Time to strike out on your own?

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1:00You want government data? We are finally getting some government data. Now, is it going to make us feel better? I don't know. From American public media, this is Marketplace.

1:24In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Monday today. This one is the 15th of December. Good as always to have you along, everybody. This is going to be, relatively speaking, I guess, a data palooza kind of week. The November jobs report comes out tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. It will be the rare Tuesday jobs day. Retail sales tomorrow, too. That'll be for October. On Thursday, it's the Consumer Price Index. That is for November. I know it's tough to keep track. Also, at the end of last week, from the Census Bureau came data on applications to start new businesses. Not all of those applications turn into actual companies, of course, but the number of people thinking about it is pretty strong.

2:05Applications up 7 percent from October to November, up more than 20 percent from one year ago. So Marketplace's Henry Epp gets us going with why so many people might be looking to strike out on their own right now. A quick caveat about these numbers. These data are kind of messy, so it is hard to figure out what's going on underneath. Joyce Klein is senior director of the Business Ownership Initiative at the Aspen Institute. Some of the applications could be existing companies changing their corporate structure, she says. This can happen when there are big changes in tax law, like the GOP bill that passed in the summer.

2:41But there is one trend in the data that might tell us something. Tons of applications for new retail trade businesses. And the last time we saw like a really big spike in applications for retail trade was during the pandemic. You know, when the economy was thrown for a loop and people were trying to come up with ways to make extra cash, maybe sell all that sourdough they were baking. This appears to be happening again, says Sarah Kunst at Clio Capital. People hear that, you know, AI is coming to take your job and wages are stagnating. We're seeing layoffs, you know, tariff impacts, all of that.

3:15I think more and more people are stopping to say, hey, maybe we should try to find a little bit of safe harbor. As in a side hustle or something that could turn into a full-time hustle if things really go south or an escape from the daily grind. Whatever the reason, it's gotten really easy to set up a new business, Kunst says. Whether it's using online tax filing software or learning about how to set up an LLC and why you might want to do that from an influencer that you follow, So it all feels a lot more accessible now. That's what Vincent Popolo found when he and his cousin started Maryland Garage Solutions earlier this year.

3:52They used a couple of web services to register their business and set up a website. It was very straightforward. I mean, we were up in an actual business within probably a month. At which point he quit his corporate tech job and started organizing people's messy garages. We do flooring. We do organization. We build out shelving and, you know, really help people sort of get rid of all their crap. Business has been really good, he says. They've mostly gotten gigs through word of mouth. I'm Henry App for Marketplace. Wall Street today, kind of meh. Actually, there is some AI agita going on out there, it seems.

4:29We will have the details. Yeah, when we do the numbers.

4:54There I was early this morning, barely halfway through my first cup of coffee, listening as I do to the Marketplace Morning Report when I heard Sabree Beneshore ask this question. Once we get all this data, is that going to be some great moment of clarity or is the big picture still going to be kind of murky? Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I'm going to rip that question right off and pose it to Abdullah Al-Burrani. He's a professor of economics at Northern Kentucky University. Welcome back to the program. My pleasure. So same question to you that Sabri asked Julia this morning.

5:31We're going to get all this data. are we going to have some kind of epiphany and go, oh, yeah, okay, now we know where the economy's going? Probably not. I don't think that's going to happen. We've got a lot of noise in the air these days. Well, say more about that. Well, because of the gap in the data and because we started to rely a little bit more on the private data and there's a little bit of mistrust about data today, I don't think we're going to get as much clarity and confidence, more importantly, with the numbers that are provided to us. Lags, who actually is in the data? These are all questions that are creeping up in our analysis these days.

6:09I'm sure you were on this when it happened during the pandemic, but one of the things that happened was we didn't know exactly what the economy was doing because the data was completely cattywampus, right? And now we just haven't had data or it's coming out late. And it seems to me this might be sort of the new normal-ish that the economy is kind of meh and we can't figure out what's going on. What do you think? I think we are going through a structural change and part of it is really developed because of the mistrust that has been introduced in government data. And it's going to take us a while to either regain the trust or we're going to start to find alternative ways to build confidence in the data that we see.

6:52We should say here, just to be clear, that no matter what the president says, and no matter who he fires at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is zero indication, zero, that the data is being politically manipulated. That said, to your point, how do we regain the trust? Well, first of all, I want to say I have a lot of friends and economists working on this, and they are trustworthy individuals, and they take their responsibility seriously. Unfortunately, it's not them in this situation. It's the system, the lack of information that has been presented, the shutdown has allowed this narrative to develop that we cannot trust the data that's coming to us.

