A view of AI, from Mumbai

The producer price index came in at a whopping 6.3% year over year. When Courtney Brown of Axios opened that release, her reaction was simple: "Whoa." That single number set the tone for a packed Marketplace episode that wove together hot inflation data, Fed policy uncertainty, and a dispatch from Mumbai on how India's tech workforce is reshaping the global economy.

Inflation keeps running hot

The PPI number was the headline, but the detail that caught Brown's attention was where the heat was coming from. "It looks like this is no longer just a Iran war energy problem," she said. The service sector—what economists call "supercore"—is running hot too, along with other parts of the economy. That means the Federal Reserve has a genuine inflation problem on its hands, not one it can blame entirely on energy shocks from the Middle East.

For consumers, the pain is showing up in real wages, which have fallen six months in a row. Catherine Rampel of the Bulwark noted that American consumers have "basically hated this economy for years," and now there's a clear reason: wage growth is being outpaced by rising costs across categories. Home insurance is one example she cited, but it's broader than that. Savings rates are trending down as people dip into reserves to cover daily expenses.