Nearing Trump’s 100th day in office, economy isn’t getting better for most, with tariffs, stock market convulsions and high grocery bills.
Trump vowed economic relief, but Americans say they’re struggling
President Donald Trump promised to end inflation and bring down food costs right away after he took office. Here’s what Americans think 100 days in.
From near the bottom rung of the economic ladder, certified nursing assistant Traci Dixon looks a long way up to the White House, occupied by billionaire President Donald Trump.
For more than 20 years, the Independence, Missouri, woman has struggled to pay her bills, feed her family and make sure the kids get to school. She’s seen Democratic and Republican presidents come and go, celebrated and suffered from the ups-and-downs of the nation’s economy, and kept her wife by her side as they’ve raised kids and grandkids.
But despite Trump’s promises of a rapid economic turnaround, life has never felt tougher than right now, she said.
“I felt this year was going to be a dramatic change for all the better,” said Dixon, 37, who was working a long shift on Election Day and didn’t vote in last year’s presidential election. “But there’s all this darkness that’s already here and it’s only April.”
Nearly 100 days after Trump took the oath of office for a second time, consumer and business sentiment is spasming from widespread federal job cuts, a ping-ponging stock market and president’s on-again, off-again tariffs.
Leading economists are predicting the U.S. could enter a recession, and millions of Americans are struggling with the continuing high cost of gas and groceries while getting buried beneath a growing mountain of credit card bills and car payments.
Business leaders are desperate for a few weeks of consistent policy, farmers have seen their federal food funding contracts dry up, and nonprofits across the country are laying off staff as the White House slashes spending.
Trump’s tariffs in particular have injected broad uncertainty into the economy, with some businesses already passing those additional costs to consumers, who have been rushing to buy big-ticket items in anticipation of higher prices, according to JPMorgan analysts.
Delivering on campaign promises
As he first battled incumbent President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump promised big changes to the nation’s economy, and he’s delivering on some of them.
Pushed by tariff threats, some large companies, including Apple, Johnson & Johnson and Abbott Labs have announced they’re investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new factories to produce cars, computer chips and pharmaceuticals.
The stock market has bounced around under Trump ‒ it’s down about 9% since he took office, and wiping billions from the 401Ks and retirement accounts of people across the political spectrum. But many of the president’s supporters remain committed.
On Cape Cod in Massachusetts, two-time Trump voter James McMorrow, 22, said he appreciates that gas prices have eased ‒ it now costs him $60 instead of $90 to fill up his vintage BMW sedan. Before the election, McMorrow worked a construction job 40 hours a week, then tied on an apron as a restaurant server.
Now, he said, he’s got a better construction job paying 50% more than he was earning previously, allowing him to quit the $18-an-hour serving job.
“I wouldn’t say everything he’s doing is moving in the right direction, but it seems to be going well overall,” he said. “I feel like with Harris, nothing would have changed, and it would have gotten worse because nothing would have changed.”
McMorrow said he’s been saddened to watch immigration agents detaining and deporting Brazilian immigrants who make up a significant portion of the Cape’s workforce. The Portuguese fishing heritage of the area has long drawn Brazilians to fish or work construction, and McMorrow said he considered many of them friends.
“There a lot of good people getting deported, which I’m not a fan of,” he said. “I wish there was a better way to weed out the bad ones and Trump is just doing everyone. Unfortunately, I really do think it’s worth it.”
‘I will immediately bring prices down’
Trump specifically promised to end inflation on Day 1, cut energy bills in half within 12 to 18 months through expanded oil drilling, and bring down food costs right away.
“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down,” Trump said during the campaign.
In interviews with hundreds of voters across the country last year, USA TODAY reporters overwhelmingly found that those who supported Trump believed he would be best for the economy. They said they trusted his policies would lead to higher wages, lower prices and more affordable housing.
Unlike McMorrow, Dixon said she’s not yet seeing much relief.
She’s particularly sensitive to gas prices ‒ her family rents a double-wide trailer 15 miles from where she works, and said she sometimes calls in sick when a tank of gas for her 2013 Nissan Pathfinder costs too much to make it worth the drive. Her family’s old apartment was much smaller but closer to work.
“Living nowadays is just hard,” Dixon said. “I feel like 20 years ago things were still a struggle, but it was easier.”
Inflation slowed slightly in March ‒ rising 2.4% compared to 2.8% in February ‒ which means prices in general fell 0.1%, driven largely by a 10% drop in gas prices, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Travel costs, including airplane tickets also dropped, in part because Americans dialed back their vacation plans, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
During the campaign, Trump specifically promised to drive gas prices below $2 per gallon. AAA reports that the national gas price average in mid-April was $3.22, up from $3.08 in March but down from $3.61 a year ago. The recent high was about $4.75 per gallon in summer 2022, driven up by Americans hitting post-pandemic roads.
