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 U.S. steel industry has enjoyed protection from foreign competitors since the 1790s. It says new import tariffs are actually just leveling the playing field and shouldn't be labeled "protection." -
The U.S. Census Bureau released a trio of reports Tuesday on income, poverty and health insurance coverage. All three measures showed improvement. Real median household income increased by 3.2 percent in 2016 over the previous year, and now stands at just over $59,000. The official poverty rate fell for the second year in a row to 12.7 percent.
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While Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency, he repeatedly said he would get rid of the Affordable Care Act. What will happen to Obamacare? Also, we monitor how financial markets are doing.
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The Justice Department and a number of states filed suit today to block two big mergers in the health insurance industry. Anthem was planning to acquire Cigna, and Aetna sought to buy Humana. Justice Department officials said they had no doubt the mergers would reduce competition and hurt consumers.
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It's "clean diesel" engine was key to its growth strategy. But top managers' quest to make Volkswagen the world's leading carmaker very likely sowed the seeds of the company's downfall, analysts say. -
Health insurer Anthem has agreed to buy fellow insurer Cigna for close to $50 billion. NPR looks at what the deal might mean for consumers.
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Depending on the size of the subsidy they got, some will get a bigger refund than expected and others will owe taxes. -
Over the past year, the economy had added more than 200,000 jobs each month. That streak broke in the most recent report, as growth dipped to just 126,000 jobs — fewer than economists had anticipated.
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If the Supreme Court strikes down subsidies, millions of people could no longer afford health insurance. And premiums for others would rise dramatically, as healthier people leave the marketplace. -
The House passed a bill Thursday that would make a change in the Affordable Care Act. It would raise the law's definition of full-time work from 30 hours to 40 hours a week.
