there's been all this talk about how AI is too sycophantic.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, it's always sucking up, but I.

[Adrian]

Feel like now we have to study up on how to suck up to machines.

[Waylon Wong]

Oh no. We have maybe a few more years left where you, dear human listener, still have agency and can make your voice heard. That's right, it's the People's Choice. NPR is having our listeners vote on the best podcast. So whether it's Planet Money or the Indicator, just help one of us be throughline. Please vote for [e-mail] People's Choice. There's a link in the show notes. Today's episode comes to you from Planet Money's daily podcast, the Indicator. Check it out if you don't already subscribe. The original stories were produced by Cooper Katz McKim and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Debbie Daughtry. They're fact checked by Sierra Juarez. They were edited by Paddy Hirsch and Kate Concannon. I'm Waylon Wong. This is npr. Thanks for listening.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums. What's in your wallet? Terms apply seecapitalone.com bank for details. Capital One NA member FDIC this message comes from BetterHelp.

[Adrienne Ma]

The holidays are a time of traditions like making your grandmother's pudding recipe or watching that movie you've seen a thousand times. Incorporating therapy into your life can help you take time for yourself during what can be a joyful but sometimes tough time of year. And by caring for yourself, you can show up more for the important moments. This December, start a new tradition by taking care of you. Visit betterhelp.com NPR for 10% off.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone. Com bank for details. Capital One NA Member FDIC.