Inflation has slowed down, and real incomes – typical wages adjusted for inflation – have bounced back to levels last seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Democrats campaigned in 2024 on the overall strength of the economy. President Joe Biden proclaimed in the days following the election that the U.S. economy is “the strongest in the world.”
Yet Republicans retook the White House, and are on track to retake both houses of Congress, in part by casting a much dimmer view of the economy. President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on the supposed strength of his first-term economic record, only to characterize current conditions as a “cesspool of ruin.”
