The Pay Check

4.3 (614)
SOCIETY & CULTURE
UPDATED WEEKLY

The pandemic created a global economic crisis that economists and experts expected would lead to greater wealth inequality than ever before. Host Rebecca Greenfield along with a team of Bloomberg News reporters heads to seven countries around the world to find out what this world changing event has wrought. What they found was surprising.

06/30/2022

Spain: A Time-Tested Model for Economic Security

For the last seven weeks, we’ve gone around the world to see how the pandemic led to more or less economic equality. There were some pleasant surprises and some devastating stories. In the season finale, we ask: what about the next crisis? How do we ensure more stability and security when something earth shattering inevitably comes along? That led reporter Jeannette Neumann to a small town in Spain’s Basque region, which boasts a strong track record of security and stability, thanks to a crisis-tested economic model. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

30 min
06/22/2022

Singapore: Who Gets to Be Crazy Rich?

Singapore's carefully controlled housing market has been a key factor in its economic success over the last 60 years. But when the pandemic ushered in the city's worst-ever recession, property prices continued to rise, leading a younger generation to worry if it can match the social mobility enjoyed by their parents. In this episode of The Pay Check, we examine the grand housing experiment that helped Singapore to reach one of the highest rates of homeownership in the world, and recent developments that have left ordinary Singaporeans asking whether the system is still working for them. Reporter Faris Mokhtar meets the man who helped create the city's housing boom, as well as the young professionals grappling with the market today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

24 min
06/16/2022

Mexico: Choosing the Economy Over Life

Mexico’s handling of the pandemic has been largely driven by its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and his desire to keep the economy open. That’s meant few restrictions and a “return to normal” even before vaccines. The approach hasn’t come without costs, particularly to the country’s health care system. During the first year of the pandemic, maternal mortality rates spiked 60%. In this episode of The Pay Check, Equality reporter Kelsey Butler travels to a rural part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to get to the bottom of how that happened — and find out how to fix it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

22 min
06/09/2022

Hawaii: When a Billionaire Buys Your Hometown

One of the defining trends of the pandemic has been the creation of extreme wealth at the very top. This week on The Pay Check we take a look at the booming fortunes of the world’s growing billionaire class through one man: Larry Ellison. (Net worth, give or take $90 billion.) Ellison co-founded the tech company Oracle but he may be better known for how he spends his money: yachts, mansions, a tennis tournament. In 2012, he bought an entire Hawaiian island, Lanai — home to 3,000 people. For a decade its residents have anxiously watched Ellison slowly kill their small businesses and push up rents from afar. Then, during the pandemic, Ellison moved there. Bloomberg Wealth reporter Sophie Alexander traveled down to the island to see how the billionaire’s presence has accelerated his plans, and how locals whose families have lived there for generations are managing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

26 min
06/02/2022

India: Why Did Working Women Disappear?

Even before the pandemic, the proportion of women in India's workforce was falling. Covid made it so much worse. This episode of The Pay Check looks at where India's working women went during the pandemic, why they haven't come back to the workforce, and why that's a blow to the country's broader economic ambitions. Archana Chaudhary and Ronojoy Mazumdar travel to a girls school on the Ganges with one primary mission: Keeping girls in school, often at odds with families that would prefer to get them married. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

20 min
05/26/2022

Kenya: The Lost Girls

An increase in teen pregnancies in Kenya is part of a shadow pandemic that ripped through developing nations during Covid, setting women’s progress back generations. In this episode of The Pay Check, journalist Jill Filipovic visits a dance school in Nairobi, Kenya that’s fighting to help girls manage their lives and re-enroll in school. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

22 min
05/19/2022

U.S.: Where Cash Made All the Difference

When the Covid-19 pandemic started, many people expected inequality to get worse in the U.S. But at least for the bottom 50% of Americans, something surprising happened: Many of the least advantaged boosted their wealth. To start to understand why, we look to cash payments. No-strings-attached money went to people in need in the form of federal stimulus, the child tax credit — and local guaranteed income programs. As pandemic rescue aid wanes, is there a path to making monthly cash payments permanent? Reporter Susan Berfield looks to Jackson, Mississippi, to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

28 min
05/12/2022

Brazil: The Cautionary Tale

This season on the Pay Check, we're going to seven different countries to see how a global pandemic shifted the balance between the richest and the poorest people -- and affected everyone in between. In this first episode, Host Rebecca Greenfield and reporter Ben Steverman discuss how the effects of the pandemic on our health, wealth, safety and livelihood varied widely based on where in the world we were. Then Brazil-based reporter Shannon Sims takes us to the country's capital, Brasilia -- One of the places with the sharpest inequality in the world. Through a day in the life of a single mother who added rideshare driver to her list of side jobs during the pandemic, she explores the ways the pandemic snapped the already fragile safety nets women in this vulnerable group had strung together to stay afloat. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

36 min

See All (53)

Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway explore the most interesting topics in finance, markets and economics. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday.

