As we approach the two-year mark since Donald Trump’s second election victory, it’s a good time to do a little economic scorekeeping. Before getting into where the economy is and where it’s going, it’s worth a little reminder of where it was before the election.
This is important because Trump and the Republicans continuously spew utter nonsense about an economic disaster that only exists in their imagination. By literally every standard measure, the economy was doing extremely well just before the election. The unemployment rate was hovering near 4.0 percent and nominal wages were growing at roughly a 4.0 percent annual rate.
Inflation had slowed sharply, with the year-over-year rate at 2.6 percent in October of 2024. This translated into real wage growth of close to 1.5 percent. Inflation was expected to continue to slow, with most projections having inflation coming in very close to the Fed’s 2.0 percent target by the end of 2025.