7:34So whether they're doing a fantastic job or not, which they are, the people processing this information are not feeling as confident about it. And that reduces how effective we can communicate what the data is telling us and what we do with it after that. Right, right. No matter what the president tries to do to politicize it. Let me ask you this, though. The first time, I think it was the first time, maybe it was the second time, we had you on. We talked about your Econ 101 classes and economic literacy and how this is your life's work. How do we get things back on track where we know what the economy is doing and that people can have confidence that we know what the economy is doing?

8:16Because we're kind of in a different place right now. Yeah, and this is something I'm personally struggling with. I mean, when the data went absent during the shutdown, I found it really difficult to do my job. And I found myself having a really difficult time processing what's happening in the economy. And we need the government and the president to build the trust in the data again. Do you think we can do it? I think we can do it. We just have to be loud about it and we have to continuously communicate. transparency is really important and the more we invest in it uh the more reliable it is and the better our decisions are going to be in the long run back to where we started in that great moment of clarity that sabri was talking about the epiphany uh of when this data comes we're finally going to know i guess we're just going to have to get used to not knowing oh i don't know if that's where i want to go i think the approach is the approach that we should be taking is we need to recognize that every data point is just one data point.

9:17And the more signals that we have, eventually, the easier it is for us to trust the data. Abdullah Al-Burrani at Northern Kentucky University. Professor, thanks for your time, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you, Kai. My pleasure.

9:53A stipulation by way of setting up this next story. None of us, well, very few of us anyway, love our health insurance companies. Fair? Part of that is because they are, in fact, businesses and are always looking to their bottom line. But the calculations of what coverage to offer that is cheapest often don't look the way one might expect. Insurers will sometimes cover a significantly more expensive drug or device, even when there's a cheaper alternative on the shelf. And the reason why has less to do with medication itself and more to do with the costs that come downstream. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Lillian Karabik reports.

10:33When someone's throat is swelling shut from an allergic reaction, an epinephrine injector is the first thing you should grab. If someone has anaphylaxis, epinephrine is the medication that will save their life. That's Dr. Victoria Chadwick, a clinical pharmacist at Swedish First Hill Hospital in Seattle. She works in pediatric emergency medicine. And she says when someone's in shock, people panic. No matter how many times you've been taught how to use a device, you are freaking out because the person in front of you or yourself can't breathe. When a kid has a life-threatening allergy, their parents keep EpiPen injectors everywhere.

11:12Home, school, daycare, babysitters. But not everyone is trained to use them. That's when an injector like AviQ can make a big difference. If having an allergic emergency, pull red safety guard down and off of AviQ. It literally talks you through the process with a calm voice step by step. Place black end against outer thigh, then press firmly and hold in place for five seconds. It might save someone's life and we can't rely on everyone always knowing the right thing to do in that situation. Lifesaving, but with a list price that is eye-watering. AviQ is twice as expensive as EpiPen. AviQ has been available for eight years, but it wasn't commonly on formularies, the list of drugs and devices that health insurance pays for.

12:02But that changed this year after insurers did the math. It's a lot cheaper to cover even a more expensive device than it is to have someone have to be admitted to the hospital or possibly intubated or, you know, unfortunately passed because they don't have any device at all or the device they have wasn't used. Dr. Hongji Kim, a health economist at Oregon Health and Sciences University, said that's because insurance companies looked at downstream costs. If it can save a lot of money downstream, like by reducing emergency room visits or really lengthy hospitalizations. Kim says usually insurers look at their own member data and compare two groups.

12:41those who got access to the drug or device, and those who didn't. Then they compare the total cost of care and mortality. If they didn't have the data to analyze their own patient outcomes, insurers need good outside evidence. That could be randomized control trials. Or a really strong, robust retrospective study that shows how the choice of certain drugs or medical device can affect downstream costs. That's part of how OviQ started getting covered. A recent study found 50 % lower health care costs and fewer emergency visits after anaphylaxis when OviQ is used compared to competitors. That was one factor in Aetna, the third largest insurance company in the U.S., making OviQ its top choice for severe allergies.

