Live performance has always been a risky business, run on thin margins. The COVID-19 pandemic has ratcheted up that risk and sharpened those margins to a razor's edge.

Performing After A Pandemic

A little show about big ideas. From the people who make Planet Money, The Indicator helps you make sense of what's happening today. It's a quick hit of insight into work, business, the economy, and everything else. Listen weekday afternoons.

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According to a government report released this week, Congress has until 2033 to fix Social Security before retirees receive an automatic benefit cut of about 21%. This is a more optimistic estimate from a previous report that stated the Social Security Trust Fund would run dry sooner, but it still paints a grim picture for a program that millions of retirees rely on.

Today, NPR's Chief Economics Correspondent joins the show to explain what exactly lawmakers can do to fix Social Security and why proposed solutions might be easier said than done.

Related episodes:
What would it take to fix retirement? (Apple / Spotify) 

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Iceberg ahead for Social Security

Back in 2019, The Indicator started checking in on with a Venezuelan economist Gabriela Saade. The economy was in freefall. The country was suffering from hyperinflation and a huge jump in poverty.  Today, the U.S. faces a spike in migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, many from Venezuela. So we check back in with Gabriela. Venezuela is due to go to the polls in July. We ask Gabriela and two other Venezuelans: what are economic conditions like at the moment? How has life changed since the pandemic? Some of the answers surprised us.

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Why Venezuela is no longer in freefall

What happens when small town politics collide with the climate crisis? And how do hazard maps—maps that show which homes in your neighborhood are at risk of getting destroyed or damaged by a natural disaster—come into play? On today's episode, how some people—from Indiana to Oregon to Alaska—are facing some very real concerns about insurance and the ability to sell their houses.

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Hazard maps: The curse of knowledge

In Western Colorado, towns and farms are banding together to pay a hundred million dollars for water they don't intend to use. Today on the show, how scarcity, climate change and a first-dibs system of water management is forcing towns, farms and rural residents to get spendy. 

Related episodes:
A watershed moment in the West? (Apple / Spotify) 
The Amazon, the Colorado River and a price on nature 
Water in the West: Bankrupt? 

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

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How Colorado towns are trying to get some water certainty

It's Jobs Friday and the jobs report is in! There's more jobs! ... but not as many as expected. And there's a teensy bit  more unemployment and slower wage growth. But there's an upside ... Plus, healthcare is growing like gangbusters and how immigrants affect American-born workers.

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Performing After A Pandemic

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