John Ydstie
John Ydstie has covered the economy, Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve at NPR for nearly three decades. Over the years, NPR has also employed Ydstie's reporting skills to cover major stories like the aftermath of Sept. 11, Hurricane Katrina, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He was a lead reporter in NPR's coverage of the global financial crisis and the Great Recession, as well as the network's coverage of President Trump's economic policies. Ydstie has also been a guest host on the NPR news programs Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. Ydstie stepped back from full-time reporting in late 2018, but plans to continue to contribute to NPR through part-time assignments and work on special projects.
During 1991 and 1992, Ydstie was NPR's bureau chief in London. He traveled throughout Europe covering, among other things, the breakup of the Soviet Union and attempts to move Europe toward closer political and economic union. He accompanied U.S. businessmen exploring investment opportunities in Russia as the Soviet Union was crumbling. He was on the scene in The Netherlands when European leaders approved the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union.
In August 1990, Ydstie was one of the first reporters on the scene after Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army invaded Kuwait. He accompanied U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia as a member of the Pentagon press pool sent to cover the Iraqi invasion for U.S. media outlets.
Ydstie has been with NPR since 1979. For two years, he was an associate producer responsible for Midwest coverage. In 1982, he became senior editor on NPR's Washington Desk, overseeing coverage of the federal government, American politics, and economics. In 1984, Ydstie joined Morning Edition as the show's senior editor, and later was promoted to the position of executive producer. In 1988, he became NPR's economics correspondent.
During his tenure with NPR, Ydstie has won numerous awards. He was a member of the NPR team that received the George Foster Peabody Award for its coverage of Sept. 11. Ydstie's reporting from Saudi Arabia helped NPR win the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award in 1991 for coverage of the Gulf War. In 2016, Ydstie received a Gerald Loeb Award for financial reporting for his contributions to an NPR series on financial planning.
Prior to joining NPR, Ydstie was a reporter and producer at Minnesota Public Radio. Ydstie is a graduate of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where he is now on the Board of Regents. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, with a major in English literature and a minor in speech communications. Ydstie was born in Minneapolis and grew up in rural North Dakota.
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The Affordable Care Act has made it possible for millions of Americans to obtain health insurance — but how successful has the law been in reforming the health care system?
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Stanley Fischer, President Obama's choice to be the Federal Reserve's vice chairman, is on Capitol Hill Thursday for a confirmation hearing .
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Employer-provided health care can deter people from leaving their jobs to start their own businesses. Analysts say Obamacare could alleviate so-called entrepreneur lock. -
The February jobs report was better than expected, as employers added 175,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked up to 6.7 percent, though, as people who'd given up on finding work were drawn back.
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The harsh winter weather's impact on job growth in February was less than expected, as U.S. employers added 175,000 jobs to their payrolls last month. The unemployment rate edged up to 6.7 percent.
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Did the harsh winter hold down job creation last month? Or did employers brush away the snow and prepare for spring with a new round of hiring? The unemployment report is out on Friday.
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The Federal Reserve has released transcripts from more than a dozen meetings that took place in 2008, as Fed officials and other regulators struggled to get on top of an unfolding crisis.
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Janet Yellen made her first appearance before Congress as chair of the Federal Reserve on Tuesday. Her remarks, released prior to her testimony, stressed that there would be a lot of continuity with past policies, because she had helped develop and implement them.
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The government's latest unemployment report showed the economy still struggling to bounce back from a weak report in December. Employers in January added 113,000 to payrolls, far less than expected. The unemployment rate did notch down to 6.6 percent.
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The Labor Department releases the January jobs report Friday morning. December was a big disappointment. Analysts are puzzling over why an economy that's growing at a better than 3 percent clip can't produce more jobs.
