55 episodes

The pandemic created a global economic crisis that economists and experts expected would lead to greater wealth inequality than ever before. Host Rebecca Greenfield along with a team of Bloomberg News reporters heads to seven countries around the world to find out what this world changing event has wrought. What they found was surprising.

The Pay Check Bloomberg

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.3 • 615 Ratings

The pandemic created a global economic crisis that economists and experts expected would lead to greater wealth inequality than ever before. Host Rebecca Greenfield along with a team of Bloomberg News reporters heads to seven countries around the world to find out what this world changing event has wrought. What they found was surprising.

    Listen Now: The Big Take

    Listen Now: The Big Take

    The Big Take from Bloomberg News brings you inside what’s shaping the world's economies with the smartest and most informed business reporters around the world. The context you need on the stories that can move markets. Every afternoon.
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    • 1 min
    Introducing: The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly

    Introducing: The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly

    The Deal, hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly, features intimate conversations with business titans, sports champions and game-changing entrepreneurs who reveal their investment philosophies, pivotal career moves and the ones that got away. From Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals, The Deal is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, Bloomberg Carplay, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch The Deal on Bloomberg Television, and Bloomberg Originals on YouTube.
    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    • 1 min
    Spain: A Time-Tested Model for Economic Security

    Spain: A Time-Tested Model for Economic Security

    For the last seven weeks, we’ve gone around the world to see how the pandemic led to more or less economic equality. There were some pleasant surprises and some devastating stories. In the season finale, we ask: what about the next crisis? How do we ensure more stability and security when something earth shattering inevitably comes along? That led reporter Jeannette Neumann to a small town in Spain’s Basque region, which boasts a strong track record of security and stability, thanks to a crisis-tested economic model.
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    • 30 min
    Singapore: Who Gets to Be Crazy Rich?

    Singapore: Who Gets to Be Crazy Rich?

    Singapore's carefully controlled housing market has been a key factor in its economic success over the last 60 years. But when the pandemic ushered in the city's worst-ever recession, property prices continued to rise, leading a younger generation to worry if it can match the social mobility enjoyed by their parents. In this episode of The Pay Check, we examine the grand housing experiment that helped Singapore to reach one of the highest rates of homeownership in the world, and recent developments that have left ordinary Singaporeans asking whether the system is still working for them. Reporter Faris Mokhtar meets the man who helped create the city's housing boom, as well as the young professionals grappling with the market today.
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    • 23 min
    Mexico: Choosing the Economy Over Life

    Mexico: Choosing the Economy Over Life

    Mexico’s handling of the pandemic has been largely driven by its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and his desire to keep the economy open. That’s meant few restrictions and a “return to normal” even before vaccines. The approach hasn’t come without costs, particularly to the country’s health care system. During the first year of the pandemic, maternal mortality rates spiked 60%. In this episode of The Pay Check, Equality reporter Kelsey Butler travels to a rural part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to get to the bottom of how that happened — and find out how to fix it.


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    • 22 min
    Hawaii: When a Billionaire Buys Your Hometown

    Hawaii: When a Billionaire Buys Your Hometown

    One of the defining trends of the pandemic has been the creation of extreme wealth at the very top. This week on The Pay Check we take a look at the booming fortunes of the world’s growing billionaire class through one man: Larry Ellison. (Net worth, give or take $90 billion.) Ellison co-founded the tech company Oracle but he may be better known for how he spends his money: yachts, mansions, a tennis tournament. In 2012, he bought an entire Hawaiian island, Lanai — home to 3,000 people. For a decade its residents have anxiously watched Ellison slowly kill their small businesses and push up rents from afar. Then, during the pandemic, Ellison moved there. Bloomberg Wealth reporter Sophie Alexander traveled down to the island to see how the billionaire’s presence has accelerated his plans, and how locals whose families have lived there for generations are managing.
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    • 25 min

Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5
615 Ratings

615 Ratings

maritxulanda ,

The pay check

Very interesting data, makes you think about the relative value of the money and how you can create or depreciate a market with or without a small economic stimulus. Also it shows the fragility that people are exposed to in life when somebody reaches poverty. A billionaire every 26 hours during Covid, that’s amazing, maybe I misunderstood (?).

Sllorraine3 ,

Intriguing and exciting Information

I enjoy this podcast! I always feel as if I’m listing to story of suspense yet I feel like I’m in the movement to right wrongs in our nation. The information is real and raw and motivates me to do research and want to share this information in order to help. I look forward to listening and learning more. Thank you

LonelyJabroni ,

Conflation of causes and effect.

$300k given as repetitions per individual is not a solve. Counterproposal, socially hold yourself accountable, believe you can achieve. In addition the community and neighbors can provide accountability. I’m not going to push education, so communal pressure to express disappointment in a lack of skill development. 300k can be made up in a generation to a decade. Something similar to give a woman a fish, teach a woman to fish… you know where it’s going. This “problem” is solvable by individuals.
And everyone should understand that there is always disparity in society. Someone will be below the mean, someone will be below the average. And averages aren’t people, you/me at 20 isn’t me at 30/40 in wealth or income. Develop a skill, hold a positive outlook, simple steps to success.

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