Gas prices are higher than they should be. Food prices really haven’t come down much, if at all. Housing is still beyond reach for many – most? – Americans, especially younger folks.
Not much to be jazzed about, is there? No. And yes.
It’s true that American consumers are feeling pinched. Most of us are a little peeved that President Trump launched a war he promised he wouldn’t launch (“No new Middle East wars!”). Granted, he also said Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon, so that’s kind of a wash. And this war isn’t going to last 20 years. Or even 1 year.
All that said, it’s not very comforting to most that the economy under Trump hasn’t improved much. Still, it was improving before the war began, and now, there is every reason to believe it’ll boom again once this conflict is resolved.
A new report from Breitbart Business Digest gives cause for optimism:
Surveys of consumers suggest that these are the worst of times. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index keeps hitting all-time lows. The Economist/YouGov poll shows 63 percent of Americans say the economy is getting worse, including a third of Trump voters. Eighty-four percent of Democrats say we are either already in a recession or likely to be in one in the next 12 months.
Businesses aren’t seeing it. The Atlanta Fed released its latest Survey of Business Uncertainty on Tuesday, and the results are worth reading carefully — especially by anyone who has spent the past several months waiting for the American economy to crack under the weight of war, energy costs, and uncertainty. It has not cracked. If anything, the businesses that actually run the economy appear to be betting on something closer to expansion.
The survey’s smoothed index showed firms expecting sales revenue to grow 5.1 percent over the next 12 months in May. That number deserves some historical context. Before COVID, when the economy was humming along through what now looks like a golden era of low inflation and steady growth, the survey averaged 4.5 percent.
During the normalization period of late 2023 through late 2024 — after the post-pandemic boom had faded but before the current run-up — it averaged just 4.1 percent.
The current regime, running from early 2025 (not coincidentally, matching Trump’s return to office) through May, has averaged just under five percent. In other words, businesses are not projecting a return to normal. They are projecting something better than normal. The 5.1 percent May reading matches, almost exactly, the average from the post-COVID expansion boom of 2022 and early 2023.
This is not the survey of an economy bracing for a downturn.
Okay, so again, consumers want lower prices. I get it; so do I. I hate $5 gas and $500,000 homes that should cost $350,000. But given that our economic “bones” are good – businesses feeling confident and betting on expansion, not contraction – that’s a good sign for the future. And not a future that is far, far away.
Trump’s policies have primed the drivers of our economy – businesses. And growth appears to be locked in. Once we get this war behind us, I expect things will turn around very quickly, starting with cratering gas prices. And since energy costs drive the cost of everything else, we’ll start seeing some serious year-over-year declines.
My advice? Hang in there, folks. We just got a great economic report. Help is on the way.
