Maybe President Donald Trump is calling his economy \u201cThe Golden Age\u201d because it\u2019s expensive.<\/p>\n
Over the last week, there\u2019s been a barrage of data trickling out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, a backlog of facts and figures after the longest U.S. government shutdown in history. The picture they paint, individually, is in many cases unremarkable. But together, they reveal an economy on the brink, experts told TPM.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That dark picture, experts said, does come with a kind of silver lining: That the agencies could even publish statistical reports and updated release schedules so quickly and thoroughly remains a testament to staff dedication after the unprecedented shutdown, after political<\/a> attacks<\/a> on the Census and after the president fired the BLS\u2019s head for releasing data he saw as a political liability.<\/p>\n Trump himself has, of late, seemed acutely aware of the power of such data to determine the success of presidencies. What Americans feel they are able to comfortably buy has been a political flashpoint for several decades. \u201cIt\u2019s the economy stupid\u201d became Bill Clinton\u2019s 1992 presidential campaign catchphrase. Thirty years later, pandemic-related price hikes saw that declaration back in circulation, with the word \u201ceconomy\u201d possibly replaced by \u201cinflation<\/a>\u201d as Joe Biden\u2019s popularity cratered and Trump won a second term in large part based on voters\u2019 concerns with consumer price shocks. At the beginning of November, the new money-related word \u2014 \u201caffordability<\/a>\u201d \u2014 came into vogue as Democrats swept the 2025 elections and an until-recently-unknown democratic socialist candidate won a decisive victory in New York City\u2019s mayoral race. (\u201cThe new word is \u2018affordability.\u2019 Another word, it\u2019s just groceries,\u201d Trump mused last week, insisting that \u201cthey are coming down. They are coming down.\u201d)<\/p>\n While the government was shut down and federal economic data halted, Trump had gone on \u201c60 Minutes\u201d and declared<\/a> \u201cwe don\u2019t have inflation. It\u2019s at 2%. It\u2019s the perfect inflation.\u201d That, unfortunately, is not true. Now, after the Democratic victories on Election Day, the president\u2019s bombastic rhetoric came along with new policy proposals<\/a> out of the White House that purported to address affordability. The proposals don\u2019t all actually stretch consumer dollars, and in at least one case could put buyers at risk<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The BLS and the Census Bureau have been among the first to release backed-up data. Here are five takeaways about the numbers, and the state of the agencies that produced them.<\/p>\n We\u2019re still probably on the edge of a recession<\/p>\n Things aren\u2019t really looking up. Despite the 119,000 new jobs added in September, according to the BLS, the employment report offers no bright spot for the future of hiring.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing in the real economy is something that is not necessarily tipped into recession, but could be very close depending on these last two months of data,\u201d Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at economic policy thinktank Groundwork Collaborative told TPM.<\/p>\n Some major takeaways from the all-important but months-late September jobs report<\/a> are that nearly all of the jobs added that month came from three segments: health care, food service and social services. Outside of those gains, Axios reported<\/a> that employment actually decreased by 6,000 jobs during the first nine months of the year. And any gains that have happened have not been distributed equally.<\/p>\n The unemployment rates for women in general, and Black women in particular, have been increasing more quickly than the overall unemployment rate. Between June and September, the unemployment rate for Black women jumped from 5.8% to 7.5%<\/a>. Black people are considered the canaries in the coal mine, the first to experience economic downturns and signal what\u2019s to come for the rest of the population, experts have told TPM<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe policy uncertainty on the tariff front is really deterring investment in hiring,\u201d said Jacquez, who served on the National Economic Council under Biden. \u201cCompanies are just stuck in neutral. They\u2019re not hiring, they\u2019re not building big factories. They\u2019re just trying to ride this out.\u201d<\/p>\n More and more, tariffs costs are coming to you.<\/p>\n Speaking of tariffs, shoppers may be feeling their weight more than before. After Trump\u2019s April Liberation Day tariffs schedule that shocked the world and set off months of ongoing volatility, importers ate much of the costs associated with tariff-related price hikes, and stockpiled inventory before the additional levies kicked in. Those spring and summer inventories are waning, and businesses are passing down price hikes to consumers more often.<\/p>\n \u201cUp until quite recently companies have been trying to eat as much of the tariffs as possible,\u201d said Jacquez. Companies are now passing through about 55% of the cost of Trump\u2019s tariffs to consumers, according to an analysis from Goldman Sachs<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe expect over a long enough time horizon for that pass through to be almost complete,\u201d said Jacquez.<\/p>\n Because of the shutdown, the BLS can\u2019t publish its October Consumer Price Index, but the September Producer Price Index<\/a> published Tuesday shows the cost of goods \u2014 including corporate and personal consumption \u2014 are up 2.7% year over year.<\/p>\n Released Tuesday, the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index<\/a> showed consumer sentiment fell to its second lowest level this year.<\/p>\n