From the moment President Donald Trump took office last January, Americans were told that a recession was inevitable. Wall Street economists, cable news pundits, and other forecasters predicted that Trump\u2019s tariffs, trade posture, and economic nationalism would tip the U.S. into a downward spiral. Some put the odds of a recession last year as high as 60 or even 90 percent.<\/p>\n
But with 2025 now squarely in the rearview mirror, it\u2019s safe to say that the \u201cexperts\u201d were wrong. Again. The economy expanded. Prices stabilized. Jobs didn\u2019t disappear. Consumers kept spending. Investor confidence surged. Markets climbed. The long\u2011predicted tariff shock failed to materialize.<\/p>\n
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis<\/a> (BEA), real GDP expanded at a 4.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2025, beating earlier forecasts. That surge followed 3.8 percent growth in Q2. Economists had predicted barely half that pace.<\/p>\n Much of this growth was fueled by a domestic energy sector that broke production records in 2025 thanks to deregulation and domestic production boosts. U.S. crude oil output hit an all-time high of 13.6 million barrels<\/a> per day in July. Natural gas production and LNG exports also surged. By Christmastime, gas prices hit a four-year low<\/a>, dipping below $3 per gallon.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, inflation, which many claimed would spike under Trump\u2019s tariff policies, stayed in check and beat predictions<\/a>. Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics <\/a>(BLS), headline CPI rose just 2.7 percent year over year in November, a sharp contrast to the 9.1 percent peak in 2022<\/a>. Core inflation, which excludes more volatile items like food and energy, cooled to 2.6 percent. Last August, even CBS News was forced to admit<\/a> that \u201cthe prices of goods and services across the U.S. have defied many economists\u2019 expectations and remained relatively stable.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, the labor market stayed tight, with unemployment at 4.6 percent \u2014 up slightly but still near historical lows \u2014 while job creation remained steady. BLS<\/a> reported 64,000 new jobs in November, even after cuts to the federal workforce. Consumer spending<\/a> held up as well, with retail sales up 3.5 percent year over year and holiday shopping seasonally strong.<\/p>\n The stock market, an important metric for Americans who are retired or close to retirement, posted double-digit gains<\/a> across all three major indexes. The S&P 500 rose 16.4 percent<\/a>, the Nasdaq 20 percent, and the Dow Jones approximately 13 percent. Investor confidence has surged under Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n To be sure, economic concerns and anxieties remain. The country is still dealing with the hangover effects of 20 percent cumulative inflation under the Biden administration and runaway spending. Affordability is a real concern for millions of families.<\/p>\n But by the end of 2025, the recession warnings had largely disappeared<\/a>, quietly walked back by the same experts who had sounded them. Economists like Paul Krugman<\/a> who said Trump\u2019s tariffs would cause inflation to skyrocket were forced to admit they were wrong. JPMorgan analysts, who put the odds of a recession at 60 percent in April, admitted in July that they \u201cno longer\u201d saw a recession coming. Goldman Sachs, who put recession odds at 65 percent, also equivocated, dropping its forecast to 30 percent.<\/p>\n But these models didn\u2019t just miss the mark. They reacted to events badly and late. As <\/a>Forbes\u2019 George Calhoun<\/a> put it, these were \u201cpostdictions\u201d not predictions.<\/p>\n Calhoun specifically lambasted the Federal Reserve\u2019s recession predictor, which hit 70 percent for a recession that never came. \u201cThis was the highest level in more than 40 years, twice as high as the pandemic spike in recession probability in 2020, and 75 percent higher than the 2008 peak associated with the Great Recession,\u201d Calhoun writes. \u201cA year ago the model predicted with 55 percent probability that the U.S. would be in a recession right now (July 2025). Yet that recession, predicted so emphatically, has not occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is particularly alarming about the inaccuracy in this case,\u201d Calhoun warns, \u201cis that the output of this model is ostensibly an input to the formation of monetary policy. A bad gauge on the Fed\u2019s dashboard doesn\u2019t help the driver, even if he has learned to try and ignore it.\u201d<\/p>\n If forecasting failures were just about flawed models, they\u2019d be easier to fix. But there\u2019s a deeper problem: political bias.<\/p>\n Economists consistently underestimate Trump\u2019s policies not only because of poor math, but also because they don\u2019t want him to succeed. That bias distorts the way data is interpreted and how predictions are made. Democrats and the corporate media weaponize bad-faith \u201cpredictions\u201d of economic doom to frustrate and undermine Trump policies that have been proven to work.<\/p>\n