Stacey Vanek Smith
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.
Prior to coming to NPR, Smith worked for Marketplace, where she was a correspondent and fill-in host. While there, Smith was part of a collaboration with The New York Times, where she explored the relationship between money and marriage. She was also part of Marketplace's live shows, where she produced a series of pieces on getting her data mined.
Smith is a native of Idaho and grew up working on her parents' cattle ranch. She is a graduate of Princeton University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in comparative literature and creative writing. She also holds a master's in broadcast journalism from Columbia University.
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Inflation is coming to Thanksgiving dinner this year. Fortunately, NPR's Business Desk has tips on how to save money on Turkey Day. Call it Substitution-giving.
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Many corporations are booking record profits at a time of high inflation. This led to charges of price gouging, but do these claims hold up?
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A pay transparency law goes into effect Tuesday in New York City that requires employers to list a salary range for all posted job advertisements.
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US Treasury bonds are known as a super safe, super boring place to put your money. But the Series I Savings Bond got so popular last week, the surge in demand crashed the Treasury's website
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The U.S. expects to be providing weaponry to Ukraine for months and even years to come. Defense officials are confident they can meet the demand, but there are real-world challenges.
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Liz Truss tried to push through an aggressive tax cutting policy in her first days as UK Prime Minister. With inflation soaring and markets on edge, the timing could not have been worse.
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The luxury watch market was a sleepy, shrinking industry until it got caught up in a tidal wave of market forces.
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The torrid pace of inflation shows no sign of relenting and is now hitting hard at home — as soaring food and rent costs take a bigger bite out of family budgets.
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The Federal Reserve is trying to slow down the economy just enough to get rising prices under control, but not so much that a ton of people lose their jobs. It's a tough balance.
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The woman next to me, who described herself as knowing "zero" about the economy, asked whether I thought the Federal Reserve would continue raising interest rates. I felt an acute sense of dread.
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Productivity is probably the most important economic indicator for the health of an economy, and in the U.S. it's falling. (Story aired on All Things Considered on Oct. 5, 2022.)
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Productivity is probably the most important economic indicator for the health of an economy, and it's falling. There is a battle over the narrative around worker productivity and the stakes are high.