Prepping for a rainy day and higher used car prices

By Wailin Wong,

Adrian Ma, Keith Romer, Angel Carreras, Kate Concannon

Published May 9, 2025 at 9:15 AM EDT

It's ... Indicators of the Week! Our weekly look at some of the most fascinating economic numbers from the news.

On today's episode: China bulks up for a financial chill, how much to save for a rainy day, and the price of used cars goes up.

Related episodes:
America's small GDP bump, China's big stimulus dispersal, and a Monkey King (Apple / Spotify)
How nonprofits get cash from your clunker (Apple / Spotify)
IRS information sharing, bonds bust, and a chorebot future (Apple / Spotify)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

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Wailin Wong

Wailin Wong is a long-time business and economics journalist who's reported from a Chilean mountaintop, an embalming fluid factory and lots of places in between. She is a host of The Indicator from Planet Money. Previously, she launched and co-hosted two branded podcasts for a software company and covered tech and startups for the Chicago Tribune. Wailin started her career as a correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires in Buenos Aires. In her spare time, she plays violin in one of the oldest community orchestras in the U.S.

Adrian Ma

Adrian Ma covers work, money and other "business-ish" for NPR's daily economics podcast The Indicator from Planet Money.

Keith Romer

Keith Romer has been a contributing reporter for Planet Money since 2015. He has reported stories on risk-pooling among poker players, whether it's legal to write a spin-off of the children's book Goodnight Moon and the time one man cornered the American market in onions. Sometimes on the show, he sings.

See stories by Keith Romer

Angel Carreras

Angel Carreras is an assistant producer for The Indicator from Planet Money. He is a Bakersfield-raised, Cal State Long Beach graduate. He previously worked at KCRW, the NPR member station in Los Angeles. He has produced award-winning and character-driven work, with subjects that have included masked puppeteers, mutual aid groups, and community activists.

Kate Concannon

Kate Concannon is the Supervising Senior Editor at The Indicator from Planet Money. She leads this small, collaborative team of hosts, reporters and producers in making sense of crucial, but often complex and confusing, economic news in just 10 minutes a day.