The 2025 US economy – in charts: rising prices, hiring slowdown, rollercoaster growth
The US economy is thriving, according to Donald Trump: jobs are surging, prices are falling, wages are soaring.The government’s own official statistics paint a more complicated picture of 2025.“The Trump Economic Golden Age is FULL steam ahead,” the president claimed on social media, after growth data for the third quarter of the year – covering July, August and September – was unexpectedly strong.But other key indicators have been far less robust in 2025.If Trump is right, and an unprecedented economic boom is about to take hold, the foundations appear fragile.
The cost of living – and its sharp rise, for many Americans, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic – was central to Trump’s fight for re-election in 2024,While inflation peaked at its highest level in a generation in 2022, prices remained high,On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to tackle this problem and bring down not only inflation – the rate at which prices rise – but prices themselves,But inflation held firm in 2025, as the White House pressed ahead with Trump’s flagship economic policy,Despite his rhetoric on reducing prices, many economists feared the president’s sweeping tariffs on imports from overseas risked driving them higher.
Price growth fell sharply after policymakers at the US Federal Reserve launched an aggressive campaign to cool the US economy, rapidly increasing interest rates in an attempt to reduce inflation.By the turn of the year, the Fed had already started to bring rates down from their two-decade high.But policymakers, led by the central bank’s chair, Jerome Powell, wanted to tread carefully – and were anxious that cutting rates too aggressively would imperil the progress they had made on inflation.Trump, no careful treader, returned to office demanding a rapid return to low rates to spur economic growth and berating “numbskull” Powell (whom he appointed).His public demands and attacks were coolly brushed off by Powell.
But by the end of the year, Trump had tried to bolster the Fed’s rate-setting board with officials who were more in line with his thinking, dividing opinion on the Fed,Next year, he gets to replace Powell,A post-pandemic surge in jobs growth was already losing steam by last year,Trump tapped into Americans’ frustrations with the economy, promising a “manufacturing renaissance” that would set the stage for another jobs surge,The renaissance has yet to arrive, however, and over the summer, growth in the labor force appeared to stall altogether.
Rather than add jobs, the US economy actually shed them in June and August.And in October, amid the longest government shutdown in history, it lost an estimated 105,000.The unemployment rate – the percentage of the US labor force that is out of work – has meanwhile been rising throughout the year, and in November scaled its highest level since September 2021.The president tried to push back, claiming “the only reason” unemployment had climbed was because the federal workforce had declined – although the federal workforce has fallen 271,000 since January, while the number of unemployed Americans has risen by about a million.“I wish the Fake News would report the 4.
5% correctly,” he added on social media earlier this month, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics put November’s unemployment rate at 4.6%.By the main measure of economic growth – gross domestic product, or GDP – the US economy has endured a rollercoaster year.It shrank in the first quarter, amid an influx of imports ahead of Trump’s expected tariff onslaught, before bouncing back in the second and gathering steam in the third.After growth of 2.
8% in 2024, the US economy is expected to expand by 2% this year, and 2,1% next year,But many economists did not anticipate such a robust GDP reading for the third quarter, which came ahead of the federal shutdown,The last time growth was this strong, during Joe Biden’s presidency, rising prices and patchy labor growth left many struggling to reconcile the headline figures with the day-to-day reality of their lives,Trump is promising a historic economic boom.
Like Biden, he may well find the real task is not just to deliver it – but to ensure Americans feel it, too.
Humphries given almighty scare by Clemens magic at PDC World Championship
Everyone says they want a good solid test at this stage of the tournament. Keep the skills sharp, keep the mind keen. But how big a test? How tough? How many beats per minute? How much spinal fluid do you want to shed? How close do you really want to get to smelling the paint on the exit door?Luke Humphries reckons he got it about right here, and for now we will have to take his word for it. But the outpouring of emotion we saw at the conclusion of his 4-2 win over Gabriel Clemens was a measure of just how thoroughly the 2024 world champion had been rattled by a man whose game had basically been in hibernation for the past three years.It was in 2023 that Clemens unexpectedly reached the semi-finals, catalysing a revolution in German darts in which everyone assumed he would play a leading part
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There is still a long way to go but Exeter would have settled for their current position back in the summer. Second place in the Prem table heading into 2026 with momentum building nicely is a very different story from last season’s grim struggle and, in front of a 15,000 capacity crowd, here was another example of exactly why they are a developing force.While this was not quite as compelling as their pre-Christmas raid on Saracens, the Chiefs could conceivably have registered another half-dozen tries in the absence of Len Ikitau, their injured Wallaby centre. Another barnstorming display from No 8 Greg Fisilau set the standard and the whole side showed enough physicality and defensive hunger to leave the Tigers to survive on seasonal scraps.Chiefs, bottom of the heap 12 months ago, might even have been on top entering the new year for the first time in five years had they not been denied a try bonus point at the death
Kyrgios defeats Sabalenka but Battle of the Sexes veers too close to circus
Nick Kyrgios won tennis’s latest Battle of the Sexes against Aryna Sabalenka in a dispiriting contest in Dubai that veered uneasily between exhibition, gimmick and outright circus.The Australian, who has won only one competitive singles match since the end of 2022 and has slipped to 671 in the world rankings, was sweating heavily and breathing hard as early as the fifth game of the match. Yet to no one’s great surprise, the extreme power of his serve, combined with the spin and velocity of his groundstrokes, proved too much for the women’s No 1 player.“It was a really tough match,” the 30-year-old Kyrgios insisted after his 6-3, 6-3 victory. “ I didn’t know what to expect
England attack’s holiday fling might be the start of something more serious | Barney Ronay
What does it mean? How should we feel? What are the roots that clutch? What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? For most of its combined 142 overs, watching England’s fourth Test victory in Melbourne felt like drifting in and out of a drunken sleep while trying and failing to follow the plot of a particularly gruelling action movie.Why is this car chase happening? Why is The Rock defusing a torpedo inside a collapsing Maya temple? Why are they running to the top of the nearest generic tall building for this final, final, final showdown? Wait. Will Jacks is playing?Australian cricket has at least taken decisive action. It seems a collective policy decision has been made to categorise this as a game to be voided. The talk is of unacceptable grass
Affordale Fury holds off Cheltenham Gold Cup and Aintree winners to take Savills Chase
The two most recent winners of the Cheltenham Gold Cup were among the 11 runners for the Grade One Savills Chase at Leopardstown on Sunday but neither could match the strength and resilience of a resurgent Affordale Fury, as Noel Meade’s seven-year-old made his breakthrough at the highest level after an injury-plagued career to date.Affordale Fury was the 150-1 runner-up in the three-mile Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham in March 2023, but his career since has included breaks of 438 and 241 days and Sunday’s race was just his fifth chase start outside novice company.It was also his fourth outing since October, though, offering hope that his former fragility may now be behind him, and he set a decent gallop from the off despite persistently jumping to his right.He appeared to be running out of steam as Galopin Des Champs, the Gold Cup winner in 2023 and 2024 and a five-time Grade One winner at Leopardstown over the Savills Chase’s three-mile trip, took it up at the second-last.Galopin Des Champs’s familiar finishing kick did not materialise, however, and after another sharp jump to his right at the last, Affordale Fury stayed on again to beat I Am Maximus, the 2024 Grand National winner, by two-and-a-half lengths with Galopin Des Champs next across the line
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