Voter frustration over affordability fueled Democratic wins in last week\u2019s state and local elections, and on top of that, Americans are becoming uneasy about the job market too.<\/p>\n
Some 55% of employed Americans say they\u2019re concerned about losing their jobs, according to a recent survey conducted by Harris Poll for Bloomberg News. That angst follows a drumbeat of layoff announcements by major employers, including Amazon.com Inc., Target Corp. and Starbucks Corp. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. calculated the most job cut announcements for any October in more than two decades.<\/p>\n
It comes layered on top of households\u2019 exasperation over the cost of living. A 62% majority in the Oct. 23-25 poll said the cost of their everyday items had climbed over the last month and nearly half of those people said the increases have been difficult to afford.<\/p>\n
President Trump and his aides have responded by putting a positive spin on the economic indicators and deflecting blame elsewhere \u2014 tactics President Biden also used, to little avail \u2014 along with assuring things will get better. The risk is that, should the job market and prices fail to shift enough to satisfy voters, Republicans risk losing control of Congress in next year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Biden administration really was a cautionary tale about trying to convince voters that the economy is better than their intuitions suggest,\u201d said Tobin Marcus, head of U.S. policy and politics at Wolfe Research and a former advisor to Biden during his vice presidency.<\/p>\n
Part of the challenge for Trump and his team is their economic program \u201cis not squarely aimed at the pain points that are most important\u201d to voters, Marcus said. The president has championed the steepest tariff hikes since before World War II to shrink the trade deficit and encourage a reshoring of manufacturing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are seeing misplaced priorities,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cNo one\u2019s making an argument that the tariffs will bring prices down, which is the thing that voters first and foremost elected him to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in March, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration would appoint an \u201caffordability\u201d czar, but no such announcement has been made. The White House didn\u2019t respond to questions about the position, but spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement that \u201cthe Trump administration has implemented an aggressive economic agenda to lower prices of essential goods, boost real wages, and cool inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Trump administration is confident that the disastrous Biden economy will be a relic of the past as we continue to make America affordable again,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Lately, Bessent has taken to playing up how good things will get next year, when he says the impact of Trump\u2019s signature tax-cut legislation will be felt. Billions of dollars worth of tax refunds will be flowing, and job gains will come from the surge of investment in artificial intelligence, he said Tuesday on MSNBC. On Wednesday, he indicated some tariff relief may be coming.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s advisors are considering plans for the president to give more speeches around the country about the cost of living, according to a White House official. Trump has done relatively little domestic travel to sell his agenda compared to his recent predecessors.<\/p>\n
\u2018Ominous\u2019 signs<\/p>\n
For now, many Americans aren\u2019t buying the administration\u2019s narrative. The Harris Poll survey showed 48% of respondents said it would take them four months or longer to find a new job of similar quality if they lost their current one. The survey of 2,203 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.<\/p>\n
Job growth has slowed, with payroll gains having plunged from an average of 168,000 a month last year to just 27,000 in May through August \u2014 the most recent month for which there\u2019s data. Inflation remains above the Federal Reserve\u2019s 2% target.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s tariff policies have both contributed to price pressures and to uncertainty among businesses, undermining incentives to hire. The administration\u2019s sweeping cuts to federal programs also have left thousands of federal workers unemployed and have squeezed contractors.<\/p>\n
\u201cA number of signs, including the most recent consumer sentiment survey, suggest that the economy and the labor market are weakening,\u201d said Michael Reich, an economics professor at UC Berkeley. \u201cIf those trends continue, the party in power will be blamed. That\u2019s ominous for the Republicans in the midterms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Job pledges<\/p>\n
Consumer sentiment fell near the lowest on record in early November, according to a University of Michigan survey. Similarly, an October survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found the share of Americans who expect the joblessness rate to be higher in a year rose for a third straight month.<\/p>\n
The administration has said the economy will turn in coming months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are building auto plants, we\u2019re building AI plants, we\u2019re leading in AI over China and everybody else,\u201d Trump said at a White House event Nov. 6. \u201cWhen all of these plants start opening, we\u2019re going to have a revolution \u2014 a positive revolution \u2014 economic revolution like never before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The return of manufacturing jobs from abroad \u201cis just starting,\u201d Bessent said Tuesday, citing hiring plans at Boeing Co. and a new rare-earth manufacturing site.<\/p>\n
As for cost of living concerns, the Treasury chief said that \u201cwe inherited an affordability crisis,\u201d and climbing working-class wages would help address the issue. <\/p>\n
Trump has been more pointed, lashing out at his party in recent days over lackluster messaging on the economy, something he blamed in part for their string of losses in the election. He\u2019s also pitched some unorthodox ideas, such as $2,000 \u201cdividend\u201d payments to Americans from tariff revenue.<\/p>\n
The president has also dismissed the idea that living costs are climbing, saying gasoline prices are down. Last Thursday, he claimed \u201cThanksgiving dinner under Trump is 25% lower than 2024 Thanksgiving dinner under Biden,\u201d citing a Walmart Inc. measure that counted fewer items in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Democrats \u2018affordability\u2019 issue is DEAD! STOP LYING!!!\u201d he posted on social media.<\/p>\n
Dillard and Lowenkron write for Bloomberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voter frustration over affordability fueled Democratic wins in last week\u2019s state and local elections, and on top of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[26727,9328,67349,79,6402,179,18,100870,19,17,6403,2686,83796,635,180,1651,100869,187,100868],"class_list":{"0":"post-177935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-affordability","9":"tag-americans","10":"tag-biden-administration","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-cost","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-former-adviser","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-living","19":"tag-month","20":"tag-next-year","21":"tag-president","22":"tag-price","23":"tag-thing","24":"tag-tobin-marcus","25":"tag-trump","26":"tag-voter-frustration"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115540792726206923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}