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Hey, I need a good word to describe an economy that is slowing but where prices are rising. Anybody have any ideas? From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Friday today. This one is the 29th of May. Good as it always is, everybody, to have you along. All right. I was kidding. I know the word for a slowing economy where prices are rising. The question is whether stagflation is where we are. So let us discuss, test my premise, if you will. Amara Mokwe is at Bloomberg. Sudip Reddy is at MSNOW. Hey, you two. Hey, Kyle. Amara, you get to go first. Let's see. GDP comes in this week at 1.6 percent, the revision for the first quarter, annualized, of course. PCE, the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, I'm required by law to say that phrase, comes in at 3.8 percent. It sounds like stagflation

to me. Yeah, it's not. I think it's not really. You don't sound convinced. All right, go ahead. No, no, no. It's not really feeling great. But I mean, I think like when you look at the consumer spending data, and that's, I think, really important because we know that's a key driver of economic growth. You know, we still got, you know, inflation adjusted spending that was up, right? So it's, you know, that's, I think, and we saw the personal savings rate also fall to its lowest level since mid-2022. And some people were flagging that, like, is this a sign that the consumer is finally cracking? I think the reason why people are sort of hesitant to say, okay, yes, we definitely have stagflation is because one of the things we know about the consumer in recent years is that Americans have proven really resilient through a lot of different shocks, a lot of different twists and turns in the economy. And so I think people are just – it's like feeling like it's maybe too soon to say. People want to see how this situation in Iran plays out. you know, it's really hard to get our arms around the situation because it seems like one day we're really close to a deal. And then the next day, maybe we don't have any kind of deal at all. And so I think people are really sort of waiting for that time factor to figure out, okay, you know, is this going to wrap up soon? Or are we going to be dealing with a price shock that kind of endures? So I think, I mean, I think that's the big question.

You have stolen like the next three bullet points on my list of things I was going to talk to you guys about, but we're going to go there anyway. And Sadiq, you get this question and it's this, And it goes to the consumers. Amara was talking about, you know, consumers are still spending, but the savings rate is down. Credit card debt and delinquencies are up. This is the first real hard data, other than the vibes of consumers are cranky, that we've seen that are maybe not great for consumers. Do you think they are, we are cracking finally?

There are signs, like you're standing on that piece of glass and you see the tiny cracks in the corners of it, but it hasn't actually hit in a big way. Look, the delinquencies in credit cards, delinquencies in auto loans, lower-end consumers are very clearly being hit harder, obviously, because of gas prices in particular. But there are just some signs here that are not good if they were to continue. We still have this looming question over us of whether these gas prices being so high are short-term effects or are they more durable. If this goes on, we used to think, oh, well, this is only going to be a few weeks, maybe a few months. And, well, we're at a few months now, and you can actually see it starting to hurt. I just didn't think it was going to show up at numbers that look like they were 20 years ago during the financial crisis. Some of these numbers are bad. Yet, yet, jobless claims are very low. We are in a low-firing economy. Unemployment rate is not bad right now. Also, the overall picture is one of.

stability, but the cracks are there and we've got to pay attention to them.

All right, Amara, let's do this. Let's look at, no pun intended here as you hear what I'm about to say, let's look at looking through the current dynamic, right? And I say that because the Federal Reserve and in fact, Michelle Bowman today, a member of the Board of Governors said, we are still looking through the energy spike. We are looking through the inflation caused by the war in Iran. Tara Sinclair, not a Fed governor, but an esteemed economist in the nation's capital, said, we cannot look through this stuff. And I guess my question is, how do we know what to look through and what is not doable? What can we take out of this as we

try to figure out where the economy's going? Well, I mean, I think, you know, Governor woman had those remarks today. But I do think you are hearing a number of Fed officials kind of changing their tune and kind of warning that, you know, the central bank kind of needs to signal that the next move could very well be an interest rate hike, because more of these Fed officials are starting to get concerned about this inflation being something that they can't look through, right? This is a Fed that is the memory of the pandemic inflation and the transitory misstep is very fresh in their minds. They have not been able to get inflation back down to their 2% target for five years now. And so I think you're seeing more and more Fed officials saying, we're not going to have tolerance for inflation that looks like it is persisting, regardless of what the traditional economic theories would say. Right, right. So Sadiq, you remember how Chair

