Donald Trump keeps insisting the US has the greatest economy in history. The numbers say otherwise. Inflation has risen to 3.4%, up from 3.0% when Biden left office. GDP growth has slowed to 1.5% in Q2, down from the 2.7% annualized rate in Biden's final six months. Gas prices have surged roughly 50% since the Iran war began, hitting a national average of $4.47 per gallon. Consumer sentiment has cratered to its second-lowest reading in the University of Michigan poll's 74-year history. The pain is specific and measurable. Over the past year, fuel oil is up 52%, ground beef 7.2%, fish and seafood 6.5%, coffee 6.1%, sugar and sweets 6.1%, and electricity 3.8%. The Yale Budget Lab estimates Trump's tariffs will cost the average household $1,100 this year; Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi puts the Iran war's household cost at an additional $1,000. Prices are rising faster than wages, compounding affordability problems that already dominated voter anxiety. The labor market — traditionally Trump's strongest card — offers thin comfort. Unemployment sits at 4.1%, roughly where Biden left it, but job growth has averaged just 43,000 per month under Trump's second term, less than a third of the 145,000 monthly average during Biden's final two years. Manufacturing, supposedly the target beneficiary of tariffs, has shed 35,000 jobs since inauguration. A single strong month of 162,000 jobs added does not reverse that trajectory. Polling reflects the disconnect between White House rhetoric and lived experience. A New York Times/Siena poll finds 73% of Americans rate the economy fair or poor, with 48% calling it outright poor. Just 28% approve of Trump's economic handling in a Marquette Law School survey. Among Republicans, the share saying the economy has improved collapsed from 72% in January to 29% now — a 43-point drop within his own base. Two structural props are keeping the economy from outright contraction, and both are precarious. AI investment is driving business spending and stock market records, but Wall Street is growing skittish about AI valuations, and community opposition to data centers is intensifying. Meanwhile, the top 10% of earners account for nearly 50% of consumer spending, masking the squeeze on the bottom half. An economy sustained by tech speculation and luxury consumption is not one that rewards the median voter. The White House response follows a familiar pattern: claim credit for anything positive (egg prices down 23%, scattered month-over-month price drops in beef and auto insurance), blame predecessors for structural problems, and reframe self-inflicted damage as temporary disruption. Spokesman Kush Desai cited "continued private-sector job growth" and "booming investments" while dismissing Biden-era job gains as government-padded statistics. The Fed, unmoved by this framing, just raised interest rates — a direct signal that inflation is not under control. The core problem is attribution. As AFL-CIO chief economist Darrick Hamilton and Groundwork Collaborative president Lindsay Owens both note, the two biggest inflation drivers — tariffs and the Iran war — are policy choices, not external shocks. Even the center-right American Enterprise Institute's Michael Strain, who calls the economy "strong," concedes inflation is "eroding wages and income" and represents a genuine headwind. When your own side's economists acknowledge the pain, the "greatest economy" claim isn't spin — it's noise. Voters will render their verdict in November.
