Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Cost of Life in America

NPR

Since the late 1990s, inflation — or average prices — has increased by 55.6 percent. But while things like televisions and smartphones have gotten much cheaper in that time, certain other things have gotten much more expensive.

So while some people may be able to afford the latest gadget, certain other things remain out of reach. Today on the show we look at what that tells us about the true cost of living in America in the 21st century.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

Subscribe to our show onApple Podcasts, PocketCasts and NPR One.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.
Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.