Powell always used to say, we need more data. It depends on what the data is going to say. what more do they need than pce at 3.8 and and gdp at 1.6 you know they they need to to be able

to look into the future several months down the line like look six years ago they all joked about having to become virus experts uh with the pandemic that is the key to figuring out where the path was now they're trying to become uh they have to become straight or four moves experts to figure out what is actually going to happen in the coming months in the middle east and what kind of problems will mount and worsen for them along those lines. It's not a great picture. A year ago, it was a concern about tariffs. Now it's a concern about the straightforward moves. There are enough things that are clouding the environment here that they've got to be concerned about it, but you don't want to act rashly and then have everything clear up. That's the core uncertainty of the environment right now, which lots of businesses are dealing with it as well. Things could get really, really bad or they could be just fine in a few months. So

you don't want to overreact. Oh, man. Things could be fine or they could be terrible. Sadiq Reddy at MSNOW on a Friday. Amara Mokwe, she's at Bloomberg. Thanks, you two. Thanks, Kai. Wall Street today. Stocks up again. More record highs. Oil down. Though here's your reminder that the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Bonds just kind of sitting there watching it all go by. We We will have the details when we do the numbers. There are racial wage gaps in this economy. There is a gender wage gap in this economy. There is also a wage gap between salaried and hourly workers in this economy. It's fresh data from Indeed's Hiring Lab that shows hourly wages were up 1.7 percent in the past year, while salaried wages were up 2.9 percent. Marketplace's Kelly Wells explains what's going on.

Hourly workers are typically younger, less experienced, new graduates, the same people who are having a tough time finding a job right now.

These are entry-level professionals. They are contractors, freelance workers, interns. They are the ones that saw their posted wage go down. Economist Sneha Puri with Indeed Hiring Lab wrote the report. These people are finding it harder to find a job, which makes it easier to not increase their posted wage at the same rate. That's a pretty big 180 from the post-pandemic boom in 2022.

Back then, hourly wage increases actually outpaced the salaried folks. When things opened up, employers had to scramble a bit more to try to hire those workers, and they had to do more to attract and retain them. Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, says those jobs are more volatile. If the economy's strong, so are those jobs.

wages. Now the economy is weakened somewhat. They don't have that kind of leverage. Unemployment is rising. And therefore, when employers see more sideline workers, they don't have to work as hard

to get the ones they want. In the past year, salaried wages have stagnated too, but not as dramatically. Eric Hurst is an economics professor at the University of Chicago. So over long periods

of time, it is these two things are kind of tracking each other. It just so happened that the hourly grew a lot in the 2022 and 23, and now the salary are growing more in the 25 and 26.

One of the main ways to get a higher wage is to get a new job. Hurst says salaried workers have a tougher time doing that. So if you're, say, an economics

professor, it takes us a little bit longer to kind of, you know, churn and search and find the right match. And now we're making up for our losses a little bit later.

Both hourly and salaried workers saw their wages increase slower than the rate of inflation, which means their real wages or their ability to afford stuff actually went down. I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace.

here's a perhaps unheralded data point about this economy convenience stores account for more than a third of in-person retail stores in these united states so says the national association of convenience stores big convenience if you will and increasingly those stores are places for more than just gas. Marketplace of Kristen Schwab takes it from there.

Mitsuki Japanese Market sits on a busy commercial strip in Brooklyn with a shiny Hello Kitty statue greeting customers at the door. It's a small shop, just a few aisles wide, stocked with colorful, crinkly packages of seaweed-flavored chips and matcha Kit Kats. Austin Johnson hunches over a high top near the front of the store.

Sure. Just so you know, I have to leave in five minutes. I'm stopping my face with an onigiri before work.

