Samantha Fields

Senior Reporter

SHORT BIO

Samantha Fields is a senior reporter at Marketplace.

She’s particularly interested in how the economy affects people’s everyday lives, and a lot of her coverage focuses on economic inequality, housing and climate change.

She’s also reported and produced for WCAI and The GroundTruth Project, the “NPR Politics Podcast,” NPR’s midday show, “Here & Now,” Vermont Public Radio and Maine Public Radio. She got her start in journalism as a reporter for a community paper, The Wellesley Townsman, and her start in radio as an intern and freelance producer at “The Takeaway” at WNYC. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Latest Stories (537)

New unemployment claims drop to a 50-year low

Nov 24, 2021
While there are constraints on labor supply, we're seeing signs that some of them are easing, one economist says.
Though this week's first-time jobless claims are a historic low, the economic recovery is still volatile. Above, people line up to attend a Los Angeles job fair.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Christmas tree supplies are tight, and climate change is to blame

Nov 23, 2021
Expect trees to cost 5% to 10% more than they did last year.
A Christmas tree is loaded into a truck on Nov. 21. Christmas trees quantities are lower this year as a result of extreme heat and cutbacks in planting during the Great Recession.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

Biden administration auctions oil and gas leases on 1.7 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico

Nov 19, 2021
A court ordered the administration to resume the auctions it had suspended.
Drilling of the newly auctioned Gulf of Mexico gas and oil leases likely won't begin for seven to 10 years. Above, a drilling platform off the coast of Texas.
Tom Pennington via Getty Images

The affordable housing crisis meets the climate crisis in New York

Nov 19, 2021
After more than a dozen people died in illegal basement apartments in New York in in September, from flash flooding, there's been renewed attention on how to make those apartments safer in the face of climate change.
A flooded basement level apartment stands in a Queens neighborhood that saw massive flooding and numerous deaths following a night of heavy wind and rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida on Sept. 3, 2021 in New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

EV charging stations will get a boost from the infrastructure package

Nov 17, 2021
The bill devotes $7.5 billion to Biden's goal — having half a million charging stations nationwide within a decade.
An electric vehicle charging station in Southern California. The Biden administration hopes the nation will have half a million of these facilities by 2030.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Why did the outdoor economy suffer in 2020 when more of us were outside?

Nov 11, 2021
Lockdowns, public lands closures, supply chain disruptions and travel restrictions took a toll. But many outdoor retailers still had a great year.
More Americans got out and about biking, fishing and hiking amid COVID-19 in 2020. Above, a bike shop owner repairs a tire in Brooklyn.
Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images

Hurricane Ida flooded their basement apartment. Months later, they've barely begun to recover.

Nov 9, 2021
Many New York basement apartments flooded in September. Most of the hardest-hit residents were low-income, and most were immigrants.
People clean up their flooded homes in Queens, New York, after the remnants of Ida passed through the area. The storm hit undocumented immigrants particularly hard.
Spencer Platt via Getty Images

U.S., other countries cut funding for international fossil fuel projects

Nov 4, 2021
Instead, they'll put about $18 billion a year into renewable energy projects.
On Thursday, more than 20 countries pledged to redirect investments from fossil fuels to clean energy. Above, signage inside the COP26 United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images
World leaders at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on Tuesday. Among other issues, they have discussed the need for additional investment in climate resilience for developing countries.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. and EU trade agreement seeks reduction of "dirty steel"

Nov 1, 2021
The pact lifts U.S. tariffs on European steel and European Union duties on bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
President Joe Biden at the G-20 summit in Rome, where the U.S. announced it would roll back tariffs imposed on imported EU steel and aluminum.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images