Trump drove prices up and jobs down. The worst is yet to come. | Opinion

 

 

Few American families made it through Thanksgiving without noticing the cost of their classic American meal. The return of higher prices will be marked as the single worst unforced error in the annals of American economic policy – and it is only going to worsen.

 

President Donald Trump took office on a pledge to cut prices – an aggressive promise that went far past simply reducing inflation. In his first three months in office, inflation dropped from 3% in January to 2.3% in April. That is a remarkable achievement for the Federal Reserve. It is also one that any politician would want to claim for his own, as Trump did.

 

Then came "Liberation Day" on April 2, when the administration announced higher tariffs, and prices reversed course. Over each of the following five months, prices rose at an accelerating rate.

 

Today, the consumer price index is at an all-time high, and the year-over-year change in prices is higher than it was when Trump won reelection in 2024.

 

All of this is due to tariffs, and Trump along with his enablers in Congress are solely and completely responsible.

 

We only have public data through September, which means we haven’t yet seen the full picture of price increases. But anyone who has done some shopping over the past couple weeks has certainly seen the wave that is coming.

 

Share your opinion: How should the media cover the economy? Tell us what we get wrong. | Opinion Forum

 

TACO bought time, but it's running out

 

 We’ve thus far been spared the full effect of tariffs for several reasons. First, Trump reacted frequently to stock declines when new tariffs were announced. He delayed or reduced tariffs – earning those decisions the acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), to describe his policy vacillations.

 

The several hundred changes to tariffs that have occurred since the start of 2025 permitted many American firms to accelerate purchases of non-tariffed items. In Indiana, firms imported nearly five months of additional intermediate products for their assembly lines and stores.

 

Consumers also rushed to buy pre-tariffed goods, buoying consumption. That pre-tariff rush is over, and the stockpiles are mostly exhausted. The inevitable higher prices are just now appearing on shelves of grocers, as well as other retailers and online marketplaces.

 

 What this means is that all the price increases we’ve seen since April are merely the preview of the holiday season and 2026. If Thanksgiving dinner included some complaints about higher prices, you should expect a double serving by Christmas and even more pain by Easter.

 

 Americans are aware, which is why Trump’s approval rating is now below those of former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden. It seems certain to worsen.

 

The job market is deteriorating

 

Shopping on Nov. 20, 2025, in West Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

I wish I could end there, but the economy is also slowing. 

 

As with price changes, much of the economic slowdown has been masked by growth in only two places. First, household consumption has remained strong. Part of this is likely due to families buying goods before tariffs hit. But another part is due to the unexpectedly strong growth in stock markets that boosted incomes for older, wealthier Americans.

 

That strong stock market has been driven almost exclusively by just a handful of artificial intelligence firms, whose investment in data centers, power plants and other AI infrastructure accounts for a big chunk of U.S. growth in 2025.

 

Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.

 

This growth has kept job numbers from falling further than we’ve seen. Still, the unemployment rate is now the highest it has been in four years. The AI boom hasn’t prevented employment declines in other key sectors.

 

Across the goods-producing sectors – manufacturing and mining – employment is down more than 70,000 jobs since Liberation Day. The sector that provides temporary employment to manufacturing is down 97,000 since April. That level of job loss has only happened during a recession.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Read More Here:   Yahoo News