O-Nagiri, a rice ball filled with eel and a savory soy sauce for $3.99.

It's a staple. It's very cheap and it's filling and I have a long shift ahead of me, so it's good energy.

Johnson works at a photo studio nearby. He often stops on his way in for a snack and on his way out for an ice cream treat.

I love convenience stores. Me and my partner are kind of like aficionados when it comes to trying like weird snacks and stuff or like new Reese's flavor or new soda. That's, you know, strange or something. So, yeah, this spot's cool.

Convenience stores are increasingly becoming sought-out destinations instead of pit stops on the way to somewhere else. Tom Brennan is chief merchandising officer at Casey's, which has nearly 3,000 stores, mostly in the Midwest. He says the majority of the chain's customers don't even buy gas.

So two-thirds of our profitability comes from inside of the store. That allows us actually to be very competitive when it comes to how we price, you know, retail fuel.

Most convenience stores only make a few cents a gallon on gas, sometimes even less when prices are high.

Which again is why, you know, we're so focused on the other areas of the business and that inside the store offer and that food offer, because we know that there's much more stability inside of that.

For Casey's, stability comes in the form of a slice. It's actually the fifth largest pizza chain in the country, which kind of makes you wonder, what even is a convenience store? Constance Bailey is co-editor of Get It While It's Hot, gas station, roadside, and convenience cuisine in the U.S. South. She says the definition of a convenience store depends on where you are

and who you ask. Are these grocery stores that have gas or are they gas stations that have food, And so in some parts of the South, people think of these more as restaurants.

Bailey says convenience stores have become community gathering spots, especially in rural towns. For the book, her team surveyed Southerners and asked, where are you most likely to eat a hot meal?

Behind churches, like an actual church meal or church function gas station was the second most popular answer.

Convenience stores are also hubs for international cuisine. Nearly half of them are owned by immigrants. According to the nonprofit Immigration Research Initiative, you can get it all at a gas station, Indian curry, Mexican street tacos and southern staples like fried chicken.

I definitely got to gratuitously engage in a lot of a lot of fried food.

Right. And it's not just about the food. Convenience stores have become so ironically cool that early aughts band The All-American Rejects recently performed a pop up concert at a Sheetz store in Pittsburgh. The internet has even coined...

the aesthetic gas station core. Fashion featuring trucker hats and those visor-like sunglasses in chrome colors. At Mitsuki Japanese Market in Brooklyn, owner Jay Kao says blind boxes are super popular right now. They're affordable little figurines. You don't know which toy you're going

to get until you open up the box. So people, you know, when they bring the key, they always

first stop here. He says this is what convenience stores are about. Accessible retail that's a

little curious, a little quirky. When we first opened the store, they said, what's that store? They're looking for the new product. People love to do that because life needs something new.

Something more than just convenience. In New York, I'm Kristen Schwab for Marketplace. coming up you literally get paid more than we do to go travel to different cities and move around

as always though there's a catch first though let's do the numbers The Dow Industrials picked up 363 points today, 7 tenths percent, finished at 51,032. The Nasdaq added 55 points, 2 tenths percent, 26,972. The S&P 500 up 16 points, 2 tenths percent, 75 and 80 there. For the week, the Dow rose 9 tenths of 1 percent. The Nasdaq grew 2 and 4 tenths percent. S&P 500 up 1.4 percent. More about the oil futures market in a second. into oil traders today, though, optimistic about progress on a wrong piece deal. Brent crude hovered around $92 a barrel, had been up to about $114, if you remember. Start market once again boosted by technology. After the bell yesterday, Dell reported its first quarter revenue was up 88% at $43 billion American dollars. Where'd all that money come from? AI, of course. Dell technologies surged 32.75% today. Bonds up yield on the 10-year T-note, down just a little bit, 4.43 percent. You're listening to Marketplace. Vantage Score, the modern credit score used by

3,700 institutions, including nine of the top 10 banks. Built with trended and alternative data, Vantage Score is more predictive, scoring 33 million more consumers than conventional credit scores. Now accepted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for conforming mortgages, Vantage Score 4.0 safely unlocks approximately 2.7 million new mortgages and up to $1 trillion in new loans. Better credit score, better data, better mortgage decisions. VantageScore.com.

