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Mitchell Hartman

Correspondent

SHORT BIO

Mitchell’s most important job at Marketplace is to explain the economy in ways that non-expert, non-business people can understand. Michell thinks of his audience as anyone who works, whether for money or not, and lives in the economy . . . which is most people.

Mitchell wants to understand, and help people understand, how the economy works, who it helps, who it hurts and why. Mitchell gets to cover what he thinks are some of the most interesting aspects of the economy: wages and inflation, consumer psychology, wealth inequality, economic theory and how it measures up to economic reality.

Mitchell was a high school newspaper nerd and a college newspaper editor. He has worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer, WXPN-FM, WBAI-FM, KPFK-FM, Pacifica Radio, the CBC, the BBC, Monitor Radio, Cairo Today Magazine, The Jordan Times, The Middletown Press, The New Haven Register, Oregon Business Magazine, the Reed College Alumni Magazine, and Marketplace (twice — 1994-2001 & 2008-present).

Mitchell has gone on strike (Newspaper Guild vs. Knight Ridder, Philadelphia, 1985) and helped organize a union (with SAG-AFTRA at Marketplace, 2021-23). Mitchell once interviewed Marcel Marceau and got him to talk.

Latest Stories (2,001)

How to crack into today's job market

Nov 3, 2011
The tiny increases in jobs in the U.S. aren't anything to shout about, but it means that someone out there is now employed. We look at what it takes to get a job in today's market.

Broken into pieces, President Obama's jobs plan still has trouble passing

Oct 21, 2011
So far, Senate Democrats are having little luck passing pieces of President Obama's jobs plan, after it failed to get through in its entirety.

Visas could be offered to foreigners who buy homes in U.S.

Oct 20, 2011
In a lagging housing market, home sales to foreign buyers are up 25 percent in the last year. The Senate will introduce a bill today to encourage more of these sales.

Social Security recipients to get cost of living increase

Oct 19, 2011
As retail and other cost of living prices rise, Social Security recipients will get their first increase in monthly payments since 2009.

CFTC sets out to limit commodities speculation

Oct 18, 2011
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will vote on new restrictions which would prevent speculation on corn, oil, and other commodities.

Credit card holders pay on time

Oct 14, 2011
Right now, just 3.5 percent of credit card holders are a month or more behind on payments. Has the recession caused a permanent change in habits?

Blackberry outage spreads to U.S. and Canada

Oct 12, 2011
Day three of a huge glitch in the system may cost Blackberry customers.

Jobs added in September

Oct 7, 2011
The 103,000 new jobs are better than the number of jobs added over the summer. But the long-term picture is another thing.

Post office estimates $10 billion loss

Sep 30, 2011
Congress, the White House and the Postmaster General have lots of ideas about how to cut costs. One of them is no more Saturday delivery.

Home prices rise

Sep 27, 2011
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index says home prices in major cities rose for the fourth straight month. But analysts say that's not going to last.