Week of February 23rd, 2026

As consumers are increasingly cash-strapped, more chain restaurants are offering “value” options. Plus: rent payments, data center construction, and an urban flower farm.

Marisa Mender-Franklin wanted to start a flower farm. She just needed land.

Cora Lewis, a business reporter at the Associated Press, discusses the rising trend of using “buy now, pay later” services to pay rent.

Value meals used to be the domain of fast food chains like McDonalds. But now fast-casual places like Panera are entering "the value wars."

The wealthiest pay a large portion of taxes, but they would be paying even more without tax loopholes and deductions.

Data centers were one of the bright spots in a year that saw total construction spending decline 1.4% from the previous year.

Vermont cheddar, anyone?

A Maine lobsterman weighs recent catch levels, rising regulatory costs, and the future of the state’s lobster industry.

London-based lender MFS has collapsed, and lenders are pulling back from the riskiest parts of the private credit markets. Is there a bigger pattern here?

Mergers could make streaming services less clunky, but also more expensive and with less program availability.

Paramount Skydance appears to have beaten Netflix in the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery.

From the BBC World Service: Host Leanna Byrne reminisces about some of the show’s biggest stories over the years.

Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, joins Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes on “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

The industry has grown fivefold since the Great Recession. Plus: wholesale inflation, “baked in” economic announcements, and a children’s clothing manufacturer.

The vast majority of clothing Americans purchase is imported. Kai Ryssdal looks at how one Los Angeles company does their manufacturing within the city’s garment ecosystem.

“[Consumers are] feeling full, they’re feeling poor, they’ve really just been depleted,” said one retail expert.

The private credit market has grown fivefold since the 2008 financial crisis, according to the Federal Reserve, and now sits somewhere near the $2 trillion-mark globally. In the last couple weeks, though, the market has gone a bit sideways.

New data on producer price inflation, or PPI, will be released on Friday. And while it’s not the inflation that faces consumers, it impacts decisions companies make about raising prices.

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal explains how markets “bake in” anticipated news before it happens.

The aftermath of SCOTUS’ tariff decision.

After years of wide-open compounding, regulators say they’re ready to enforce limits and restore control over the fast-growing GLP-1 market.

Coaching, training, equipment — they add up.

Getting to the Olympics or Paralympics can cost competitors an average of $12,000 a year, according to a 2024 report.

As governments push stricter online child safety rules, digital rights advocates warn about the risks of collecting IDs and facial data.

Anthropic is facing pressure from the Pentagon to roll back limitations on how the company’s Claude AI models are used.

From the BBC World Service: The U.S. says it will ease economic restrictions on Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba.

What to do when the fear of losing your job keeps you up at night.

“Subscription fatigue,” frustration with streaming content changes, and a desire to collect rare finds are all boosting old-school physical media.

When consumers think inflation will go up, sometimes it does. Plus: Anthropic AI, video game sales, life on a cruise ship, and leadership at the Fed.

“The overall lifestyle of living on a ship is — it's been too good not to do,” said longtime cruise ship resident Bryan James Henderson.

Right now, consumers expect high inflation. They think, on average, inflation will be 6.5% in a year and 7.2% in five to 10 years, according to the Michigan Survey of Consumers.

The company, known for taking a stricter safety stance as it developed its artificial intelligence tools, said it failed to convince competitors to do the same.

Gaming’s not just for kids anymore. The majority of Baby Boomers play video games every week, too, and Candy Crushing grandparents also contribute to the $60 billion-plus industry.

Today: A look at how trillions in corporate bonds for AI data center construction could impact interest rates.

These corporate bonds could end up competing for the same money that might otherwise go into U.S. Treasuries. That could drive interest rates higher.

Nvidia started out as a developer of graphics chips focused on the gaming market. Now, the world’s most valuable company is looking to get back into the consumer market.

Last night, President Donald Trump strongly defended his unpopular tariffs in his State of the Union address.

The average mortgage rate is substantially lower than it was a year ago. Will it bring buyers back to the housing market?

From the BBC World Service: On today’s show, a meeting of Germany and China’s leaders and a new fee for international visitors to the U.K.

About half of college-bound high schoolers are using AI tools in their searches.

Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic says it’s a tough time to be a central banker. Plus: Meta’s chipmaking deal and the ongoing U.S.-China trade struggle.

Namely, the deal secures Meta millions of chips, a share in the chipmaker, and a diversified supply chain.

Average tariffs on Chinese goods are coming down, but both sides still have considerable leverage. 

Following the success of the 2024 Paris Games, this year’s Winter Paralympics hope to build on the trend.

Bostic, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, is retiring from his position at the end of the month.

The short answer: Yes. A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that a 25% increase in the flow of immigrants into the U.S. would prevent 5,000 deaths among older Americans.

An NBER study finds that immigrants help keep older adults out of nursing homes — and reduce their mortality rates.

For now, the only way parents can sign up is by submitting a form with their tax returns.

Most of Depop's customers are Gen Z, offering eBay a chance to expand into a younger demographic.

Part of what drove Monday’s big stock market drop was a thinkpiece about AI and a nightmare white-collar jobs scenario.

From the BBC World Service: Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the financial cost has also been massive for both countries.

Ray Smith, workplace reporter at The Wall Street Journal, shares what he learned from interviewing with an AI platform. One takeaway: It's weird not having human social cues.

Its repeal is framed as cost saving for American consumers, but some experts disagree.

It’s a blanket 15% import tax. But that blanket has some holes. Plus: an auto loan tax deduction, battery storage demand, and the Great Stay.

The salary premium for job switchers is now around 2%. Four years ago, it was 8%.

The President is using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose tariffs on most foreign imports. But unlike his previous tariffs, these will expire in 150 days unless Congress extends them.

The need for energy storage is increasing as electricity demand rises rapidly in the U.S., with one estimate from the Solar Energy Industries Association expecting the battery market to grow by 21% this year.

Buyers of new vehicles assembled in the U.S. could boost their tax refunds by hundreds of dollars through a new tax deduction for auto loan interest.

Many consumers now are wondering whether they’ll get any money back or will refunds — if there are any — just go to businesses?

AI has helped boost the stock market and GDP. But the prospect of a bubble has some experts concerned about the technology’s influence.

President Trump is moving to impose a 15% global tariff using a legal authority that grants him power to do so for 150 days.

A new study out of the Cato Institute finds that immigrants pay more in taxes and receive less in benefits than the average.

The Supreme Court’s decision eliminated a large number of the Trump Administration’s tariffs, but other tariffs, unrelated to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, remain.

SCOTUS has ruled against Trump’s biggest bucket of import taxes, but the decision doesn’t affect many of the other tariffs in place or stop the administration from levying new ones.

From the BBC World Service: Governments around the world are scrambling to react to President Trump’s decision to impose a sweeping 15% tariff on all imports to the United States.

Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino chronicles how a search for a niche hair product led to a scam site that was almost identical to the legitimate one.