The economy is a lot right now. We can't control interest rates or tariffs. As a business owner, you can only control how efficiently your business operates. Payroll is also a lot of late nights, double-checking numbers, worrying about missing tax filings or costly mistakes. That's where Gusto comes in. Gusto is online payroll and benefit software built for small businesses. It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere. With automatic payroll tax filings, simple direct deposits, and built-in tools for offer letters and onboarding documents, Gusto helps reduce administrative workload and streamline day-to-day operations. When every hour counts, having systems run smoothly can make a meaningful difference. Try Gusto today at Gusto.com slash Marketplace and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at Gusto.com slash Marketplace. Gusto.com slash Marketplace.

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With most episodes under five minutes long, staying informed has never been easier. Listen and subscribe to Thoughts on the Market wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Marketplace. I'm Kyle Rizdalm. Every now and then on this program, we do a story on the bond market, specifically a story about...

what's known as the yield curve, comparing the yields, the interest rates for short, medium and long term government bonds. We do those stories because the yield curve can tell us some things about what investors think is going to happen across each of those short, medium and long term time frames. There are, it turns out, similar conclusions to be drawn from the oil futures market, which are basically bets on what the price of oil is going to be at the end of could be next month, next year, even a decade from now. Marketplace's Justin Ho looked at what oil futures are telling us then about where oil prices and energy markets overall might be headed.

The market for actual physical barrels of oil is really complicated. There are different grades of oil that can't be substituted for each other. And nobody really knows what anybody's paying because transactions are private. But oil futures contracts are a totally different matter. They're standardized and they're traded on public exchanges.

And so, you know, that makes it a much easier, a transparent way to form a proxy for what's happening in this very diverse, complicated global marketplace.

That's Mark Finley with Rice University's Baker Institute. He says futures contracts for one month from now give you a pretty good sense of oil prices right now. But contracts are also sold for basically any month in the future.

The only limit is where is the trading activity? I mean, how far out do people want to trade?

Finley says some people buy oil futures to lock in prices, to hedge against uncertainty. Others trade them to speculate. Either way, the price of oil that's baked into those contracts reveals people's expectations about the future, says Anna Mikulska, head of analytics at CGCN Group.

It builds basically up on where we're thinking the market is going.

For instance, if the market thinks demand for oil will slow down in the near future.

That means that in maybe two, three months, we will see the oil prices going down. Hence, we're not going to be pricing the oil at what it is right now. We will discount it by, you know, another $5 or $10.

But right now, futures markets are reflecting a very different expectation, that prices will remain high over the next few months, as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, around $90 a barrel.

That's telling us that the market is extremely tight.

Matt Smith is director of commodity research at the data and analytics firm Kepler. Even a year from now, the futures market is betting that prices will still be higher than they were before the war. Smith says that's because once hostilities end, demand for oil will pick up, especially from countries that depend on the Middle East for their oil.

They're going to build these inventories that they have a bigger buffer so they're not left dependent and scrambling on other countries to get barrels from.

When you go even farther out in the curve, say five plus years from now or even longer, prices fall to $60 a barrel or even less. Dylan White, an oil market analyst with Wood McKinsey, says that means by then

the market is expecting a glut of oil. And that obviously puts downward pressure on oil prices, especially compared to 2026, where we have a major undersupply due to the Strait of Hormuz closure.

White says oil-producing countries, including the U.S., have been ramping up production, and demand for oil may well plateau in the next decade. And that's a number of factors,

but one of them has certainly been increasing electrification and EV penetration.

White's firm, Wood McKenzie, says the war in the Middle East could cause oil and gas importing countries to intensify their embrace of renewables.

