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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 (1,988)

Interest rates worldwide might start falling as central banks meet this week

Mar 18, 2024
Switzerland may be the first to start rolling back the recent round of rate hikes.
The European Central Bank is expected to be among the first central banks to start cutting rates, says Sharyn O’Halloran at Columbia Business School.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

Why Dollar Tree is struggling while Dollar General thrives

Mar 18, 2024
Dollar General is upbeat about the year ahead. Dollar Tree sees challenges in store.
Expanding grocery options is a bet that's paying off for Dollar General.
Scott Olson / Getty Images

Congressional crackdown on TikTok raises logistical and legal questions

Mar 14, 2024
Efforts to force parent company ByteDance to either divest or sell off the app would likely meet resistance from China.
Efforts to force parent company ByteDance to either divest or sell off TikTok would likely meet resistance from China.
Chesnot/Getty Images

Commercial construction has hit a brick wall. Why?

Mar 13, 2024
Factors like high interest rates, tight credit and workers continuing to work from home are all hitting commercial construction demand.
Factors like high interest rates, tight credit and continued remote work are all hitting commercial construction demand.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

As opioid crisis rages, Oregon must decide how to spend its settlement dollars

Mar 12, 2024
States are allocating hundreds of millions. Officials weigh spreading it among treatment, recovery, prevention and harm reduction.
Fernando Peña shows NW Instituto Latino's supplies funded by opioid settlement money, including Narcan, which treats overdoses, as well as safer-use, safer-sex and wound care items.
Mitchell Hartman/Marketplace

Even as hourly wages outpace inflation, rising prices take a bite

Mar 12, 2024
It’s been harder for lower- and middle-income households to afford higher food, rent and gas prices without getting into debt.
“We see higher wage growth since the recovery. But if people are working less, their total earnings are still less than inflation,” said ADP's Liv Wang.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Fed's Beige Book offers a more colorful look behind the stats

Mar 7, 2024
The latest edition includes comments from community bankers, real estate brokers, farm-implement suppliers—you name it.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Signs point to a labor market that's cooling, but not cold

Mar 6, 2024
Private employers added 140,000 jobs in February and January’s job openings didn’t budge — though they were down from mid-2023.
In December and January, the economy added nearly 700,000 new jobs.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Mortgage payment on a typical home nearly doubled in last 4 years, report finds

Mar 1, 2024
According to real estate firm Zillow, the typical buyer pays $2,188 monthly — well above the 30% of median income guideline used to calculate housing affordability.
Homeownership now costs well over the 30% of median income that was once thought to equate to “affordable” housing in the U.S.
Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images