In the annual State of the Union address in late February, the US president, Donald Trump, declared: “This is the golden age of America.” In a lengthy and wide-ranging address, the president told his fellow Americans that the nation was “bigger, better, richer and stronger” than ever before.
The US economy, and specifically the cost of living, was the key issue with voters in the 2024 presidential election. Exit polls from key states showed that, among voters who said the economy was the most important issue for them, 90% voted for Trump.
However, results from a more recent poll suggest voters are not happy with his economic agenda. Among the more than 2,500 adults surveyed, 57% said they disapprove of the way the president is managing the economy, 65% disapprove of the way he is handling inflation and 64% disapprove of how he is handing tariffs.
With mid-term elections coming in November, the economy is likely to continue to be a key factor with US voters. So are the president’s bold claims supported by the data?
On the president’s claim that inflation is “plummeting”, he can indeed claim success. At the start of his second term in January 2025, inflation was 3%. By January 2026, this had dropped to 2.4% and is now closing in on the 2% target set by the Federal Reserve, the US’s central bank. The rate of increase in prices is slowing and this should ease cost-of-living pressures for US consumers.
À lire aussi :
Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve risk fuelling US inflation and ending dollar dominance
What about the claim that the US economy is “roaring like never before”? In 2025, the economy grew at 2.2%, lower than the 2.8% growth during President Joe Biden’s last year in office but above the average growth of around 2% achieved over the last few decades.
So while “roaring” might be an exaggeration, given there was a 43-day government shutdown in the last quarter of 2025 the US economy is achieving impressive growth. The International Monetary Fund expects the US to grow at the fastest rate among the world’s most advanced economies again in 2026.
Trump is often keen to cite the US stock market as an indicator of how well the country’s economy is performing. In his address he said the stock market had set “53 all-time record highs” since his election.
This is true, and in early February the Dow Jones index crossed the historic milestone of 50,000 points. Overall, the US stock market gained 19% in the period from January 2025 until February 2026. However, analysis shows that when compared to stock market returns from other advanced economies, the US ranks 21st out of 23 countries with only New Zealand and Denmark indices doing worse.
Campaigning in 2024, Trump had pledged to slash energy prices by 50%. In his address, he claimed that reductions in energy prices that were like “another big tax cut” for US consumers.
However, in the 12 months to January 2026, electricity prices rose by 6.3%, more than double the rate of inflation. Natural gas prices rose by 9.8% during the same period. Energy-hungry data centres to feed the AI boom are a key driver of US energy prices and this trend looks set to continue in the short term at least.
Job creation has historically been a key metric with US voters. On this issue the president told his audience there were more Americans working “than ever before”. With around 164 million Americans in work, this statement is true. The US is experiencing population growth, and so it is not surprising that the number of people in employment is rising.
However, the US unemployment rate was 4.3% in January 2026, a slight increase on the 4% rate in January 2025. The US added an average of 49,000 jobs per month in 2025, down from an estimated gain of 168,000 a month the year before.
Economic challenges remain
Tariffs have been the cornerstone of Trump’s second-term economic policy agenda. He even claimed they helped drive US stock market prices to historic highs, although there is little evidence to support this.
There was only a brief mention in his State of the Union speech regarding the US Supreme Court decision ruling against his liberation day tariffs, describing it as “unfortunate”.
The US government is now facing more than 2,000 lawsuits from companies looking to reclaim US$175 billion (£131 billion) in tariffs they have paid since last April. Experts agree that the situation is a mess and the uncertainty around how or whether tariffs will be applied going forward will only deepen this.
It is not surprising that tariffs are unpopular with US consumers. Research from the New York Federal Reserve found that nearly 90% of the economic burden of tariffs fell on US firms and consumers. The Tax Foundation, aou non-partisan thinktank, estimates that tariffs amounted to an average tax increase of US$1,000 per US household in 2025. The US bombing of Iran could drive up oil prices and this may fuel inflation in the coming months.
There are also rising concerns among the president’s Maga base about the potential effect of AI on jobs and energy prices. Polling for the Financial Times found about 60% of Trump voters were concerned about AI’s rapid development and almost 80% believed the technology needed more regulation.
US taxpayers are due to start receiving some of the US$4.8 trillion in tax cuts promised by the president’s One Big Beautiful Act passed in 2025. But with the midterms looming, it remains to be seen how much credit the president will get for this.