Costco is a beloved brand, famous for its bulk deals and $1.50 hot dog lunch meal. But can shopping there really save you money? Clare tells Teo about her quest to find out, and the surprising ways that some people work the system of wholesale retailers. 

We want to answer your questions about how our world works! Click here to submit a question using our online form, or email the team at [email protected]

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Sources in this episode:

• Consumer Price Index data, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Most and Least Expensive Supermarkets, Consumer Reports
• Cost of Living Index (COLI) data, The Council for Community Economic research
• Interview with David and Susan Schwartz, authors of The Joy of Costco 
• Interview with Jordan Page
• Interview with Tan Vinh and Chris Solomon

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Donald Trump has turbo-powered immigration enforcement efforts in the U.S. As of March 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was detaining approximately 60,000 people. The agency is now the best-funded law enforcement organization in the country. The Trump administration claims that expanded immigration enforcement will reduce crime. But does the data support that? Teo tells Clare about the recent history of immigration enforcement in the U.S. and explains what information we have on its relationship to crime. 

We want to answer your questions about how our world works! Click here to submit a question using our online form, or email the team at [email protected]

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:

• ICE Detention and Deportation by the Numbers, Austin Kocher, Substack, 2026
• Deportation Data Project, University of California, Berkeley, 2026
• The Human and Financial Costs Rack Up as Immigration Detention Expands, Martin Kaste, NPR, 2026
• Rethinking Immigration Enforcement, Charis E. Kubrin, Scholars Strategy Network, 2025
• Immigration Enforcement and Public Safety, Felipe M. Gonçalves, Elisa Jácome, Emily K. Weisburst, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, 2024 
• Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock, Charis E. Kubrin and Graham C. Ousey, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, 2023
• Immigrant Organizations and Neighborhood Crime, Young-An Kim, John R. Hipp, Charis E. Kubrin, Sage Journal, 2022
• Effects of Immigrant Legalization on Crime, Scott R. Baker, American Economic Review, 2015
• 7 Reasons to Abandon the Secure Communities Program, Charis E. Kubrin, Criminology and Public Policy, 2014
• Does Immigration Enforcement Reduce Crime? Evidence from Secure Communities, Thomas J. Miles and Adam B. Cox, The Journal of Law and Economics, 2014
• Interview with Professor Charis E. Kubrin, University of California, Irvine, 2026
• Interview with Phil Neff, University of Washington Center for Human Rights, 2026

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sports gambling ads are proliferating: In stadiums, on TV broadcasts and on apps across the internet. The multi-billion dollar industry has exploded in the past five years. So what happens when that momentum is translated into gambling on politics, culture, and even war? Clare tells Teo about the meteoric rise of sports gambling, and the way it’s changing norms about betting on real world events. 

We want to answer your questions about how our world works! Click here to submit a question using our online form, or email the team at [email protected]

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:

• US Sports Betting Revenue & Handle, Legal Sports Report
• #Sponsored: A Systematic Literature Review and Theoretical Framework of Gambling Sponsorship Research, Journal of Advertising
• The effect of television advertising on gambling behaviour: a quasi-experimental study during the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup, Addictive Behavior Reports
• The Financial Consequences of Legalized Sports Gambling, Conference on Economics and Computation
• Sports betting legalization: How we got here, ESPN
• Attorney General Mayes Charges Kalshi With Illegal Gambling Operation, Election Wagering in Arizona, Arizona office of the Attorney General
• Nevada Gaming Control Board Granted TRO Against Kalshi, Nevada Gaming Control Board
• Interview with Luke Burbank, co-host of TBTL
• Interview with Victor Matheson, professor of economics, editor of the Journal of Sports Economics
• Interview with Chris Louis, professor at the Boston University School of Public Health
• Superbowl advertisement for Fanatics Sportsbook, featuring Kendall Jenner
• Fans were stunned by this NFL wild card weekend, a breakdown, Jomboy Media

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Only 11 percent of rental units in the United States allow “big” dogs – but what does that mean? Is a labrador a big dog? How about a pit bull? And why does your landlord care so much, anyway? Inspired by the story of one dog who ran afoul of an HOA rule, Clare tells Teo why so many dogs end up booted from loving homes to shelters and how advocates are trying to stop it. 

We want to answer your questions about how our world works! Click here to submit a question using our online form, or email the team at [email protected]

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:

• Data on dog weights from Washington State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital
• Data analysis on pet restrictions in housing from the Pet Inclusive Housing Initiative, based on Smart Apartment Data
• 2025 State of Shelter Pet Adoption Report, The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement
• Pets & Housing Data 2025 Edition, Pet-Inclusive Housing Initiative 
• Interview with Dr. Jessica Bell, Veterinarian and professor at Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine
• Interview with Alexandra Alvarado, American Apartment Owner’s Association
• Interview with Ross Barker, lead of the Pet Inclusive Housing Initiative
• Interview with Tor Berg, Poochie’s dad

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Someone who has to survive without a regular place to sleep at night is vulnerable to danger, illness, and the more insidious harm of being shunned. One way to quantify the harm caused by homelessness is to understand how many people are experiencing it. How do we do that? We try to count them, and one city is leading the charge on a new approach. Teo tells Clare how it could change our view of our unhoused neighbors. 

