Economics in the News – Oct. 13-19, 2025
Economics impacts our lives every day. Below are some of the top storylines from this past week related to economics.
o There is a growing economic divide between the rich and the poor in today’s economy. While wealthier Americans continue to spend freely, lower-income families are cutting back. Moody’s Analytics estimates that with the top 10 percent of households accounting for half of spending in the United States, those households now account for the highest percentage in spending in more than 40 years.
While the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic saw the demand for labor in many lower-paying jobs outpace supply, that trend has reversed where hourly wages are the slowest rising paying jobs on the labor market, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Combined with the current inflation environment, Americans are relying more on debt to keep up with payments. [The New York Times]
o The WNBA has seen rapid expansion in recent years. From record attendance each of the last two seasons, along with record broadcast ratings, the league is set to begin its new media rights deal for the 2026 season. The new deal will pay the league an average of $200 million per season, four times the amount of the previous deal. In addition, five expansion franchises will enter the league by 2030, with the last three expansion teams paying a $250 million expansion fee.
According to ticket inventory management company Logitix, the average ticket price of $88 in 2024 marked a 75 percent increase from ticket prices in 2023. Caitlin Clark, the league’s most popular player, have helped it capture a broader audience, helping increase visibility. However, many longtime fans are worried about being priced out of games, as its popularity explodes. [The New York Times]
o Millions of people woke up Monday morning to widespread service outages from companies ranging from favorite social media apps to online retailers. Amazon Web Services said the issue was due to its Domain Name System which translates domain names into IP addresses.
The outage impacted companies ranging from Snapchat to Venmo to Apple. The outages brought into perspective the number of businesses that depend on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure systems to run their operations. [The Washington Post]
o Often seen for its controversy, popular brokerage app Robinhood has tried from its inception to lure to a younger, more general audience than traditional brokerage companies. Robinhood caters to its younger customer base with its no-fee transactions approach and ease-of-use platform. As a result, from 2016 to 2020, more people opened brokerage accounts on Robinhood than any other company. From their cell phone, customers can buy and trade stocks, cryptocurrencies and even, controversially, trade options – often a dangerous type of investment decision for novice investors.
Robinhood also was the preferred trading platform for the infamous meme stocks, such as GameStop. Robinhood and other trading platforms were criticized when they cut off access to trading as GameStop’s stock approached $500, a 10,000 percent increase in a four-week period. While the stock took a PR hit and its stock sunk after its 2021 Initial Public Offering (IPO), it has rallied since President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office. In the long term, Robinhood’s strategy is that its young customer base will see their incomes and wealth increase over time, as the average customer balance of $10,000 is a fraction of what it is at Robinhood’s competitors. [Bloomberg]
o Companies are increasingly investing billions of dollars into data centers across te United States to support artificial intelligence (AI) models, as they are making bets that AI will be an essential part of our future. These companies are in large warehouse buildings where computer hardware that stores and processes digital information is kept. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the typical AI data center consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households. In addition, they need billions of gallons of water to keep the technology cool.
However, many residents in cities where the data centers are being built have worries about how they impact energy costs, and how they affect the environment. Data centers are driving up the costs for electricity in areas in which they are being built, and along with more consumer electronic devices becoming available, are stressing the power grid. [NPR]