13:27Kaiser Permanente, the large nonprofit health insurer, confirmed that it's done the same, partially due to internal pressure from its own clinicians. If doctors or hospitals strongly believe in the value of certain device or drugs, I think that can put really huge pressure on insurers. Plus, Kim says don't forget good old-fashioned free market competition. You always have to consider others. What other players do? Like my competitor does cover it. I better cover it. Otherwise, my member will switch. In other words, insurers don't want to lose in a shot-for-shot competition. And higher upfront costs can make sense if they prevent bigger bills later.

14:08In Portland, Oregon, I'm Lillian Carebake for Marketplace.

14:34Here's an encouraging word about the housing market. Even as prices stay high, supply stays low and mortgage rates hold firm at 6.2 percent or so for a 30-year fixed, more home builders are feeling more confident about the current and future housing market this month than they were last. That's from a survey out today from the National Association of Home Builders. Homebuilder sentiment nudged up in December, just a hair to be clear, but it was the third more confident month in a row. However, comma, all sunshine and light, it is not. Two-thirds of homebuilders say they've had to offer incentives to get buyers to commit.

15:13Forty percent of them say they've had to lower their prices. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more on that one. It's been a slow year for Justin Wood's company, Fish Construction Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Although it's ending better than it started. We've sold three homes in the last month and a half, which has picked up our activity a little bit. And so we're kind of hoping that continues into next year. Wood typically sells about 15 homes a year, mostly townhomes in the city. This year, he's dropped prices, offered money toward closing costs, and lately he's been trying something new to make sales.

15:46Making homes energy efficient, but not charging extra. Literally just saying, hey, the house comes with solar, it's free, it's included. So many builders have been offering incentives that Robert Dietz at the National Association of Home Builders says it has contributed to a noticeable split in the trajectory of new home prices versus existing home prices. Existing home prices have continued to increase since 2022, but median new home prices are down more than 10 percent. And that's the accumulation of those incentive factors to try to deal with the challenge of housing affordability. Affordability is the biggest factor weighing on prospective buyers.

16:26Clint Mitchell sees that in Indianapolis, where he owns Estridge Homes. They sell about 100 houses a year for anywhere between$500 ,000 and$2 million. For us, the higher price point has done reasonably well this year. It's our lower price point that has been much slower. It seems like that consumer is more stretched, more strained. Although just like for Justin Wood in Portland, Oregon, Mitchell says his sales the last couple of months have been stronger. Actually been some of our better months of the year. So he's heading into 2026 feeling cautiously optimistic. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

17:30Coming up. Took that number, divided it by 12 months, divided it by four weeks, divided it by five days. Wait, I was told there wasn't going to be any math. First, though, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrials down 41 points today, one-tenth, 1%, 48 ,416. The Nasdaq down 137 points, about six-tenths percent, finished at 23 ,057. The S &P 500 dipped 10 points, two-tenths percent, 68 and 16. We were talking about health insurance companies a second ago. Here's some. Aetna, which is part of CVS Health, gained three-tenths percent. Humana rose two-and-three-tenths percent. Cigna Group increased nine-tenths of one percent.

18:13UnitedHealth Group dropped two-tenths percent. Zillow took a tumble today with news that Google appears to be experimenting with real estate listings in its mobile search results in certain cities. Zillow, ticker symbol, Z. Easy peasy, right? Down eight and a half percent. Alphabet, Google's parent company, dipped a third of one percent on the day. Bond prices went up. Yield on the 10-year T-note ended at 4.18 percent. And you are listening to Marketplace. Want to make a difference in your community, but not sure how? Go to GoFundMe.com right now and start a GoFundMe. Seriously, your next fundraiser doesn't have to start in a school parking lot or a church basement.

18:54You can start a GoFundMe today in just minutes. Fundraise for yourself, a friend or family member or an organization. All that matters is that you care about them. GoFundMe is the trusted place to fundraise for what you care about. With no pressure to hit your fundraising goal, but tons of tools to help you reach it, You can confidently start fundraising right now, whether it's creative, local, or critical. Your cause matters. And there's a reason why GoFundMe has backed by millions and chosen by fundraisers everywhere. It works and it matters. GoFundMe helps you make a real difference. Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com.

19:32That's GoFundMe.com. G-O-F-U-N-D-M-E.com. This is a commercial message brought to you by GoFundMe.