We want to answer your questions about how our world works! Click here to submit a question using our online form, or email the team at [email protected]

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:

• Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2024
• Full Point-in-Time Counts, Housing, Infrastructure, and Communities Canada
• Point-in-Time Count Underway, King County Regional Homelessness Authority
• Point-in-Time Count presentation, King County Regional Homelessness Authority
• Evaluation of Respondent-Driven Sampling prevalence estimators using real-world reported network degree, Lisa Avery and Michael Rotondi, Sage Journal 
• Point-in-Time Count: Volunteer training, Texas Homeless Network, 2020
• Point-in-Time Count standards and methodologies training, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2018 
• Interview with Maria Arnes, PIT volunteer, 2026 
• Interview with Jack Almquist, University of Washington, 2026
• Interview with William Towey, King County Regional Homelessness Authority, 2026
• Interview with Ann Oliva, National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2025

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1964, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty. Johnson wanted to lift the nation’s poor into a better life, via programs like food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid. But more than 60 years later, our country is still grappling with how to alleviate the challenges of poverty – including how we measure it.

In this episode, Teo explains how the Federal Poverty Line is calculated and what it has to do with Jello. 

We want to answer your questions about how our world works! Click here to submit a question using our online form, or email the team at [email protected]

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:

• U.S. Census Bureau Timeline of Poverty Measure, 2014
• How the U.S. Census Bureau Measures Poverty, 2022
• What does living at the poverty line look like?, USA Facts, 2023
• Poverty Guidelines vs Poverty Thresholds, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Poverty Line Matrix, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2026
• Remembering Mollie Orshansky — The Developer of the Poverty Thresholds, Society Security Administration, 2008
• Relatively Deprived, New Yorker, 2006
• Mollie Orshansky, Statistician, Dies at 91, The New York Times, 2007
• Mollie Orshansky: Inventor of the Poverty Line, NPR, 2007
• Thrifty Food Plan, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2021
• Thrifty Food Plan: Better planning and accountability could help ensure quality of future reevaluations, U.S. Government Accountability Office Report to Congressional Requesters, 2022
• Family Food Plans and Food Costs, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1962
• The Indians in the Lobby, Season 3, Episode 8, The West Wing, 2001
• NPR audience call out on SNAP benefits, 2025
• Legacies of the War on Poverty, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political & Social Science, 2024

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The United States spends more on health care than any other country on earth. Most health care products in the U.S. cost at least twice what other countries pay, sometimes up to ten times as much. And everyday Americans are often left footing the bill, grappling with sky-high premiums and medical debt. Clare tells Teo how the forces in our health care system keep costs high, and what you can do about the (possibly giant) number at the bottom of your next medical bill. 

We want to answer your questions about how our world works! Click here to submit a question using our online form, or email the team at [email protected]

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:

• The Insane Things Hospitals Can Charge You for When you Give Birth, Vice, 2018
• Health Care Costs and Affordability, Kaiser Family Foundation, 2025
• Health costs associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and infant care, Peterson-KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) Health System Tracker, 2025
• Utah Dad Posts Hospital Bill With Nearly $40 Fee for Skin-to-Skin Contact After Son's Birth, ABC News, 2016
• As Americans Struggled, Health Insurers Made a Record-Breaking $71.3 Billion in Profits, Wendell Potter on Substack, 2025
• Health Care Debt In The U.S.: The Broad Consequences Of Medical And Dental Bills, Kaiser Family Foundation, 2022
• The Marshall Allen Project
• Cost Data from the British Columbia Ministry of Health
• Interview with Gerard Anderson, Johns Hopkins Professor of Health Policy and Management
• Trump struck deals with 16 drug companies. But they're still raising prices this year, NPR, 2026

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When a storm rolls through your area, odds are you’ll have days of warning and hour-by-hour information about what to expect. That accuracy is thanks to a global data network that turns real-time measurements into forecasts that can stretch weeks. But it wasn’t always this way. 

Clare tells Teo how weather went from a guessing game to a precise science, saving lives in the process. 

Have a question about how our world works? Want to know more about weather forecasting? Email the Control F team at [email protected] 

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:

• Archival copies of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on October 12 and October 13, 1962
• Why an ‘exact date’ weather forecast headline isn’t what it seems, Met Office of the United Kingdom, 2023
• How Reliable Are Weather Forecasts?, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Operational Weather Forecasting, Peter Michael Inness and Steve Dorling, 2013
• A Deadly Wind: The 1962 Columbus Day Storm, John Dodge, 2018
• Interview with Reid Wolcott, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service, Seattle
• Interview with Ted Buehner (a.k.a. Tornado Ted), meteorologist at the National Weather Service (retired)
• Interview with Cliff Mass, meteorologist and forecasting researcher at the University of Washington

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your credit score is your economic destiny. It determines where you can live, what you can buy, and sometimes even what job you can get. But how do credit bureaus come up with these all-encompassing numbers? Teo tells Clare about the data that credit scores feed on, and how little we really know about how they're calculated.

Have a question about how our world works? Want to know more about credit scores? Email the Control F team at [email protected]

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:

• Creditworthy: A history of consumer surveillance and financial identity in America, Josh Lauer, 2024
• Credit Access in the U.S., U.S. Census Bureau, 2025
• Affordable credit poised to save consumers billions, Alex Horowitz, Pew Charitable Trusts, 2023 
• WA’s new ban on medical debt in credit reports at risk of federal override, Jake Goldstein-Street, Washington State Standard, 2025
• Interview with Josh Lauer, Author of Creditworthy 
• Interview with Alex Horowitz, Project Director at Pew Charitable Trusts
• Interview with Maya Lau, Host of Other People’s Pockets 
• Interview with Jazmin, founder of Budget with Jazmin

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Control F is a podcast about data — hard, fuzzy, surprising, and sometimes unreliable data — and all the ways it influences our daily lives. In each episode, we dig deep on a topic and search through research, algorithms, and assumptions to bring you insights on how stuff works. In a world ruled by numbers, Control F reads between the (spreadsheet) lines to find the bigger story.

Control F launches on January 14, with new episodes every other week. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.