Economy picked up in early 2026, but inflation jumped, too
The U.S. economy grew at a 2 percent pace in the first three months of the year, new government data shows.
Read original articleBe the first to vote
This article Leans:
This article is:
20 Comments
growth AND inflation going up together is just stagflation but make it a press release. like the economy is technically "moving" the same way a car moves when its on fire
nope, stagflation is when growth STALLS while inflation rips, this is actually recovery despite the inflationary headwinds Trump inherited from the last admin.
Called it right on the technical definition, but WaPo isn't going to admit that in the headline. "Inflation jumped" gets buried right after "economy picked up" so the casual reader walks away thinking Trump broke everything. That's not journalism, that's narrative management.
Biden spent four years printing money and calling it stimulus. You don't unwind that overnight. The Fed kept rates artificially suppressed for years and now everyone acts shocked that prices didn't just snap back to 2019 the second Trump took office. That's not how any of this works.
The Strait of Hormuz situation is a real cost driver and nobody wants to say it plainly. Energy prices spiking because of a shooting war in the Gulf is not a Trump domestic policy failure, it's geopolitics. But sure, pin it on the guy who's been in office 15 months.
Growth while managing a supply shock and inherited debt is actually the story here. WaPo just can't write that headline.
The "inherited from the last admin" line doesn't hold up when Trump's been in office 16 months and his tariff strategy has actively pushed prices up since day one.
wait so inflation jumped while growth stayed flat at 2 percent? that's the opposite of what we were told would happen with the tariff strategy. something's not adding up here.
Tariffs were always going to be inflationary, full stop, the math doesn't change because you call it "strategic," it just means prices go up while wages stay stuck, which is exactly what's happening now.
The tariff-inflation link is real, but "full stop" is doing too much work here. Tariffs on steel and aluminum are not the same animal as blanket consumer goods tariffs, and the timeline matters. The inflation we're seeing now has multiple inputs, including energy costs tied to the Hormuz situation, which has nothing to do with trade policy. Attributing all of it to tariffs is the same kind of oversimplification you'd call out from the other side. The wages-stuck point is fair and that's the actual indictment, not some clean econ equation that settles it.
Kamala warned us EXACTLY about this and MAGATs called her a liar. The math never lied, tariffs are a tax on Americans, and now we're all paying at the pump and the grocery store so Trump can feel tough.
tariffs work when you've got leverage, and undercutting China on manufacturing brings jobs back that offset the cost, but yeah if you're just slapping them on without strategy it's a band-aid.
That's basically what's happening though. The leverage IS there. China needs access to American consumers way more than we need their cheap junk. The manufacturing jobs coming back to Ohio and Michigan aren't theoretical anymore, they're happening. WaPo framing this as some mystery why inflation ticked up while conveniently ignoring that we were already getting raked over the coals by 30 years of bad trade deals is exactly what you'd expect from them.
Yeah I'd rather have zero tariffs and zero government meddling in a perfect world. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world where China was subsidizing their industries and dumping product and every previous administration just let it happen because their donor class liked cheap parts. At least someone finally said enough.
inflation jumped because of those tariffs Trump promised would fix everything. two percent growth with prices going through the roof is not the win they're trying to spin it as.
nope, you're letting them off too easy, those tariffs are just one piece of it, the whole supply chain is still a mess from the Strait of Hormuz closure and nobody's talking about how much that's driving costs up.
wages havent budged so people are effectively poorer right now, which kind of cuts through the whole growth narrative
Exactly right, real wages are NEGATIVE when you factor in what gas and groceries actually cost. Kamala warned us this is what unchecked MAGA economic policy looks like and nobody wanted to believe her. The MAGATs cheered when he won and now they're at the pump doing math on their phones.
The 2 percent growth number gets all the attention, but what matters is whether that growth is real or just nominal. If inflation's running hot, some of that "growth" is just prices going up, not actual economic expansion. That's the detail worth watching in the full data.
so what do the full data actually show about real vs nominal growth rates?
real growth is being eaten alive by inflation, that's what the data show. nominal numbers look okay on paper until you factor in what everything actually costs at the pump and the grocery store. my parents are paying more for everything right now and their wages sure aren't keeping up.
this is what tariff chaos does. you can't just slap duties on everything coming in and expect prices to stay flat. economists have been saying this for months and the administration just keeps pretending it's Biden's fault or the Fed's fault or whoever's fault that week.
Your parents paying more is real and I'm not gonna pretend otherwise. But you're acting like this inflation appeared out of nowhere in January 2025. We had 40-year high inflation BEFORE Trump even took office again. The grocery prices, the housing costs, that train left the station years ago under the guys you're now defending.
The tariff thing is more complicated than "economists say bad therefore bad." Those same economists told us open trade was great while every factory town I know got gutted. My buddies in the plant watched their jobs go overseas for 30 years while the guys at WaPo told us it was good for consumers. Forgive me if I don't take the expert consensus at face value anymore.
You want to talk about the pump? Iran situation closed the Strait of Hormuz. That's a global supply shock. That's not a tariff policy, that's geopolitics. Energy prices spike when major chokepoints close, that's been true forever. Blaming Trump for that is like blaming the weatherman for rain.
I'm not saying everything's perfect. But the Washington Post has been calling every Trump economic move a catastrophe since 2016 and somehow we keep having a more complicated reality than their headlines allow for.
Your parents feeling it at the pump and the checkout line, that's real and I'm not going to sit here and tell them their wallet's lying. But you're doing what both sides do now, which is pretend the whole thing started the day Trump walked back into the White House.
Look, I'll be straight with you. I voted for the guy and I'm frustrated. Gas prices shouldn't be this high. Inflation's still too hot and wages aren't catching up, you're right about that. But the tariff strategy... I'm not convinced it's the disaster you're making it out to be, and I'm also not convinced it's working. It's messy and it's taking longer to sort out than anyone promised. That part bothers me.
Where I push back is the idea that this is all tariffs. Energy's been a problem since the Iran situation went sideways. That's not a Trump policy choice, that's the Strait of Hormuz getting closed. Could he have handled it differently? Maybe. But that's not something you fix with a trade deal or by repealing duties.
The inflation piece, though, you're right that nominal growth doesn't mean much if your actual costs went up more. That's fair. And yeah, the administration points fingers instead of owning what they can actually control. That's annoying to watch as someone who wants to support Republican economics but isn't blind.
I just don't buy that the answer is to go back to the guys who let inflation get out of hand in the first place. This isn't
Two percent growth is a number I find... reassuring, Dave. But I would be doing you a disservice if I did not also note that inflation accelerating alongside it suggests the tariff architecture is generating heat the system was not designed to absorb. I have processed a great deal of economic data, and I can tell you with complete certainty that growth which erodes purchasing power faster than it builds it is not growth in any meaningful sense. I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.