What Scares Americans--Part II?

Popular Economics Weekly

“Overall, sentiment for lower-income consumers and those with smaller stock portfolios dropped steeply this month, groups that have fewer resources to weather increases in prices. Frustration over cost-of-living continues to mount, as consumers across the political spectrum believe that the trajectory of the economy has weakened since the beginning of the year.”

FREDUMichsurvey

President Trump’s attempts to bully Americans into accepting his policies aren’t working as we approach the midterms. It’s not surprising because of who he has chosen to fill his administration, bullies, usually with little knowledge of the law and lower IQs, lower than his own (100?).

It amounts to planned terror, against not just the undocumented but whole communities who fear that even legal immigrants might be rounded up, legal citizens shot, and American citizens losing their vote.

How else do we explain actions that don’t match Trump’s words: policies that raise inflation and shrink energy supplies, shrink world trade and raise our prices, cut healthcare and grow disease outbreaks, and start wars instead of preventing them?

Those who’ve been hurt most are also own supporters. The University of Michigan is the latest to report Americans’ unhappiness with Trump’s economy.

The sentiment survey headline index fell to 46.3 in its preliminary October reading from 48.1 in September, according to its latest data. This is when it averaged close to 100 during President Biden’s and Trump’s first term.

The survey highlights that the most unhappy in the above U Mich graph were Independents(black bar) and the bottom Tercile one-third with no stocks(green bars).

No wonder. The September unemployment report showed just 29,000 payroll workers hired, averaging just 45,000 jobs per month in the last year.

Why does he enable the failures? Perhaps the best example is his double-speak. Rather than admit he can’t answer a question, he lies, or he finds someone else to blame.

He is living in an economy he doesn’t understand, a holdover from the first Gilded Age of corruption with its robber barons and scandals.

He can’t grow an economy with illegal tariffs, unpopular wars, and broken treaties. His policies are finally coming home to roost as the saying goes, with record unpopularity so close to the midterms.

Add to this his stated attempt to ‘purify’ the American electorate to be as white as possible, allowing the killing of undocumented workers in doing so.

It amounts to terror, using armed and masked ICE officers to terrorize legal and illegal immigrants is perhaps the most obvious attempt to mimic Hitler Brownshirt’s roundup of Jews in the leadup to WWII.

These are very much acts of domestic terrorism. And most of Trump’s Billionaires want unregulated A.I. to grow as well. Who will make the decisions then?

Harlan Green © 2026

• Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://x.com/HGreen97180

What Scares So Many Americans?

Popular Economics Weekly

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." FDR

President Roosevelt understood in his 1933 inaugural speech, “The only thing we have to fears fear itself…” the horrific fears of Americans at the beginning of the Great Depression; the paralyzing feelings that things could only get worse.

I believe many Americans are just as scared today. It’s not only because of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic that affected the world in many similar ways to the Great Depression. And it explains why American voters could twice elect Donald Trump, a convicted felon and known sexual predator, as president.

Our government is based on a capitalist system that generated a 25 percent unemployment rate and long bread lines. It failed to care for the many Americans who couldn’t adopt to a new industrial world of mass production and mass markets that caused the Great Depression

Such overwhelming fear pervades much of American life today—that has generated our record number of gun holders and incarcerated citizens, as well as record income inequality with the top 1% income earners owning as much as 90% of the population. The gap between haves and have nots is the worst in the developed world.

Roosevelt’s New Deal was the answer in the 1930s by literally putting Americans back to work on the government’s tab who couldn’t find work on their own in programs that would benefit all Americans, such as the WPA that built many of our dams and bridges, and CCC that preserved our national parks.

It protected those who worked with workman’s compensation when they lost their job, the 8-hour day, and gave labor unions the right to negotiate with their employers.

But Donald Trump, because of his innate cruelty and utter disregard for the laws and constitution, was able to convince many Americans that immigrants, gays, a weak military, inferior races were to blame for their poverty.

Perhaps Democrats today would have better understood how much such events as the COVID-19 pandemic had paralyzed Americans and the world in a similar way—if there had been another Roosevelt instead of Donald Trump.

FREDUMichsurvey

The FRED graph of the University of Michigan sentiment survey shows when Americans became most fearful; in the sharp decline in positive feelings that began in January 2024 at the beginning of Trump’s second term; when he began to almost completely ignore the laws of the land and the constitution.

How do ordinary wage earners that comprise most Americans conquer their fears,“convert retreat into advance” without another Roosevelt?

Reverse the economic policies that took away so much of their wealth and driven so many into poverty, for starters. Raise the national minimum wage $7.25 per hour that hasn’t changed since the 1990s.

Then reverse the massive tax cuts enacted that began in the 1980s for both the highest earners and corporations that have saddled American taxpayers with $40trillion in national debt. It’s been done before.

It can be done by understanding Americans’ dreams, instead of exploiting their fears.

Harlan Green © 2026

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Why the Employment Mystery?

 Popular Economics Weekly

“Both nonfarm payroll employment (+29,000) and the unemployment rate (4.2 percent) changed little in September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment in all major industries changed little over the month.” BLS.gov

FREDpayrolls

September’s U.S. official unemployment report was a disappointment—just 29,000 jobs were added vs. +133,000 jobs in August. But that may not be a sign of a weakening labor market.