So how the world responds to the Middle East conflict will help define the energy transition moving forward. And absolutely, that has major implications for oil demand as well.

And for oil prices, I'm Justin Hough for Marketplace.

Back in the heyday of the pandemic economy, we were doing a whole lot of stories about travel nurses, RNs moving from hospital to hospital to help fill gaps in workforce demand. According to a staffing industry analyst's report, travel nurse revenue peaked in 2022, $45 billion almost. Since then, the market has shrunk a bit, but as more healthcare workers are aging out of that slice of the labor force, there are still thousands of travel nurses roving around the country on those short-term contracts. So here with today's installment of

our series, Adventures in Housing. My name is Emma Larson, and I'm a pediatric ICU travel nurse. I graduated nursing school in May of 2022. When I was a baby nurse, there were travel nurses at the facility I was working at, and I would kind of just pick their ear. And I quickly realized if my lifestyle did allow for it, it could be like the coolest.

thing ever. I was like, you literally get paid more than we do to go travel to different cities and move around and not be tied down to one place. So when I saw the opportunity for myself, I took the leap and haven't turned back yet. The travel contracts are typically anywhere from eight weeks to 13 weeks in length with the option to extend. I started by going up to upstate New York. Then I was in Columbus, Ohio for a little bit. I did spend some time in New York City. And now I am over exploring the West Coast in Phoenix, Arizona and loving it out here so far. My permanent residence is in Florida. My husband and I, that's kind of our home base. He is flexible. He's able to work remotely. So he's able to come with me on these assignments, which is really cool housing during these travel assignments can be a little bit of a challenge we have found some great apps that we use mainly furnished finders it offers fully furnished apartments for short-term leases the challenge is that most travel nursing contracts are posted within a four-week window so it can be a little last minute and a little bit flustering trying to put all the pieces together. But I feel like that's kind of what you sign up for when you choose travel nursing. I feel like it takes a certain personality to be a travel nurse. You have to be extremely flexible, adaptable, but also know kind of when to stand up for yourself. I spend a good deal of time, especially the past few weeks as my contract here is wrapping up, you know, searching for different contracts, talking with recruiters, doing interviews with the management at these facilities, and then also negotiating the pay packages as well once they do come in. So yeah, it's definitely like another part-time job in addition to your full-time nursing job. You know, kudos to all the travel nurses who travel alone. I feel like a lot of them get pets. You know, they'll have like a companion dog to travel with, which is super fun. But yeah, being able to travel with my husband has been so much fun, especially before we settle down

and have kids. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Emma Larson, she's an ICU nurse in Phoenix for now. Wherever you work or whatever you do, tell us about your adventure in housing, would you? You can do it at marketplace.org. This final note on the way out today, Goldman Sachs is out with a new research note. Nothing boring like equities research or corporate profit estimates. No, as it has done a couple of times in the past, Goldman has applied some analysis to the World Cup, which starts in less than two weeks. I'll spare you the details because, honestly, they suck all the emotion and the intangibles out of the beautiful game. Suffice it to say, Goldman has Spain with a 26% probability of winning, France at 19%, Argentina at 14%. And just because of the way the knockout stage brackets work, Goldman says it's Spain over Argentina in the final. I don't know if I agree with that. Our theme music was composed by B.J. Lederman. Marketplace's executive producer is Nancy Farghali. Joanne Griffith is the chief content officer. Neil Scarborough is the vice president and general manager. And I'm Kai Rizdahl. Have yourselves a great weekend, everybody. We will see you back here on Monday, all right? This is APM.

so by now you've probably heard the latest example of one big company buying another

oh yeah i know exactly what you're talking about and if you've ever wondered how and why companies buy each other and what it means for the rest of us you're not alone that's right and that's why

we've got a whole episode about it this week on million bazillion we're learning all about something called mergers and acquisitions, from personal experience, as it turns out.

Actually, I was looking for you, too. I want to talk to you about something super duper important. I want to buy Million Bazillion. Listen to Million Bazillion on your favorite podcast app.