19:43This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Riznal. Here's a good story about the very small becoming, in the aggregate, kind of a big deal. It's been a little bit more than a month now since the U.S. Mint produced its very last penny, and businesses are starting to run out of them, which means making change for those who still do use cash is just a little bit more complicated. And as Marketplace's Carla Javier reports, rounding up or down a nickel spread over the tens of millions of businesses in this economy, can have a big impact. The Federal Reserve distributes pennies to banks and credit unions. A spokesperson says it's using available inventory to fulfill penny orders.

20:21That said, some of the Fed's distribution sites are no longer doing penny transactions. Steve Keneally with the American Bankers Association says banks are telling him that they had penny inventory on hand, although it was shrinking perilously low. So we expect banks to have to have those difficult discussions with their customers. Among banks' customers? Retailers. Cash makes up roughly 50 % of transactions at convenience stores, says Jeff Leonard of the National Association of Convenience Stores. A lot of them are rounding in favor of the customer, meaning... Rounding down to the nearest nickel in terms of the price and rounding up in the change that you give customers.

21:04He says a penny here and a penny there adds up big time. In convenience stores alone, that costs the industry about a million dollars a day if every store were to do that. Andy says they can't just switch to all digital payments. Those come with processing fees, and some customers just like paying in cash. It's a similar story in restaurants. Sean Kennedy is with the National Restaurant Association. To round in the customer's favor consistently could cost the industry between$13 and$14 million a month. Kennedy says without a national rounding standard, things can get confusing. If you round up in a customer's favor for someone who's paying in cash.

21:44But then make people paying with credit cards pay the exact amount, no rounding. You could have nuisance lawsuits that come up. The federal government could clear things up, says Danny Soquez at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Either some guidance from the Treasury, the executive branch, or directly from Congress through law. He gives Canada as an example, which also got rid of its penny. There they round to the nearest five cents for cash transactions, but keep exact amounts for credit cards. I'm Carla Javier for Marketplace.

22:41Henry Epps started us off today with new data from the Census Bureau on small business formation up 7 % last month from October, 20 % from a year ago. Lots of people just going to work for themselves. And it's not just now. Now, here's a five-year veteran of the challenges of running a small business for today's installment of our series, My Economy. My name is Alex Redlinger, and I own and operate Red's Gardening Co., which is a fine gardening maintenance boutique located in coastal San Diego. My joy and love of gardening started at a young age. As a kid, we would always grow sunflowers and we'd grow pumpkins every season, try to grow the biggest sunflowers and the biggest pumpkins.

23:21and then we kind of discovered succulents as a family and I got really into growing succulents. I used to sell sunflowers and succulents on Craigslist and so I did that for a couple years. I had a little succulent nursery in the side yard of my dad's house growing up. As a kid, I very much enjoyed doing the yard work. I enjoyed mowing the lawns. I enjoyed planting plants. I enjoyed trimming the bushes and all that stuff. So I think at an early age, I got an affinity for doing the work that I now do for a job.

23:55I officially started my business in fall of 2020. Over the last five years, it's just been me running the business, doing everything from the administrative stuff to the bookkeeping to the on-site work. Basically, since the post-pandemic era, the cost of living, I know it skyrocketed across the whole country, but it is super skyrocketed here in San Diego. I mean, houses have doubled in price. My rent has tripled in price for basically the same size house that I've always lived in. So as I was going out to set the hourly rate that I would charge people and what I was trying to take home, I looked at the median income in San Diego.

24:33I looked at what it took to purchase a home and how much that would mean I would need to make in a year. So then I took that number and divided it by 12 months, divided it by four weeks, divided it by five days and then divided it by eight hours. And I was like, all right, I got to hit this hourly wage to make this much in a year. And this year will be the first year that I've hit that number after five years of being in business. So I'm super proud about that.

25:02One thing that is really interesting about San Diego County is it is the most biodiverse county in the entire nation. And with that, it's really interesting to see how plants act in different parts of the county. The same plant you plant on the coast will be different than maybe inland San Diego and will also be different in north or south county. The type of gardening that I do is fine gardening maintenance and it's more of a plant-focused maintenance program. So I do not mow lawns. None of my properties have lawns. I don't trim hedges with hedge trimmers. I do everything to look as if they're kind of wild and natural but still you know maintained and look nice.

25:41One of the best compliments that I can get, and I am stoked when I hear this from people, is people will walk by the yard that I'm working on and they look at me and they say, oh, are you the one that maintains this? And I say, yeah, I am. And they'll go, it looks like you do nothing, but I mean that as a compliment.