Indicators of the Year, Past and Future

0:00Hey, Erica Barris here. We are almost at the end of 2025. And there is no way to sugarcoat it. It has been a tough year for NPR and for local stations. But with your support, NPR will keep reporting the news. And here at Planet Money, we'll keep doing what we do best, explaining the economy in the most entertaining and accessible ways we possibly can. If you're already an NPR Plus supporter, thank you so much. If not, please join the community of public radio supporters right now at plus.npr.org. Signing up unlocks a bunch of perks like bonus episodes and more from across NPR's podcasts. Visit plus.npr.org today.

0:46Thanks.

0:51This is Planet Money from NPR. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong, normally co-host of Planet Money's short daily podcast, The Indicator. Today on the show, I'm here to offer you this Indicator Planet Money crossover event. We have given thanks, we've stuffed and emptied stockings, we are crossing off the last days of the calendar, and spending meaningful time with loved ones. And for us, that means doing what families do best. Engaging in brutal, soul-breaking arguments in a fashion most public. We call it Indicators of the Year. a Planet Money family competition to out-nerd each other with stats and storytelling.

1:37And with that, I'm going to turn it over for a bit to my colleagues who battled it out. Representing the indicator was Darian Woods. Darian, take it away. That's right. It's time for another Family Feud. Today, I'm competing head-to-head with my Planet Money colleagues, Kenny Malone. Bring it, ya egg. Is that what they say in New Zealand? Something like that? That's right. And Greg Rozalski. Can't we all just get along? No. Not for the next nine minutes. And in case you aren't up to speed, here are the rules. Each of us has a spiel for our indicator of the year. We will each have 60 seconds or less to make our case or else.

2:17And in the end, you, dear listener, will vote on who had the indicator of 2025. Coming up on the show, we have... Kenny Malone, rightfully explaining why consumer sentiment for the third straight year is obviously the indicator of the year. And I'm Greg Rozalski. I'm championing the idea that tariffs were the story of 2025. And we'll have me, Darian Woods, seeing terrifying signs in the stock market. Plus predictions for the indicator of 2026. That's coming up after the break. All right, Family Feud. Kenny Malone, you are up first. All right, got my script here. Okay. Time starts now. It's the economy, stupid.

3:02That's the famous formula for why people vote the way they do. I am here to say no. It's what people feel about the economy. You know what? I'm accidentally reading off of my script from two years ago when I also did consumer sentiment and it won indicator of the year because you may remember back then we're all freaking out. It's played out, Kenny. We were so, so scared. Okay, anyway, this is the right script. Is this the same script? Right here. Now, in pre-pandemic times, the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index was hovering around 100, meaning people felt OK about the economy.

3:35But for the past year, it's been down around the 70. No, you know what? This is Adrian Ma's script from last year when he also won for Consumer Sentiment. It's 50s. It's been in the 50s this year. Historic lows. Here. Here it is. Here's the right script. 2025 was the year we began to full-on drown in bad feelings about the economy. We're sick to our economic stomachs about the future of prices and inflation and jobs and housing. Consumer sentiment is the canary in the coal mine. And it's been chirping louder and louder over the last three years. Or I guess chirping less and less is how canaries work in the coal mine.

4:12Anyway, consumer sentiment for your consideration. You might have made a good argument behind all that buzzing, but it took you a while to get there. Yeah, I know. There was a big wind-up. Well, I kept getting interrupted by my colleagues, so I figured I might just go through. I feel like my individual consumer sentiment was tepid after that display of played-out material. Some good head fakes, though. Third year in a row. I'm just saying. Consider consumer sentiment. I love the head fakes. Now let's go to Greg. Okay, guys. What is your indicator of the year? So my economic story of the year, it centers on the most beautiful word in the English language that is at least according to President Donald Trump.

4:52Tariffs. You guys ready? Wait, is this part of your argument? This isn't fair. You got extra time. No, no, this is not extra time. I'm this is the wind up. This is like, you know. OK. This is putting the ball on the tee. I don't call it. It's not the time. I don't know. All right. Go. OK. So the tariff story was huge this year. Remember Liberation Day and Trump imposing super high tariffs on countries around the world, including a territory whose population was largely penguins? You guys remember that? Then the stock market freaked out, and then President Trump paused tariffs, and there were negotiations, and the back and forth, and the up and down, and the drama.

5:31Costco just filed a freaking lawsuit against the Trump administration over them. This is the economic story that keeps on giving. And this story, it's historic. We're talking like a paradigm shift for the economy. In 2024, the average effective tariff rate that US consumers faced was 2.5%. That number is now 16.8%. That's the highest tariffs have been since 1935. And this story, it's not over. There are still big questions over what these tariffs are going to do to the economy and whether Trump imposing tariffs without congressional approval was even constitutional. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on this issue soon.

