What are the key takeaways from this Marketplace episode?

Key insights include: **Energy Cost Crisis:** One in six American families currently behind on utility bills, owing collective $23 billion, as both summer cooling and winter heating seasons now create expensive dual burden on households year-round.; **AI Training Economics:** Companies like Mercore pivot to supplying human-generated training data for AI models, paying specialists over $100 hourly for complex tasks, becoming profitable while major AI companies lose money on development.; **Utility Assistance Gap:** Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program reaches less than 20% of eligible households because it operates as non-entitlement funding that expires once depleted, leaving most struggling families without federal support.

What did Josh Jezza discuss on Marketplace?

Heating costs jump 9% this winter while families owe $23 billion in utility bills. AI training companies profit from human data workers. US investors increasingly buy British soccer clubs seeking undervalued assets. Key topics include: **Energy Cost Crisis:** One in six American families currently behind on utility bills, owing collective $23 billion, as both summer cooling and winter heating seasons now create expensive dual burden on households year-round.; **AI Training Economics:** Companies like Mercore pivot to supplying human-generated training data for AI models, paying specialists over $100 hourly for complex tasks, becoming profitable while major AI companies lose money on development..

How long is this episode of Marketplace?

This episode is 26 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

Marketplace

The weather outside is frightful (so's the heating bill)

December 25, 2025

26 min episode · 2 min read

Josh Jezza

Episode

26 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Investing, Fundraising & VC, Artificial Intelligence

AI-Generated Summary

Published Dec 26, 2025

Key Takeaways

✓Energy Cost Crisis: One in six American families currently behind on utility bills, owing collective $23 billion, as both summer cooling and winter heating seasons now create expensive dual burden on households year-round.
✓AI Training Economics: Companies like Mercore pivot to supplying human-generated training data for AI models, paying specialists over $100 hourly for complex tasks, becoming profitable while major AI companies lose money on development.
✓Utility Assistance Gap: Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program reaches less than 20% of eligible households because it operates as non-entitlement funding that expires once depleted, leaving most struggling families without federal support.
✓Data Center Energy Impact: Growing electricity demand from AI data centers and infrastructure modernization drives utility rate increases passed directly to consumers, compounding affordability challenges beyond natural gas price volatility and grid upgrades.

What It Covers

Heating costs jump 9% this winter while families owe $23 billion in utility bills. AI training companies profit from human data workers. US investors increasingly buy British soccer clubs seeking undervalued assets.

Key Questions Answered

•Energy Cost Crisis: One in six American families currently behind on utility bills, owing collective $23 billion, as both summer cooling and winter heating seasons now create expensive dual burden on households year-round.
•AI Training Economics: Companies like Mercore pivot to supplying human-generated training data for AI models, paying specialists over $100 hourly for complex tasks, becoming profitable while major AI companies lose money on development.
•Utility Assistance Gap: Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program reaches less than 20% of eligible households because it operates as non-entitlement funding that expires once depleted, leaving most struggling families without federal support.
•Data Center Energy Impact: Growing electricity demand from AI data centers and infrastructure modernization drives utility rate increases passed directly to consumers, compounding affordability challenges beyond natural gas price volatility and grid upgrades.

Notable Moment

Betty James rescued Slinky from bankruptcy after her husband confessed to infidelity and financial ruin, then transformed the company through strategic partnerships including the iconic jingle and Pixar's Toy Story collaboration, running it until age 80.

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Episode Transcript

This marketplace podcast is supported by Faye Gree Drinker, one of the largest law firms in Minnesota. With nearly 300 Minneapolis attorneys helping clients solve complex legal issues and meeting their goals in the Twin Cities and beyond. Feegreedrinker.com. This podcast is supported by Odoo. Some say Odoo business management software is like fertilizer for businesses because the simple efficient software promotes growth. Others say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable. And some describe Odoo's programs for manufacturing, accounting, and more as building blocks for creating a custom software suite. So Odoo is fertilizer, magic beanstalk building blocks for business. Odoo, exactly what businesses need. Sign up at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. It's gonna cost you more to stay warm on Christmas this year. Plus, we've got a stocking full of widgets, toys, and games all coming up. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Washington DC, I'm Kimberly Adams in for Kai Risdall. It's Thursday, December 25. Thanks for joining us on this Christmas day. It's a holiday associated with cooler, if not downright cold weather in much of the country. And as the temperatures drop, more people are cranking up the heat. But a lot of folks may be pausing at the thermostat thinking about what that energy bill is gonna look like. This winter, the average cost of heating is expected to jump more than 9%. That's according to projections from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association And federal support for states to help low income people with utility bills was delayed about a month this year because of the government shutdown. Marketplace's Carla Javier looked into the causes and consequences of these higher heating prices. Even before winter sets in, families have already been struggling with utility costs, says Mark Wolf of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. We estimate that one out of six families are behind in the utilities bills right now. They owe about $23,000,000,000, their utilities. He says that's because customers are catching up from high costs over the summer. The cost of cooling your house was the highest it had been in more than a decade. In the past, the home heating season was the big expense. Now we have both an expensive home heating season and an expensive home cooling season. Really squeezing customers. Wolf says there are a lot of reasons why heating keeps getting more expensive. There's the rising cost of natural gas because of market volatility and companies upgrading their infrastructure. And even if a customer's home is heated with electricity, that's getting more expensive too, says David Konisky, Indiana University professor and co director of the Energy Justice Lab. We have heard a lot about AI and data centers. But also just as utilities are modernizing and upgrading the grid, these costs are passed down to consumers. And that's on top of all the other rising costs. Whether it's food or or health care and higher energy …

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