The Indicator from Planet Money - 50-year mortgages, falling real wages, and doing your rideshare due diligence

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

It’s … Indicators of the Week! We look at some of the most fascinating economic numbers from the news and bring them to you.On today’s episode: The cost of living is outstripping wage growth for most of us, the math behind the Trump administration’s proposed 50-year mortgages, and how we’re just giving Uber and Lyft free money. Related episodes: Trump's plans for the housing market The Money Illusion: Have Americans really gotten a raise? 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.  See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong here with Darien Woods. Hey, hey. Joining us today, the rambling Keith Romer. Rambling Keith Romer. I accept. I take it.

You've ambled into our happy little studio today because, do you know what time it is, Keith? I believe that this is indicator of the week, time, Waylon. It's indicators of the week. On today's show, we have some not-so-great news for people on low or middle incomes, which is most of us. We dig into a new proposal for 50-year mortgages. And how the ride share app in your pocket may be taking more money from you than you know. It is Indicators of the Week, Darien Woods.

You're up first. My indicator of the week is negative 2%. That's how much wages have fallen over the last year for low-income households once you account for inflation. This was shown in a Bank of America report this week. Yeah, not great news, right? No, we want our wages to be increasing. So when people talk about struggles with the cost of living, that's absolutely true for a lot of Americans, even though inflation is at a relatively moderate 3%.

If your bills and groceries are going up 3%, but your pay only goes up 1%. That is a problem. Uh-oh. Is this smelling a little like stagflation? It is not nearly as bad as stagflation in the past, but you could say it's a mini stagflation episode for these households. stagnant wages, but inflation still elevated. And by the way, middle-income households were still falling behind two. Their wages shrunk 1% once you account for inflation. So we've got low-income earners down 2%, middle-income down 1%, both falling.

But, Daryan, lots of other signs in the economy still look strong, right? That stock market's booming, unemployment is relatively low. Consumer spending has been going up all year. This puzzle makes a little more sense when you look at the high-income. earners. Their wages have been growing, close to 1% after inflation. That's not amazing growth, but it's still growth. And given that high-income earners account for so much of consumer spending, they're really masking the economic statistics right now. And given that high-income earners tend to own more stocks and you've got share prices scaling height after height this year, it's no wonder they're feeling pretty good about the economy and are happy to spend. And

this whole phenomenon is known as a K-shaped economy. The letter K here, right, the lines for the wealthy are going up and up and up and up, and the lines for the poor are going down and down and down. It's a reversal from the years around the pandemic when lower earners' incomes were actually growing the fastest. And so this probably explains why many surveys of how people feel about the economy are a little gloomy right now. A recent Harris poll showed that two-thirds of lower-income Americans were at least

somewhat concerned about losing their job. All right. Thank you, Darian. Waylon, what do you have for us today? My indicator is 50, as in the 50-year mortgage, something that does not exist in the U.S. right now, but was a big topic of conversation this week. The source of the hubbub was social media posts from President Trump and the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte. They basically floated the idea of a 50-year mortgage for homebuyers in the U.S.

I guess this means it's time to pour one out for our uniquely American 30-year mortgage. Well, don't write the obit yet, Keith. The 30-year is probably sticking around because, honestly, this 50-year mortgage idea, not exactly taking off. Economists and people from the housing industry did some quick math, and the numbers don't look good. Bottom line is a 50-year mortgage would have lower monthly payments than a 30-year one, but a borrower would end up paying a ton more interest during the life of a loan. Dare I ask how much more? Okay, so for this, we're going to turn to the AP, which did an analysis.

And let's say you, Darien, buy a house for around $415,000. You put 10% down, you borrow the rest. The average monthly rate for your mortgage, let's say it's 6.17%. Okay, I've accomplished the American dream. White pick a fence and everything. That works. Okay. Now, the AP says that with a 30-year mortgage,

You'll end up paying around $820,000 during that period. Now, with the 50-year mortgage, you are looking at total house payments of $1.2 million. That's like $400,000 more. That's a whole extra house. I know. That is a whole extra house. And there are other issues with a 50-year mortgage. A homeowner would build equity much slower than with a 30-year mortgage.