6:08Talk about a year-end cliffhanger. This was more drama than White Lotus. That's a good kicker. Now, one thing I have been thinking about the Costco lawsuit is, do you think that they take the lawsuit and package it into a box that was previously used for oversized olive oil containers, and that's how they deliver it? I don't care how they deliver it, as long as hot dogs are still$1.50. Okay. Darian, our final contender for Indicator of the Year. Darian's putting on a coat. A cape. What? A cape? Tyrion's dressed as Dracula? What is this? Are you a count? Yes, I am Count Dracula. I've got my cape on.

6:50It's keeping my shoulders warm. And this relates to my indicator. Okay. Again, everyone's getting a little pre-clock time. So I want a little generosity on my post-clock time. I haven't said anything. Well, you're just talking about my outfit. I did no wind-ups. I'm talking about my outfit. All right, here we go. All right, here we go. in three, two, one. My indicator of the year is the CAPE ratio. This is the cyclically adjusted price to earnings ratio. It measures how expensive share prices are relative to how much money they actually earn. The higher the CAPE ratio, the more expensive stocks are.

7:28And this indicator is the highest it's ever been, apart from just before the dot-com crash. And that is as frightening as any horror story. Because when stocks are this expensive, they tend to underperform over time. And this indicator touches so many economic stories of 2025. The AI boom, the fears of a bubble, its data center construction sucking the blood out of investment in industries like manufacturing. Also, the K-shaped economy, where the rich, who tend to own a lot of stocks, are getting richer and the poor are struggling. For an indicator that captures a blood-curdling year, the CAPE ratio has no peer.

8:06I just love that your mind goes to Dracula when you go to Cape. Why not Superman, Batman? It's true. Is the Cape draining the economy of something? Is that the implication? The optimist would see Superman, these AI tech companies, saving the world. The pessimist might see Dracula sucking the blood out of the rest of the economy. I will say, I do understand how Cape ratio shows the rich getting richer. But you also mentioned that it shows low-income people doing poorly. How does that work? This is a bit of a stretch, I admit. Ultimately, everyday people are the ones who have to buy things so that companies can get earnings.

8:42And at the moment, earnings are not growing fast enough to keep stocks looking cheap. So we're not like buying enough chat GPT subscriptions or something. Exactly. Don't make Sam Altman cry. How many do I need to buy? Yes. You're going to prop up the AI economy with multiple subscriptions. Darian, you can't put on that cape and not give us a little Dracula. Can you give us a little... Yeah. Where's the impression? Just a little impression. You can do what we do in the shadows, the Kiwi Dracula movie. Yeah, that's a great movie. All right. You're going to nail this. Come on. My indicator of the year is the cave ratio.

9:21Yes! Yes. I'm making my pitch for the indicator of the year, the cave ratio. Okay, you know what? You may have just won my vote, honestly. That's really fantastic. All right. So listen, those are your three options, listeners. We have consumer sentiment, we have tariffs, and we have, say it again, Darian. The cake ratio. So good. Thank you to Darian, Kenny, and Greg. Tune into the indicator on Friday to find out which indicator takes the crown based on your votes. After the break, we'll bring on Stephen and Cooper to join me as we gaze into the future. We talk about three indicators that could shape 2026.

10:09Welcome back. I'm Waylon Wong and I'm joined today by Stephen Passaja. Greetings, Waylon. And our producer, Cooper Katz McKim. Hi. Hello. Great to meet you. Hello. Great to meet you. Day one. Come here often. It's like we had a little break for the holidays and you just forgot who we were. Exactly. I'm your colleague, Waylon. Oh, okay. And let's talk 2026. We each picked an indicator to watch for this year, and I will kick it off. The indicator I'll be watching in 2026 is the federal funds rate, a.k.a. the Federal Reserve's benchmark interest rate. So right now the rate is between 3.5 % and 3.75%.

10:51The Fed, you might remember, did three consecutive rate cuts at the end of last year. And these are not unanimous decisions. You are seeing some divisions within the Fed about what to do on interest rates. So my indicator is really about the future of the Fed and how it's going to make decisions this year. Yeah, 2025 felt like this really big year for the Fed and feels like 2026 could be even bigger. I mean, it is the end of the Jerome Powell era. It is. And we had some close calls in 2025 where we thought maybe President Trump was going to fire Jerome Powell. That didn't end up happening, but Fed independence is still a really big story.

11:28So Powell's term as Fed chair ends in May. The president has been very clear about how he wants lower interest rates. And then he said on Truth Social just before Christmas, anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed chairman. So we will most likely get a Trump loyalist as chair. The president wants more allies on the committee that votes on interest rates. He already tried to fire Lisa Cook last year. Yeah, and the Supreme Court will actually hear arguments in the Lisa Cook case early this year. But you can already see tensions in the committee from the last few interest rate decisions.

