Bad News, Worse News About the Economy

Danger: Mass layoffs ahead.

Photo by Geometric Photography on Unsplash.

For any political party in a campaign season, the move is painfully obvious: Emphasize the positives — low unemployment numbers; avoid the negatives — runaway inflation.

The campaign strategy worked (sort of); the American electorate decided to give Democrats in Washington two more years to improve the economy (sort of).

But now that the midterm election is over (sort of), the reality is settling in: The United States is still beset by immediate, serious challenges. Chief among them is inflation.

Consumers are confronting higher fuel prices heading into winter; higher prices for everything they buy, every day. Higher rents are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Higher prices at the pump might be the new normal as well.

Nervous, already-strapped consumers are relying more and more heavily on credit to survive this current downturn, on top of the COVID-19 2020–2022 downturn. Credit is about to get a lot more expensive.

The situation is untenable.

While today’s relatively low unemployment numbers are nice, unemployment is a lagging indicator. Most voters understand how an economic downturn works, whatever Beltway insiders want to call it.