It may well be that there’s an affordability crisis and consumers have no confidence in America or President Trump. But sometimes facts speak louder than political conjectures or biased polls.
Black Friday spending surged this year to new highs, fueled by record-breaking online spending that reached $11.8 billion on Black Friday alone, according to Market Data. Online sales on Black Friday made up about 10% of total sales for the entire month of November. The number was just above $111 billion, according to an Adobe Analytics report. Adobe tracks over $1 trillion U.S. retail site visits. And they are predicting that the 2025 holiday season will be the biggest online spending in U.S. history.
Of course, a lot of this is AI-driven (artificial intelligence) boosting traffic to online retail sites. Those referrals by the way, popped 805% compared to last year. So, when President Trump tells today’s White House economic roundtable that he inherited Joe Biden’s problems, but he’s the one fixing them, he has a very strong point.
This is what the President said just a little bit ago, “We inherited a mess. Affordability. But you can call it affordability or anything you want, but the Democrats cause the affordability problem, and we’re the ones that are fixing it. So it’s a very simple statement. And they caused it and we’re fixing it.”
Here are some more facts worth considering: people worry about the labor market, but probably the best high frequency indicator is initial unemployment claims, where the latest four-week average has dropped all the way to 214K. In recent weeks, that’s actually been falling. You know what constitutes a recession? Something like 350K. We’re nowhere near that.
A couple more facts: wages are rising faster than prices. Wage income from the latest numbers +5.3%. The core personal consumption deflator, that’s the Fed’s inflation measure 2.7%. That means working folks’ take home pay is now ahead by 2.6%. Ahead of prices by 2.6%. And there’s a lot more coming with tax refunds next year and the one big beautiful bill. And gas prices are below $3 a gallon across the country. That permeates every nook and cranny of the economy. And Mr. Trump’s policies of supply-side tax cuts, business deregulation, drill baby drill, and free and fair reciprocal trade is launching a business boom.
In fact, it’s a business construction for factories, machinery, and equipment. All of that is up 9.1% for the past year. In Mr. Trump’s first year, wages are already clobbering prices. That’s the way it should be. That’s a big number. You know what happens? You start up a factory, and you order new equipment and machinery, you have to hire people. But unemployment is so low, that you’re going to have to pay them a very decent wage. And that is going to make people, AKA consumers, sitting around the kitchen table, very happy.
So I say, affordability crisis? What a load of baloney.