12:02Like in December, two members of the committee voted for no cut and then one wanted a bigger reduction in rates. And it seems like the economic data is just really hard to parse right now. I mean, you've got unemployment ticking up, but GDP growth is also looking healthy. Inflation is maybe slowing down, but it is still above the Fed's 2 percent target. But also the economic data from the end of the year got disrupted from the government shutdown. Yeah, and so the Fed would have a pretty tricky job even without this added pressure from the president. And that is why I think interest rates and the Fed will be the economic story to watch in 2026.

12:38Okay, Stephen, you are up. Yes, my indicator is all about affordability. But it is a different indicator than the ones we've been like harping on about forever. Okay, we talking groceries? Yeah, so grocery prices, they are still up. But, you know, food inflation, it is under 3 % right now. There's also housing, but we have actually seen rental prices drop recently. Now, my affordability indicator to watch in 2026 are electricity rates. Oh, I think my bill's already been up this last year. Almost certainly, yeah. I mean, for a long time, electric rates in the U.S. have been pretty stable for like 20-ish years.

13:15But recently, like you said, the cost of electricity in the U.S. has been climbing way faster than overall inflation. Electric prices have jumped about 7 percent. Oy, OK, so 7 percent compared with, you know, just under 3 percent for general inflation. So does this have something to do with AI and data centers? Yeah, everything has to do with data centers and AI in 2025 and 2026. I knew it. In fact, we recently did a Planet Money all about how AI data centers are affecting your electric bill. So you can check that out in our show notes. What you need to know now, though, is that the data centers that power AI need a lot of, you know, power.

13:53And that extra demand is leading to higher electric rates. Yeah, and it's not like the AI race is slowing down anytime soon. So we should expect that demand and those rates to keep going up. I imagine. Right. And again, we are already seeing rates go up. If you use electricity to heat your home, you can expect that cost to jump by about 12 percent this winter. That is according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. 12 percent. So that's even more than the 7 percent you cited earlier. Yeah, it is not pretty. But this can't be just about AI, right? I mean, I can think of maybe some other factors like an aging power grid, infrastructure that needs replacing.

14:31States like California have been dealing with natural disasters like wildfires, and that's meant spending more money on repairing lines. Yes. And all of these factors are why I predict electric rates are going to keep climbing and why this is my indicator to watch for 2026. OK, Cooper, your turn. What is your indicator? OK, my indicator to watch this year is consumer spending. Oh, not consumer sentiment. I feel like we've been obsessed with consumer sentiment, but this is a little twist. I know. Sorry to Kenny. But yeah, hard data shows the American consumer has actually been resilient in 2025, which is confusing because, as we've heard, consumer sentiment has been pretty bad.

15:11It sits 30 % below sentiment in December of 2024, this time last year. Yeah, and if I got it right, you know, like the highest rollers are spending so much. It's basically hiding the difficulties of everyone else. Yeah, so just the top 10 % of consumers account for a near majority of consumer spending, according to Global Bank RBC. And so that top 10 % is basically anyone who makes around$200 ,000 or more a year, right? Exactly. Yeah, there's that K-shaped economy coming on back for us. Yeah, and they're making money not just from working, but through assets that accrue value on their own. So these high-income earners are benefiting from their home values going up and a thriving stock market.

15:51The thing is that below that 10 percent are a lot of signs that show reduced consumer confidence. Like, you know, you look at auto loan delinquencies, credit card debt. These are both at record highs. So the question is, can this overly powerful 10 percent keep the good times rolling into 2026? RBC, this global bank, argues yes. They say, look, President Trump's tax cuts through the one big beautiful bill will keep benefiting upper income households. And as long as the stock market keeps on, they'll keep soaking in those dividends. So basically, consumer spending is hinging on the market staying strong?

16:29It's at least a big part of it. A stock market correction would be bad for consumer spending no matter what. But right now, it would have a particularly big impact. Sounds a lot like trickle-down economics. Interesting. Yeah, it feels like we're rooting for all that spending right now. It's going to be fine. It's going to trickle down. It's going to trickle down. I'll have my cup out and ready. Just keep the water metaphors rolling. We will keep the flow going far into 2026. You know, we're excited to deliver economic stories and news for you for the rest of the year. We will be watching all of those and so many more on Planet Money and The Indicator in 2026.

17:06And if we missed one or you have more ideas you want to send us, please email us at planetmoney at npr.org or tag us on any social media at Planet Money. And remember, to find out the winner of this year's Family Feud, tune into The Indicator Friday, January 2nd. Greg Rosalski's next newsletter will recap some predictions from economists generally. So you can get that by signing up at npr.org slash Planet Money Newsletter or click the link in the show notes. This episode of Planet Money was produced by James Sneed. The Indicator episodes were produced by Angel Correras, edited by Julia Ritchie, engineering by Robert Rodriguez and Kweisi Lee.

17:44It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Caking Cannon is the editor of The Indicator, and Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. For all of us here at Planet Money and The Indicator, thank you for riding along with us in 2025. And thanks especially to everyone who shared an episode with a friend, left a review, or signed up for Plus. Every little bit helps. I'm Waylon Wong. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.

18:16Thank you.