00:00Not all Americans are experiencing the same U.S. economy, hence the K-shaped economy.
00:05What did you guys find out when it comes to the U.S. economy and how Americans really feel about it?
00:12Like we said in our piece, there's kind of warning signs about it.
00:14We have, you know, certainly good signs of economic growth, for example,
00:19but it's kind of being driven by AI-related investment.
00:25Like you said, we're seeing strong consumer spending, but a lot of that's being driven by wealthier households
00:32who have benefited from the stock market rally, and lower-income folks are not benefiting as much
00:39and certainly pulling back on their spending.
00:42And ultimately, we just saw that, you know, the U.S. economy seems to be working for some voters, but not for others.
00:50And certainly, we're seeing that reflected in the consumer sentiment data that shows, you know,
00:56low confidence in the direction of the economy, and even political surveys that suggest that, you know,
01:02President Trump's approval rating and his handling of the economy has kind of declined since he's been in office.
01:10Well, you and the team also saw with some Harris poll data for Bloomberg,
01:15and I'm wondering what it found, whether or not the U.S. economy is working for respondents under President Trump.
01:22And we kind of saw the dichotomy in that polling as well.
01:25We saw overall that a majority of adults don't think the U.S. economy is working for them,
01:32but we saw higher-income folks, folks making $100,000 a year and more,
01:38thinking that the economy is working for them.
01:40Or certainly, more people who have money think the economy is working for them than people who are lower-income.
01:47So, again, sort of the K-shaped economy where, you know, if you're at the upper spur of the K,
01:54you know, things are great and you're doing well.
01:56But if you're in the lower spur of the K, you don't have this favorable view of the economy.
02:02Yeah, we've got a chart up there right now.
02:03And the question is, is the U.S. economy working for you under President Trump?
02:06And for those who are listening on radio, it's split into colors, yellow, red, purple.
02:11And is the U.S. economy working for you?
02:13Those who are making a lot more money, higher income, the majority, the red, are saying,
02:21no, I'm sorry, that's under, I'm sorry, reduced.
02:24The top line is for those not making a ton of money.
02:26So that red is showing predominantly no, not working.
02:30And you go to the bottom line, and that's incomes over $100,000.
02:34And you can see in yellow, which represents, yes, that they are saying that it is working better.
02:39What about when you go Democrats, Republicans versus independents?
02:44Yeah, it's kind of what you would expect.
02:46The Republicans tend to think the economy is working for them more,
02:50or at least they support the president's policies and think the president's policies are working and helping the economy.
02:56Democrats, not so much.
02:58But what's interesting in that polling is you're seeing increasingly independents thinking the economy is not working for them
03:05or not approving of President Trump's economic policies,
03:09which could be, again, a warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterm elections next year.
03:15Well, just very briefly, manufacturing.
03:17You go through a host of data in this story.
03:21Manufacturing and the resurgence that the president talked about on the campaign trail, is that materializing?
03:26Not in the data so far.
03:28We haven't had jobs data since August, but the data we had up until then showed that manufacturing had lost jobs for the last four months,
03:38about 42,000 jobs, which is the longest losing streak since the pandemic.
03:44The Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing has been in contractions for eight straight months.
03:50So this manufacturing renaissance that the president has talked about and promised has not materialized.
03:56In fact, it's going the other direction where manufacturers in particular are kind of paralyzed by Trump's tariffs
04:02and not willing to move forward with investments and hiring,
04:06even if they're incentivized to do so from the one big, beautiful bill that was passed in July.
04:10Thank you very much.
Comments