4.5 (1399)

INVESTING
Bloomberg Radio host Barry Ritholtz has in-depth discussions with the people and ideas that shape markets, investing and business.

4.4 (2029)

INVESTING
The economy and the markets are "under surveillance" as we cover the latest in finance, economics and investment. Listen to Jonathan Ferro, Lisa Abramowicz and Annmarie Hordern for the top interviews from Bloomberg Surveillance Television. And join Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney for the best conversations from Bloomberg Surveillance Radio. Watch Surveillance TV LIVE each mornings: http://bit.ly/3P7nstQ. Watch Surveillance Radio LIVE weekday mornings: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.

3.9 (1074)

BUSINESS NEWS
Bloomberg Daybreak delivers today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes. Get informed from Bloomberg's 2,700 journalists and analysts in 120 countries.

3.9 (28)

BUSINESS NEWS
Elon Musk’s sprawling business empire has granted the billionaire a degree of power and global influence that transcends the industries he’s reshaped. He is the leader of no fewer than six hugely influential companies, spanning electric vehicles to wartime communications, and their innovations could shape the fates of nations. Musk is polarizing, confounding and inescapable. And he is the biggest business story of our time. Each week, listen in as host David Papadopoulos convenes a panel of Bloomberg Businessweek journalists who are tracking Musk’s companies and the surprising ways they intersect. They break down the business mogul's latest moves and analyze what they could mean for us all.

3.2 (122)

BUSINESS
Zero is about the tactics and technologies taking us to a world of zero emissions. Each week Bloomberg’s award-winning reporter Akshat Rathi talks to the people tackling climate change – a venture capitalist hunting for the best cleantech investment, scientists starting companies, politicians who have successfully created climate laws, and CEOs who have completely transformed their businesses. The road to zero emissions has many paths and everyone’s got an opinion about the best route. Listen in.

4.8 (155)

BUSINESS

View Subscription FAQs

4.3

out of 5

614 Ratings

The pay check

05/20/2022

maritxulanda

Very interesting data, makes you think about the relative value of the money and how you can create or depreciate a market with or without a small economic stimulus. Also it shows the fragility that people are exposed to in life when somebody reaches poverty. A billionaire every 26 hours during Covid, that’s amazing, maybe I misunderstood (?).
Intriguing and exciting Information

04/27/2021

Sllorraine3

I enjoy this podcast! I always feel as if I’m listing to story of suspense yet I feel like I’m in the movement to right wrongs in our nation. The information is real and raw and motivates me to do research and want to share this information in order to help. I look forward to listening and learning more. Thank you
Conflation of causes and effect.

08/21/2021

LonelyJabroni

$300k given as repetitions per individual is not a solve. Counterproposal, socially hold yourself accountable, believe you can achieve. In addition the community and neighbors can provide accountability. I’m not going to push education, so communal pressure to express disappointment in a lack of skill development. 300k can be made up in a generation to a decade. Something similar to give a woman a fish, teach a woman to fish… you know where it’s going. This “problem” is solvable by individuals. And everyone should understand that there is always disparity in society. Someone will be below the mean, someone will be below the average. And averages aren’t people, you/me at 20 isn’t me at 30/40 in wealth or income. Develop a skill, hold a positive outlook, simple steps to success.
Kind of disturbing

07/06/2021

Morris Stewart

This show and the producers clearly have an agenda. The information in every episode is very misleading. It’s funny how the team uses common sense arguments that blanket a broad range of people and will then suggest that its only happening to a certain group of individuals or community. There’s a lot of good information here. That would be better served to educate people as too why they may not be seeing all of the information. Yet, you use that information too mislead anyone who doesn’t care to use critical thinking or common sense as a first defense. This type of racist propaganda is dangerous people.

The pandemic created a global economic crisis that economists and experts expected would lead to greater wealth inequality than ever before. Host Rebecca Greenfield along with a team of Bloomberg News reporters heads to seven countries around the world to find out what this world changing event has wrought. What they found was surprising.