Marketplace All-in-One

This week, a jury found Elizabeth Holmes, who created the defunct diagnostics company Theranos, guilty of defrauding investors. While running the company, she claimed Theranos had proprietary technology that could test someone for a variety of ailments using just a drop of blood. That wasn’t true. So what does the jury’s decision mean for the future of investing in biotech startups? Elizabeth Lopatto is deputy editor at The Verge and covered the trial closely for several months. She said that a major theme during the trial was how Holmes spoke with investors.

While a group of GOP-led states is currently pushing against NASDAQ board diversity requirements, some corporations have already ramped up their diversification efforts. The number of directors from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups jumped by 25% in 2021, and women now make up almost 30% of directors among Russell 3000 Index companies. The shift, while slow, hints at the changing values of companies and their investors. We’ll also hear from recruiters experiencing a boom in business, head to Albuquerque as it pilots a zero-fare bus program and check in with small retailers catching a breath after holiday shopping.

Hey smarties! We’re on a break for the holidays and revisiting some favorite episodes from 2021. We want to say a big thank-you for being part of the “Make Me Smart” family this year — every voicemail, question and donation made a huge difference. None of us is as smart as all of us, and we couldn’t do this show without you. There’s still time to help Marketplace reach its end-of-year fundraising goal. If you can, please donate here. Thanks, happy holidays and we’ll see you in the new year.

Why is it so hard to raise the minimum wage? Even the leading expert on the topic isn’t quite sure.

“It’s actually really popular to raise the minimum wage in the United States, it’s popular across the partisan divide,” said Arindrajit Dube, an economist with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “It just becomes very embroiled in politics…. But then you put it actually as a ballot initiative, it pretty much always passes — including in red states, blue states, purple states.”

After the wage has spent more than a decade at $7.25 an hour, Dube said resistance to a hike is softening among industries like fast food and retail, which used to be hard-liners. Democrats have been trying to tie a new federal minimum wage to the COVID relief bill, but they’ve hit procedural and partisan snags.

Monday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office added a wrinkle. Its analysis said that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 would lift almost a million people out of poverty and raise wages for 17 million more — but it would cost the economy 1.4 million jobs.

So today on the show we’ll go deeper into the issue with Dube, who calls the CBO projection “a bit too pessimistic.” He’ll also tell us how this conversation plays out overseas, how minimum wage hikes affect spending and gross domestic product, and why a country as big and diverse as the U.S. needs a federal minimum wage at all.

Later in the show, listeners call in with their experiences teaching in-person classes and getting the vaccine. Plus the rapper Dessa — recently behind this Janet Yellen banger — answers the Make Me Smart question.

Finally, if you’re interested in minimum wage and other labor issues in the U.S., you’ll want to check out the latest season of “The Uncertain Hour,” which is all about how the typical American job has been gigged, temped and subcontracted away.

Here are links to everything we talked about on the show today:

Layers of numbers and data keep getting added to the arsenal of measurements used to interpret economic activity, but those numbers are becoming less and less dependable. Senior economics contributor Chris Farrell talks with us about possible solutions to this wide-ranging issue. There’s a shortage of bus drivers along with everything else, and transit systems are struggling to make up the difference. Apple is now worth $3 trillion dollars.

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the now-defunct blood testing startup known as Theranos, was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors. We speak to Adam Lashinsky of Business Insider, who has been covering Holmes’ trial, on how this outcome impacts Silicon Valley. A law against surprise medical bills that Congress passed more than a year ago finally went into effect on Jan. 1.

From the BBC World Service: We break down how the London Interbank Offered Rate or Libor, a key lending rate used to calculate everything from your mortgage to credit-card offers, has been overhauled. Plus, while countries including the U.S. have been scaling back self-isolation requirements, several Chinese cities have recently gone into full lockdown. And, the world’s biggest oil producers don’t seem too concerned about the longer-term impact of COVID-19.

One of the tech buzzwords in this new year is metaverse. And even though lots of tech companies are promising we’ll soon have an immersive experience where you can stream your favorite show or host a virtual work meeting, there is still a way to go before we get there. And one of the issues to be sorted out first — hopefully — is how user privacy works in a world build on augmented and virtual reality. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Jessica Lee, a partner at the law firm Loeb & Loeb, who advises companies on user privacy.

California is home to nearly one-quarter of the country’s homeless population, a count that has likely grown during the pandemic. Last year, the mayor of Sacramento — home to 11,000 people without homes — proposed a radical solution to the city’s homelessness crisis: treat housing as a legal right. Housing advocates largely support the proposal, except for a controversial part requiring homeless residents to move to a temporary shelter or be removed from their current locations. Also on today’s program, big banks delay their back-to-office plans, the strategies behind some brands’ familiar chimes and why energy companies are racing to liquefy natural gas.

With the ongoing shortage of health care workers, families across the country are struggling to access home care for their loved ones. However, there are programs that can actually pay family members to provide that care. Julia Coronado kicks off our first markets discussion of the new year with a quick look at some promising signs within the economy. We chat with the BBC’s Victoria Craig on the continuing struggles of Chinese property developer Evergrande, the company that’s hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.

Senior economics contributor Chris Farrell discusses data from a series of studies that highlight a disturbing lack of diversity in financial services such as asset management and financial planning. Air travelers everywhere are kicking off their 2022 by dealing with even more flight cancellations. This is happening as telecom companies plan to launch more 5G networks, which airline groups say could mess things up even more.