Stacey Vanek Smith

The oil market is oversupplied, partially due to the global economic slowdown. And companies have to come up with creative ways to store excesses of oil.

Black-owned financial institutions are a shrinking part of the U.S. financial system. NPR's podcast The Indicator from Planet Money looks at what that means for America's racial disparities.

Williston, N.D., had doubled in size during the oil boom a decade ago — oil companies rushed in to drill, creating thousands of jobs. Now, oil prices have fallen, and the town is facing hard times.

NPR's daily economics podcast The Indicator from Planet Money investigates how the fees and fines that make up city budgets disproportionately target low-income communities and communities of color.

Data shows that the police's disproportionate use of force is associated with the fact that it is hard to prosecute officers for wrongful killings — and one possible reason for that is police unions.

Coronavirus has shed light on centuries of racial economic inequality. NPR's podcast The Indicator from Planet Money looks at how COVID-19 and the recession are hitting black Americans hard.

Hospitals lost millions of dollars preparing for a surge of COVID-19 patients. Some were swamped, but others only saw a handful of coronavirus cases. Now many are struggling to survive.

State unemployment offices have been slammed as 36 million Americans have lost their jobs. Now, individuals and the U.S. economy are depending on these often underfunded operations to step up.

Demand for goods and services spikes, as businesses reopen across the country. It may offset some of the damage the U.S. economy has suffered during coronavirus shutdowns.

Wearing masks in public has become more common in the U.S. amid the pandemic. Fashion historian Valerie Steele discusses how medical masks give rise to the "fashion mask."

U.S. supermarket shelves are empty, and food banks across the country are besieged. So why are farmers dumping, destroying and giving away food?

Rural hospitals already walk a scalpel's edge between solvency and collapse. The coronavirus outbreak threatens to push many of them over the brink.

Most of the world's major economies are on lockdown to combat the coronavirus. But the Swedish government has kept the country open — claiming it is better for the economy and for public health.

Faced with the prospect of closing up shop because of the coronavirus, some companies are retooling and pivoting to keep their doors open, and their workers employed.

China's government is beginning to lift restrictions that were in place during the height of the coronavirus outbreak. So how do residents feel as life slowly starts to return to normal?

The coronavirus has given stock markets and the global economy a whack. Some businesses are feeling pain, while others are seeing gains. And a handful of companies are experiencing both.

Netflix had to become a content producer to compete with other streaming services. To raise the money to pay for all that content, the company turned to junk bonds.

Buy or rent? That's becoming a question for manufacturers of more and more types of products. Now, fast fashion brands like H&M are trying to get in on the movement too.

When it was first introduced, solar power was so expensive that it was a punchline in the energy business. Since then prices have fallen, and today solar power is cheaper than coal.

It used to be that companies strove for the best credit rating possible. These days, however, America's corporations seem happy to slide by with a passing grade.