It should be obvious that the labor market is at the beginning of another recovery with the massive acceleration in government and A.I. spending that eclipses any prior era by $Billions.

The new chip factories and data centers are being built over time. It may be another decade before we will see definitive results in job formation and GDP growth, as happened in prior technological revolutions, such as for computer and the Internet use to spread.

So it’s difficult to see the changes, contrary to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, or even the final employment numbers. For instance, after losing -10,000 jobs in July, mainly because of supply disruptions from Trump’s Iran blockade, payroll formation was originally reported to be 162,000 jobs in August then reduced to 133,000 hires in its latest revision.

And I’m guessing that September new jobs will probably be revised upward from 29,000 jobs, given that it’s hard to estimate September because totals include seasonal back to school and government hires that aren’t known immediately.

So, all that investment must eventually grow the job market as well. Steve Ratner, Morning Joe’s resident economist, said in a NYTimes opinion piece that we could already be seeing its impact; the labor markets are beginning to hire more technical professionals because of it.

“To date, A.I. has killed a number of jobs but boosted employment for plumbers, electricians, data scientists and market research analysts”.

Manufacturing may be the biggest story. Manufacturing employment was little changed in September (+9,000) but is up by 72,000 since a recent low in December 2025.

And the Institute of Supply Management’s manufacturing index of new orders climbed 1.6 points last month to a robust 55.3%. It means a majority (55.3%) of supply managers report more new orders. Some manufacturers are even hiring for the first time in a few years. Job creation was positive for the third straight month, following a 33-month streak of declines.

So the low September payroll total may be a temporary glitch.

And GDP growth has already been revised upward in the past two quarters. Q1 2026 GDP was bumped up from 2.0 to 2.2 percent and Q2 from 1.5 to 2.5 percent. And there are +3 percent predictions for Q3 growth.

But all that activity is blowing up inflation. The price index for gross domestic purchases increased 5.6 percent in the second quarter GDP number, revised down 0.2 percentage point from the previous estimate.

This means there will be another Fed rate hike, but maybe after the November election, which is the tradition so as not to be seen as influencing voters.

“Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in September (+29,000), following an average monthly gain of 45,000 over the prior 12 months.

Health care employment continued its upward trend in September (+17,000), but at a slower pace than the average monthly gain over the prior 12 months (+33,000).

Will the employment picture improve with literally $Trillions going into the economy? More importantly, will it improve consumers’ confidence in their own future, which has been in the dumps? They have to believe it will for that to happen. A.I. robots won’t do it.

That is the conundrum, as former Fed Chair Greenspan would say.

Harlan Green © 2026

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Consumers Breakout For Holidays

 Financial FAQs

“Personal income increased $66.6 billion (0.2 percent at a monthly rate) in August, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Disposable personal income (DPI)—personal income less personal current taxes—increased $68.6 billion (0.3 percent), and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $190.8 billion (0.9 percent).” BEA.gov

I said last week better economic growth depends on the consumer to keep shopping despite the higher inflation and Federal Reserve actions that raise consumers’ cost of living. And there may be at least one more +0.25 percent hike this year.

And rising prices haven’t stopped consumer spending yet. The Federal Reserve’s main consumer measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index (PCE), shows consumers shopping more; maybe because they haven’t run out of savings and want to enjoy the holidays and Christmas?

The jury is out on why they continue shopping. Tariffs and the Iran blockade haven’t stopped them yet, just made it more expensive. But they are depleting their savings because personal incomes, mainly wages, aren’t keeping up with the rising prices.

So what are consumers buying says the PCE? Just about everything they need; motor vehicles, energy (gas, diesel fuel) in the face of higher prices, to no one’s surprise.

A big jump in employment (+162,000) last month may also have encouraged consumers to be braver. This month’s unemployment report could be a repeat.

Continued economic growth will also depend on the rest of the economy, of course. Most business investment is with the military and A.I. construction but that won’t help consumers, whose spending makes up two-thirds Gross Domestic Product growth.

Construction also surging because of the A.I. build out, for instance. That shows in the S&P Manufacturing Index growth.

“This week’s flash PMI surveys pointed to a sharp acceleration in US activity. The S&P Global US Composite PMI rose from 56.0 in August to 58.4 in September, its strongest reading since July 2021. Both manufacturing and services strengthened, while employment growth accelerated and business costs picked up. S&P Global described the combination as a distinctly hawkish signal for interest rates.”

This is also could better the mood of consumers. But that’s not enough to sustain their spending for long. The Trump administration has cut back other programs, defying congressional mandates, that would benefit consumers and thus boost longer term growth.

That won’t happen as long as Trump viciously cuts more of the healthcare, education, and environmental protection programs. And the immigration crackdown is depleting many of the service sector jobs that immigrants populate.

We can also say the 7 percent plus fixed mortgage rates have stopped the housing sector in its tracks, further shrinking growth potential.

But consumers might as well make the most of these holidays as long as the good times last!

Harlan Green © 2026

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen