During the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that the U.S. economy was terrible under then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris. But according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures, unemployment stayed under 4.0 percent from February 2022 through April 2024. And U.S. unemployment was 4.1 percent in December 2024, Biden’s last full month in office.
Nonetheless, voter frustration over inflation worked to Trump’s advantage, and he narrowly defeated Harris by roughly 1.5 percent (according to the Cook Political Report) on Election Day.
Wall Street Journal reporters Rachel Wolfe and Joe Pinsker examine consumer confidence in an article published on February 7, laying out some reasons why it appears to be declining during Trump’s second presidency.
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“The Trump bump in consumer confidence is already over,” Wolfe and Pinsker report. “Tariff threats, stock market swings and rapidly reversing executive orders are causing Americans across the political spectrum to feel considerably more pessimistic about the economy than they did before President Trump took office. Consumer sentiment fell about 5 percent in the University of Michigan’s preliminary February survey of consumers to its lowest reading since July 2024. “
The WSJ reporters continue, “Expectations of inflation in the year ahead jumped from 3.3 percent in January to 4.3 percent, the second month in a row of large increases and highest reading since November 2023…. Morning Consult’s recent index of consumer confidence, too, fell between January 25 and February 3, driven primarily by concern over the country’s economic future.”
Wolfe and Pinsker cite 58-year-old Paul Bisson as an example of someone who voted for Trump in 2024 but now has reservations about his economic policies, including tariffs.
Bisson told WSJ, “I don’t like the turbulence. I don’t like the chaos in the market…. That will make the economy worse, and that’s not what we signed up for. We’ve already cut back. There’s no more cutting back to do.”
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Nicholas Schuch, a 38-year-old Durham, North Carolina resident who voted for Harris, also views the economy as chaotic during Trump’s second presidency. And he is thinking of moving to a country he believes has a better monetary policy.
Schuch told WSJ, “I was thinking Switzerland, potentially…. I just expect things will be chaotic, and that that is what life is now.”
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Read the Wall Street Journal’s full article at this link (subscription required).
