Moments into his second term, opening his inaugural address, Donald Trump was unequivocal. “The golden age of America begins right now,” he declared.
At a White House reception last weekend, a little over 10 months later, the US president appeared to acknowledge just how far his timeline had shifted.
“We’re going to have … I say it’s the golden age of America,” Trump told his audience. “We have an age that’s coming up, the likes of which … this country has never seen. And I just look so forward to the results. You’re going to see results in six months to a year.”
The US economy has come under pressure in 2025. A golden age did not promptly take hold, as Trump initially claimed, upon his return to office in January.
On two areas the president pledged to rapidly improve – jobs and prices – the results have so far been lackluster.
Chart of unemployment
The labor market started the year steady. It had slowed, but still managed to expand by an average of 168,000 jobs each month, in 2024.
During his joint address to Congress in March, however, Trump claimed to have inherited an “economic catastrophe” from Joe Biden’s administration, and vowed to create jobs “like we have never seen before”.
A new ‘golden age’
Jobs growth has, in fact, stalled in 2025 – with an average of 55,000 jobs added each month, according to official data for the first 11 months of the year, down 67% on 2024.
The headline unemployment rate, which fluctuated between 3.9% and 4.2% in the last year of Biden’s presidency, has climbed under Trump to 4.6% – its highest level in more than four years – in November.
On the campaign trail last year, Trump promised a “new American industrialism” on his watch, through which the US would become a “manufacturing powerhouse” once again, with a resurgence in factory jobs.
Chart of US manufacturing jobs
In reality, manufacturing employment has not increased this year. The US economy has so far added factory jobs in just two of 10 months after Trump’s return to office.
Realizing this distant dream of an industrial renaissance, according to the White House, will require ramping up the president’s flagship economic policy: tariffs.
And Trump has moved to do just that, hiking the overall average effective US tariff rate from 2.4% to 16.8%, the highest level since 1935, according to analysis by the Budget Lab at Yale.
The rollout of higher tariffs has been erratic and marred by uncertain deadlines, delays and reversals. The process has been “more painful than I expected”, Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles conceded to Vanity Fair.
‘Nobody can believe what’s going on’
For all the pain this agenda has caused inside the White House, economists have repeatedly warned of a potentially stark impact on millions of Americans. Tariffs on goods from overseas, often passed along by the businesses that pay them, can lead to higher prices on store shelves.
Officials and policymakers inside the Federal Reserve have spent months considering whether the ultimate effect of Trump’s tariffs will be a one-time jolt to prices, or something more lasting.
Chart of US inflation
Inflation surged to its highest level in a generation in 2022 as the Covid-19 pandemic unleashed a series of supply and demand shocks on the world economy. By last year, however, the US consumer price index (CPI) was falling back down towards typical levels – and continued to do so during the early months of 2025.
By Trump’s telling, though, his administration inherited an “inflation nightmare” from Biden, which he vowed to turn around. In a primetime TV address on Wednesday, he declared: “I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down very fast.”
But CPI has held firm since the spring. In November, it rose by an annual rate of 2.7%, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday.
The president has repeatedly denied responsibility for inflation this year, and dismissed concerns about prices as a “con job”. Asked by Politico this month how he would grade himself on the economy, he replied: “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus”.
During his TV address this week, Trump insisted he was “solving” grocery prices, claiming that turkey and egg prices were down sharply. “Everything else is falling rapidly,” he claimed. “And it’s not done yet, but boy, are we making progress. Nobody can believe what’s going on.”
‘Hard to see how 2026 will be better’
There have been signs, however, that the administration is moving to reduce pressure in an economy rated so highly by the president.
Trump moved to lower tariffs on some imports, including beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, last month. The administration has also unveiled $12bn in economic assistance for farmers, and repeatedly mooted stimulus checks for Americans, funded by tariffs.
Kicking off a nationwide tour designed to build the narrative of a “remarkable turnaround”, Trump appeared at a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, last week in front of a vast sign that read: “LOWER PRICES BIGGER PAYCHECKS”.
Is a golden age really about to take hold? Trump and his officials have an almost messianic belief the economy will step up a gear in the first quarter of next year, Axios reported earlier this week, citing advisers to the administration.
This confidence is said to be driven by projections that stimulus from Trump’s massive One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax-and-spending legislation will deliver a significant boost to household finances, and spur business investment.
Outside the administration, economists are skeptical.
“Most lower income Americans will be hurt (net) by these policies. And you need to add the increase in healthcare premiums on top of this,” said Simon Johnson, a Nobel prize-winning economist and professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. “Hard to see how 2026 will be better for most people.”
The US economy is forecast to grow by 2% this year, down from 2.8% in 2024. Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, expects only a “pretty small fiscal boost” from Trump’s policies next year.
“In addition, households’ relatively low confidence suggests many of them will save the windfall from larger-than-usual tax refunds in the spring,” said Tombs. “Accordingly, we expect GDP growth of about 2% again next year, well short of the administration’s hopes.”
Trump remains bullish. “We’re poised for an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen,” he assured the nation this week.
Most Americans have yet to see this boom. But they’ve certainly heard a lot about it.