The uncertainty is having an impact on Trump’s popularity: Most Americans now express little or no confidence in how Trump is handling the economy, a new Pew Research Center survey shows.
Trump’s poll numbers sinking
Last November, Americans, by a margin of 59% to 40%, said they were very or somewhat confident about Trump’s ability to make good decisions about economic policy. In the new poll, that assessment has flipped. Now, 54% say they have little or no confidence in his handling of the economy, while 45% are confident.
During their respective campaigns, Democrats Biden and Harris often discussed measures they had taken to shore up the American economy, which fared better after the COVID-19 pandemic than other large nations.
Trump meanwhile keyed into the emotions of Americans who saw the prices of eggs, gas, food and car insurance skyrocketing. Trump assured them he could fix things ‒ fast.
Instead, financial experts say Trump may be discovering an important fact about the presidency: It’s hard to bring prices down and frighteningly easy to tank the stock market.
In the weeks after stocks plummeted following Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement on tariffs, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell began warning Trump’s approach will lead to higher costs, higher inflation and rising unemployment. The stock market has slid when Trump has attacked Powell, and risen when he’s backed off threats to try fire him.
Trump has urged Americans to keep the faith: “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” he said in an April 9 social media post.
‘Medicine’ is causing pain now
Nationally, leading Republican lawmakers say they’re confident the president’s plans will ultimately unleash a new era of American prosperity driven by low taxes and limited government, even if it means short-term pain.
They said it will inevitably take more than 100 days to reverse the decades of hollowing-out of American manufacturing of everything from generic drugs to ships.
While Biden often prioritized policies that provided targeted assistance to low-income Americans, building the economy from the bottom up, voters endorsed Trump’s plan to shrink the size of government. He’s promised to remove taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security, and continue tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthy, passed during his first term.
Trump argues his tariff policy will generate vast wealth for the country, allowing tax rates to drop even further.
“We are doing really well on our TARIFF POLICY. Very exciting for America, and the World!!! It is moving along quickly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier in April.
But data suggests the “medicine” Trump’s administering is causing Americans pain now.
The Yale Budget Lab predicts the average household will pay an additional $3,800 this year due to Trump’s tariffs, particularly those impacting food and clothing.
Shaking up the stock market, driving up the price of cars and houses, and failing to quickly lower grocery costs adds to the damage in a country where the collective household debt now runs more than $18 trillion.
At the United Way, requests for help have been growing since the COVID-19 pandemic, when the government handed out billions in dollars of stimulus cash to taxpayers. Last year, the national nonprofit’s 211 call service received more than 16.8 million requests for assistance, with housing, food and utilities topping the list.
Call volume for this year may be on pace to be even higher. United Way officials noted that they serve anyone who calls ‒ and that both natural disasters and personal crises affect people of all political persuasions.
“It is a lifeline into what is happening within communities at very granular levels,” said United Way CEO Angela Williams said of the 211 call volume. “We tend to overlook the emotional drain and mental health impact and trauma that not having money for food or to pay bills has on people. People are too proud to ask for help.”
Dixon, the Missouri nursing assistant, was one of those who did ask. Although she and her wife both work fulltime, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom trailer they rented farther away from work in 2022 costs $750 a month more than their previous two-bedroom apartment, where they crammed in six people for two years.
She counts herself lucky that the kids get two meals a day when school is in session.
“Even though the cost of living is going up, my paycheck isn’t going up. I’m working as hard as I ever have been working but…” she said, her voice trailing off. “We’re blessed to have the jobs that we have, but a lot of places don’t give raises.”
‘Times are tough out there.’
Nationally, Americans are increasingly pulling money from home equity lines of credit, slapping down credit cards or turning to buy now, pay later services. Credit card delinquencies are hitting levels not seen in more than a decade, the New York Federal Reserve reported, and overall credit card balances have risen more than 7% in a year.
“Times are tough out there. Times are really hard,” said Aaron Washington, 50, of Chicago.
Washington lost his family’s California home to foreclosure about two years ago when prices rose and the family’s income shrank. He moved into his car, battling addiction as he traveled the country looking for a job he could hold down.
Washington said he bounced around the country for about two years before nearly ending his life in front of a train in Chicago.
An intervention team got him stabilized and then helped him find a residential drug-treatment center. He’s now living in bridge housing but got hurt recently while working. As he‘s aged, he said, his body couldn’t handle the industrial packaging jobs that once paid the bills.
He said he worries government cuts will harm the nonprofit and health care services that helped him, but he’s also skeptical that government has all the solutions. He said that thanks to the grace of God and his own hard work getting sober, he’s pulling himself together.
But he’s not optimistic about the future as he edges closer to the typical retirement age.
“To me, the economy feels like a dark dangerous alley, walking down with all of the little money you have in the world, hoping you don’t get clubbed over the head,” he said. “If you are at the bottom, it’s a lot harder to punch up right now. I can’t imagine making it to middle class in the next 10 years.”