How Trump’s second term might affect the market and your finances

  Ever since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, stock market expectations have been volatile – driven in part by a healthy dose of motivated reasoning.

  At first, markets surged on hopes of lower taxes and deregulation. But this enthusiasm soon faded as announcements about tariffs and stricter immigration policies dampened sentiment. Underscoring that point, on March 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 600 points after Trump said that tariffs he had been threatening for weeks would indeed be imposed on Canada and Mexico the following day.

Deporting millions of immigrants would shock the US economy, increasing housing, food and other prices

  One of President Donald Trump’s major promises during the 2024 presidential campaign was to launch mass deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

  The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has said that, since January 2025, it is detaining and planning to deport 600 to 1,100 immigrants a day. That marks an increase from the average 282 immigration arrests that happened each day in September 2024 under the Biden administration.

Why is inflation so high? Is it bad? An economist answers 3 questions about soaring consumer prices

  Consumer prices jumped 6.8% in November 2021 from a year earlier – the fastest rate of increase since 1982, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data published on Dec. 10, 2021. The biggest jumps during the month were in energy, used cars, and clothing. The Conversation U.S. asked University of South Carolina economist William Hauk to explain what’s driving the recent increase in inflation and how it affects consumers, companies, and the economy.

The managed economy destroys the First Amendment

  The First Amendment guarantees people the right of free speech. It is a restriction on the power of the federal government to punish people for criticizing federal officials or for saying things that the government doesn’t like. 

  Why did our ancestors want the Constitution amended in that way? Because they were certain that the federal government would end up attracting people who would have the desire and the inclination to do bad things to people who criticized them or said things that public officials didn’t like. 

Biden is inheriting a wrecked economy, but Democrats have a record of avoiding recession and reducing unemployment

  The newly inaugurated President Joe Biden has to manage a devastated economy – much as he and former President Barack Obama did 12 years ago.

  What can the country expect?

  Forecasting how the economy will perform under a new president is generally a fool’s errand. How much or how little credit the person in the White House deserves for the health of the economy is a matter of debate, and no economist can confidently predict how the president’s policies will play out – if they even go into effect – or what challenges might emerge.

Stop the president from managing the economy

  For the past two years, President Trump and his loyal army of Trumpistas have been trumpeting what they say is Trump’s fantastic management of the economy. The stock market is soaring and unemployment is down, they crow. This shows, they say, that President Trump has been a great manager of the economy.

  Now that presidential campaign season is kicking into gear, Trump and his Trumpistas are getting nervous because it seems like economic hard times might be looming on the horizon. Does this mean that Trump has actually mismanaged the economy, especially with his out-of-control federal spending and debt and his destructive trade war against China?

Adam Hersh: Economy’s new jobs strain to deliver middle-class wages

  Employment growth continued on its too-slow-but-steady trend in May, when U.S. employers added 217,000 jobs, according to new data released this week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS. The headline unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.3 percent.

  May marks the first time that the U.S. labor market surpassed its pre-recession level of employment—last seen in December 2007—making this the longest march to employment recovery in the postwar era. Over the past year, job growth averaged 198,000 new jobs per month, according to BLS data. While the economy continues adding jobs, these new jobs are too few to deal with the deep problem of unemployment and too often fail to deliver middle-class wages.