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 (1,998)

Obama Administration will try to reinstate deepwater drilling ban

Jun 23, 2010
The Obama Administration is quickly regrouping to try to get its moratorium on deepwater oil drilling reinstated.

Home sales down a record 33%

Jun 23, 2010
Mortgage applications were down last week, we learned sales of existing homes fell last month and home sales dropped a record 33%.

UPDATE: Court overturns deepwater drilling moratorium

Jun 22, 2010
A court decided to roll back President Obama's six-month moratorium on deepwater oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

China signals a rise in yuan value against dollar

Jun 21, 2010
China is indicating it will loosen its strict policy on the yuan and allow the currency to rise against the U.S. dollar. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman explains how this could affect U.S. and European countries.

A jobless recovery and a lost generation

Jun 18, 2010
The tough job market new college graduates are getting dumped into may significantly affect their chances for higher positions and salaries.

A visit to a Chicago job fair

Jun 18, 2010
Mitchell Hartman talks to senior executive assistant Marsha Gooden as she goes on a search for new employment.

Reporter's Notebook: Meeting the Long-Term Unemployed

Jun 18, 2010
Getting back into the job market proves tough for workers in Chicago struggling against record-breaking trends in long-term unemployment.

The effects of long-term unemployment

Jun 10, 2010
Once you're out of work in this recession, you're almost out of luck. Long-term unemployment hasn't been this bad since the 1940s. Job applicants are having to look longer and beat out more competition. Employers, meanwhile, have found ways to get things done without having to hire. Mitchell Hartman reports.

Jobs report: Why there isn't more hiring

Jun 4, 2010
The math on the May jobs numbers goes like this: 431,000 jobs were added to the economy last month. Subtract 411,000 -- they're temporary census workers. And what you have is a dispiriting 41,000 net new places to work for the month of May. Reporter Mitchell Hartman takes apart the numbers with Kai Ryssdal.

No work for some despite jobs report

May 7, 2010
There were 290,000 jobs created in April, but the unemployment rate went up two ticks to 9.9%. That's because more people entered the labor force -- nearly a million more unemployed workers hunting for jobs that are still hard to come by. Mitchell Hartman reports.