And also the typical age of the first-time home buyer in the U.S. is 40. So imagine paying off your loan when you're 90. Like, who wants that? We should say, right, the administration is already walking this back a little bit, right? Yeah. I looked at Bill Pulte's X account, and it now has a pinned post that says, we are actively evaluating portable mortgages. Portable mortgages.

Sounds like material for another indicator of the week for a different time. We've got to get to Keith's segment. All right, Darien, for this one, I need a little participation from the listeners. You here, can you please take your phone out? Yeah, I got it. I want you to open up your favorite rideshare app. You right now are at our bureau in Manhattan. Look to see how much it would cost you to get home to your apartment.

A normal Uber X. Here we go. $72. Okay, so that's... $72. It's expensive, but it was really easy, right? And what I had you do, that is what most people who use one of these apps, too. They open one app. They get a price. They wait for their car. But Darien, according to a new

National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, that is a big mistake because, of course, there is more than one ride-sharing app, and those apps often have different prices for the exact same route. According to estimates in this paper by Jeffrey Fawcett, Michael Luca, and Yeji Ashu, New York City's Uber and Lyft users are spending $300 million a year. year more than they need to. Wow. If they just compared prices, took Lyft when it was cheaper, took Uber when it was cheaper, $300 million in total savings.

You could take out so many 50-year mortgages with $300 million. And we're using New York as an example, but I'm assuming it's happening all over, right, that people are not comparison shopping? According to the paper, no, they do not. The authors found that of the people who opened one of Uber or Lyft on any given day, only about one in six even bothered to open the other app. I actually only use Lyft. I don't have the Uber app downloaded on my phone,

so I am one of these people who would never comparison shop. Well, and in some instances, right, it makes sense not to comparison shop. Like, forget Uber and Lyft for a second. Like if you're talking ice cream stands in your town, and there's two of them, but they're 10 miles apart, right? You're not going to drive back and forth to make sure you're getting the best price on ice cream. And this is an example of what economists call a certain. friction, you know, time or lack of information or distance, anything that keeps you from making the best, most economic purchase.

But this friction is incredibly minimal. They're literally right next to each other on my phone. 10 millimeters apart. Yeah, they're not 10 miles apart. They're 10 milometers apart. So the search friction here is, I guess, laziness. Also, apparently people do less searching around on mobile devices compared to computers because the screens are smaller, so it's harder. You know this whole thing about how millennials and older folks don't like to do big purchases on their phones or like they don't like to shop on their phones? Like I have a really hard time buying airline tickets on phones. You know, I always want to be on a laptop. It just doesn't seem like a serious place to be doing serious purchases. Well, yeah. And also the screens are smaller.

So if you're comparing fairs and stuff, I do find it very cumbersome to be on the phone to do that kind of stuff. You got to have like multiple tabs or like like. Well, and we're just saying millennials and older people now. Is that insulting? As a member of the older people, I'm not sure how I feel. JNX Eurasia yet again. You're the greatest generation to me, Keith. I need a bath.

Okay, I'm going back to the paper. The paper, importantly, says this. For all members of all ages, if users would just comparison shop between Uber and Lyft, they would probably save themselves about 14% a ride on average. So I'm going to open up lift. All right, that is $79.99. So, Waylon, you would have been paying an $8 roughly lift premium if you were to just open up lift. Check both apps, folks. Check both apps.

Keith, you've been a delightful edition, and you might have saved us all money. Thanks for having me. This episode was produced by Angel Carranos with engineering by Jimmy Keely. It was fact-checked by Cooper Katz McKin-Kham and Sierra Juarez. Kicking Cannon is our show's editor and The Indicator is a production of NPR. Thank you.