How tight is the U.S. labor market? So much that one trucking company is offering $5,000 signing bonuses to lure new drivers. Yet millions of Americans remain out of the workforce -- people who might be candidates for a job that, while tough, takes relatively little training and can't be shipped overseas. What's going on here? Two guests share their theories with co-hosts Scott Lanman and Kate Smith: Scott's uncle, Kenny Hahn, a professional truck driver for almost four decades, and Justin Fox, a Bloomberg View columnist who has written about the industry.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If U.S. childcare costs are so expensive, why do people who walk your dog make more money than the workers who take care of your kids? Is there any way it could become cheaper to send your kid to day care than to attend a public university? Our co-hosts are interested: Scott because he has two young daughters in preschool, and Kate because she pays a sizable sum to have her dog walked. Joining them are Scott Cotter, CEO of Childcare Network, which operates 249 centers across the southeastern U.S., and fellow Bloomberg podcaster Rebecca Greenfield, who takes time from her Game Plan show to discuss her reporting on childcare costs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How did a diminishing slice of Western economies come to so dominate the political narrative? The roar of the white working class, mainly in onetime industrial powerhouses, put Donald Trump within shouting distance of the White House, ejected Britain from the EU and fueled the surge of far-right parties in France and Germany. J.D. Vance, bestselling author of "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis" tells Daniel Moss and Scott Lanman how we got here. The onetime resident of Middletown, Ohio shares his tip on who will win Ohio and, in the process, the presidency.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

And you might want to cross San Francisco off the list, too. In the past 30 years, the most expensive metro areas in the U.S. have seen their housing prices grow at a much faster pace than the least expensive markets, according to a new report out from Trulia. That rapid increase has caused certain areas - especially New York's long-envied Manhattan borough - to be closed off to not only the successful and wealthy, but those that were also raised by the successful and wealthy. Kate Smith and Dan Moss talk to one half of the Case-Shiller Index and the authority on housing prices, Robert Shiller, on what's driving the prices up and whether New York real estate is all it's cracked up to be.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world's most powerful central bank kept interest rates unchanged today, but the Federal Reserve also suggested an increase is imminent -- perhaps as soon as December. Join Dan, Scott and Fed reporter Matt Boesler on a special Benchmark podcast to figure out what's new and what's not.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can a nation's entire economy fit on one smartphone app? In China, that day is almost here. More than 700 million Chinese -- more than double the entire U.S. population -- use WeChat. It's an all-purpose super-app that does the job of Facebook, Uber, Paypal, Tinder and many other apps, making it an invaluable tool for the Asian nation's rising middle class. That's helped give WeChat's parent Tencent, a stock-market valuation larger than any other company outside the U.S. -- even bigger than Wal-Mart. But does WeChat actually contribute to China's GDP? Or are there better ways to measure its value? Economist Gan Li, who splits his time between the U.S. and China, and Dune Lawrence, a former Bloomberg correspondent in Beijing, join Kate and Scott to pin down the answers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More than a decade after the first Internet boom, U.S. productivity growth has stagnated and the economy has been unable to break out of 2 percent expansion. This situation is testing even the most optimistic of forecasters, but in contrast to our recent guest Robert Gordon, MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson is unbowed. Brynjolfsson -- who's also director of MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy, and co-author of the book "The Second Machine Age" -- joins Daniel Moss and Scott Lanman to explain why he thinks the current wave of advances in technology means we don't have to worry about secular stagnation after all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometimes the monthly U.S. jobs report delivers a clear signal on the labor market and the economy. This is not one of those times. Fortunately, the Bloomberg Benchmark crew is here to talk about the burning questions raised by the latest report, including the implications for the Federal Reserve and what the wage numbers mean. In this special bonus episode of the Benchmark podcast, reporter Jeanna Smialek joins hosts Dan Moss and Scott Lanman to break it all down.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Happily ever after doesn't come cheap in the U.S. Couples looking to tie the knot pay an average of about $30,000 between things like caterers, flowers and photographers to capture the day. But why is it that weddings cost more than other large-scale parties? In this week's Benchmark, former White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee explains how the concepts that we learned in freshman year economics class determine why celebrating eternal love costs so much. Kate Smith is also joined by guest host Brian Chappatta, a government bonds reporter at Bloomberg News and soon-to-be married man, who gives us his experience in planning a wedding.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When phone companies implored U.S. customers in 2003 to text more because they were lagging behind the rest of the world, it was all over. Almost. While we're used to a dizzying array of new apps each month and new "sharing economy" companies such as Uber and AirBnB transform the way we do business, one of the greatest periods of U.S. productivity was already behind us by 2005. The little gadgets we're addicted to now are nothing compared with the invention and adoption of the electric light, indoor plumbing and the automobile. That's according to Robert J. Gordon, author of "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" and a professor at Northwestern University. There's not much on the horizon to change all that, Gordon tells Scott Lanman and Daniel Moss. But take heart: A recession isn't likely anytime soon!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.