Platypus Economics with Justin Wolfers

Latest Episodes:

Trump Wants Cheap Money. Why Are Rates Going Up Anyway? Oct 04, 2026

Show notes

What happens when a president wants lower interest rates—but the economy, inflation, and bond markets are all pushing the other way?

In this episode of What Next with Mary Harris from Slate, Justin Wolfers explains why the latest fight over interest rates is about much more than one Federal Reserve meeting.

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Why Workers Are Getting Less of What the Economy Produces | Off The Clock Oct 03, 2026

Show notes

Justin Wolfers and Bloomberg columnist Stacey Vanek Smith slow down to unpack the one number that quietly shapes your paycheck: labor's share of income. For most of modern history, workers took home about two-thirds of the pie. Today it's down to 53% — and the rest goes to the people who own the companies, not the ones who show up to work. Then the stakes get bigger.

Justin argues that past $100 million, the only thing money buys is power — and in an election decided by 115,000 votes, one billionaire's checkbook could theoretically swing thousands more. The same logic drives the AI question: the same technology makes your life utopian if you own the robot and dystopian if your boss does.

From the first-ever live edition of Off the Clock, recorded at Stanford.

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What September's Employment Numbers Really Say | Diving In Oct 02, 2026

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The September jobs report landed with a thud: just 29,000 jobs created, well short of the 80,000–90,000 forecasters expected, with July and August both revised down and unemployment ticking up to 4.2%. In this episode of Diving In, Justin Wolfers walks you through why those numbers are disappointing by historical standards — yet why unemployment can still stay low and stable at the same time.

Then there's your paycheck. Wage growth has slumped to around 3% — slower than prices — so if you feel like you can't keep up, you're not imagining it. Justin explains what weak wages mean for the Fed, why a rate hike now looks more likely in December than October, and why Wall Street shrugged.

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Are Your Financial Mistakes Making Someone Else Rich? | The Professor Is In Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

Every dollar you spend having your money actively managed by someone in a sports car is paying for that sports car. In this Professor Is In episode, Justin Wolfers takes questions after his keynote at Stanford's Initiative for Financial Decision Making and lands on the core ideas he thinks every personal finance course must teach.

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Why Good Money Advice Fails to Land | Diving In Sep 30, 2026

Show notes

Most of us wash our hands even though we've never seen a germ. But when it comes to personal finance, hardly anyone "washes their hands" — and the mistakes are expensive. Justin Wolfers, back from a Stanford keynote to finance educators, argues that ignoring sound financial advice may cost people somewhere between 2% and 10% of their lifetime consumption — putting it in the same neighborhood as the welfare cost of climate change, and dwarfing the 0.1–1% economists usually assign to business cycles.

So why won't people listen? Because the public doesn't trust economists: surveys show they rank barely above politicians in favorability. Justin makes the case that the fix isn't more experts screaming about interest rates — it's using plainer speech, telling better stories, showing real empathy, and laying out one clear action at a time. Here's what's in it for you: the employer match you're leaving on the table, the credit card interest compounding daily while your cash sits in savings, the actively managed fund quietly skimming your returns. Small mistakes, moved across a lifetime, add up to real money — yours.

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What Airbags Teach Us About Artificial Intelligence | The Professor Is In Sep 28, 2026

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AI safety fears are in the news, so Justin Wolfers sits down with producer Augusta to work through the economics — and the ethics — of building guardrails into AI. Using airbags as the analogy, he shows why a "safe" AI, like a car with airbags, works a little less well than one built with no precautions — and why that tradeoff is worth taking when the downside isn't a fender bender but the electricity grid, a biological weapon, or human extinction.

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How Much Should We Spend to Prevent an AI Catastrophe? | Diving In Sep 26, 2026

Show notes

The people building the most powerful AI see faster science, better medicines, and explosive economic growth. Others see catastrophe. Justin Wolfers steps into that argument with the one tool that can actually weigh the two: economics.

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How Accountability Shapes National Borrowing Rates | The Professor Is In Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

What's the relationship between journalism and borrowing costs?

When a local paper shuts down, something surprising happens: the town starts paying higher interest on its debt. Justin Wolfers sits down with producer Augusta to answer viewer questions about why press freedom isn't just a civics-class ideal — it's an economic force that touches your mortgage rate, your government's bond yields, and the whole institutional plumbing that keeps prosperity running.

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Why Trump's Diesel Export Ban Could Raise Gas Prices | Diving In Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

The White House is floating a temporary ban on U.S. diesel exports, and the pitch sounds simple: keep the diesel here, and prices fall for farmers and truckers.

In this episode of Diving In, Justin Wolfers walks through why that story falls apart the moment you follow the economics past its first sentence.

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on Substack 👉 https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com

the Podcast 👉 https://platypuseconomics.com/podcast

Follow on Social Media @PlatypusEconomics and @JustinWolfers

What Would It Take to Eliminate Poverty? | The Professor Is In Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

In this episode of the Professor Is In, Justin Wolfers answers your questions about poverty in America. Justin walks through the official poverty measure ($32,649 for two adults and two kids), the newer supplemental measure ($41,701 for a renting family that adjusts for local costs and now counts internet and phone as essentials), and why the two disagree about how many people are poor.

Justin also digs into the hard questions: is redistribution always a leaky bucket, or can fairness make the pie bigger? Why don't we just end poverty with a universal basic income?

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