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“Even though he will take office in just a few days, we have almost no idea. … That’s not because the Trump team is keeping its plans closely held, nor is it because there are major factional fights. All the evidence suggests, instead, that Trump’s economic team still doesn’t have any plans, or even concepts of plans. All it has are some half-formulated thoughts about how to cater to Trump’s prejudices without doing massive economic damage.”
— Paul Krugman
254,000
“The pace of hiring picked up strongly in September and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%, signs the economy had continued momentum in a month the Federal Reserve delivered its first interest-rate cut in four years,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
2.9%
New York Times: “Overall inflation was 2.9 percent in July on a yearly basis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, easing slightly from 3 percent in June and a bit milder than economists had expected. … While inflation still exceeds the 2 percent that was normal before the coronavirus pandemic, it is much slower than the 9.1 percent peak in 2022.”
73%
Pew Research: “No single issue stands out after the economy. Nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) rate strengthening the economy as a top priority. That is considerably larger than the shares citing any other policy goal.”
72.6
“U.S. consumer sentiment soared in early July to an almost two-year high, bolstered by easing inflation and a strong labor market,” Bloomberg reports. “The University of Michigan preliminary index rose by 8.2 points to 72.6, the highest since September 2021. The reading topped all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists, and the monthly advance was the largest since 2006.”
$11.4 billion
According to a wages study done by law firm Bisnar Chase, the average Florida employee in the private sector worked about 2.5 hours of “unpaid overtime” per week during 2022. The national average for unpaid OT is 2.1 hours. When this figure is applied to the number of exempt workers in the Sunshine State (and based on the median wage), and then annualized, Florida workers are collectively owed about $11.4 billion in backpay, researchers said.
“I believe the Fed has not internalized the magnitude of its errors over the past year, is operating with an inappropriate and dangerous framework, and needs to take far stronger action to support price stability than appears likely. … The Fed’s current policy trajectory is likely to lead to stagflation, with average unemployment and inflation both averaging over 5 percent over the next few years — and ultimately to a major recession.”
— Larry Summers, who served as U.S. Treasury Secretary from 1999 to 2001.
“A president has only limited control over the economy. And yet there has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century. The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. … It’s true about almost any major indicator: gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices. It’s true if you examine only the precise period when a president is in office, or instead assume that a president’s policies affect the economy only after a lag and don’t start his economic clock until months after he takes office.”
75%
A new CBS News poll finds 75% of U.S. adults say the economy is in good shape, the highest in almost 20 years. “Still, when asked about the state of the union today, views are mostly negative. Fifty-six percent of Americans say things are fair or bad, while 44% say great or good. Opinions divide starkly along partisan lines. Most Republicans say the state of the country is great or good, while most Democrats say it’s fair or bad.”
37%
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that since the first time since the 2016 election, more voters say the economy is getting worse than say it’s getting better. Voters still think the economy is good, but of those polled, 37% say the economy is getting worse, compared with 31% who say it’s getting better and 30% who say it’s staying the same.
