Feb 18, 2021
Reddit, Robinhood and hedge funds face Congress
Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images
Elected officials in Washington get into the GameStop trading frenzy today. Plus, 861,000 more people registered for unemployment last week. Before the pandemic, there had never once been a week even above 700,000. And, people who are undocumented were excluded from relief money under the CARES Act. We speak with a restaurant worker in Los Angeles about his experience.
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Segments From this episode
Some of what we're seeing in those high jobless claims numbers is a backlog that's finally being cleared
Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, says there was a lapse when the latest COVID relief package from the federal government passed in December and some unemployment benefits were extended again. “We were already going to take time for people to get the money that they were owed, let alone what they could qualify for. And this added another layer on to that,” she said. That aside, Swonk says, “the labor market just isn’t healing.”
Big players from GameStop stock market frenzy appear before Congress today
Marketplace’s Erika Beras has more.
Music from the episode
Web of Deception Thievery Corporation
The team
David Brancaccio
Host
Victoria Craig
Host, BBC
Stephen Ryan
Senior Producer, BBC
Jonathan Frewin
Producer, BBC
Daniel Shin
Producer
Jay Siebold
Technical Director
Meredith Garretson Morbey
Senior Producer
Alex Schroeder
Producer
Erika Soderstrom
Producer
Rose Conlon
Producer
Brian Allison
Technical Director
