“Economists have been more optimistic on the economy because everything on our dashboards looks strong with the fact that other than inflation being high and coming down, and interest rates starting to ease,” said Andrew Woods, director, Center for Business and Economic Research, UNLV. “But for consumers, they’ve felt more of a struggle in terms of their financial situations, despite the fact that wages are finally outpacing inflation. Purchasing power may be going up, but we’ll see if those gains continue, and if they continue under tariffs.”

Inflation-wise, pricing remains elevated, relative to earnings. The rate of increase of inflation is slowing, but that doesn’t mean prices are necessarily coming down. It means prices are going up more slowly.

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