August 25, 2023

A glitch in the consumer-driven recovery

10 minutes

Consumer spending has been fairly resilient in the face of high inflation (see Taylor Swift, Beyoncé). But, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes can pack a punch, and it’s showing up in Americans’ credit card bills. We’ll hear a bit of Macy’s quarterly earnings call and unpack what it tells us about consumer habits. And, AI is being used to give people their voices back. And, we’ll play a round of Name That Tune, economic anthem-style.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“Credit card delinquencies jump past pre-pandemic levels” from Axios

“Big retailers disappoint Wall Street as consumer spending shifts” from Marketplace

“A Stroke Stole Her Ability to Speak at 30. A.I. Is Helping to Restore It Years Later.” from The New York Times

“India lands a spacecraft softly on the moon’s surface” from The Washington Post

“The Trash We’ve Left on the Moon” from The Atlantic

“What’s next for India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission on the moon?” from Space

“The economic anthem of the moment depends on how you read the data” from Marketplace

“Marketplace: Your Economic Anthems” on Spotify

Join us tomorrow for Economics on Tap. The YouTube livestream starts at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time, 6:30 p.m. Eastern. We’ll have news, drinks, a game and more.

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By Marketplace

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