The True State Of The Union Under Trump: Broken Promises, Higher Prices And Fewer Jobs For American Families

The True State Of The Union Under Trump: Broken Promises, Higher Prices And Fewer Jobs For American Families

NBC News - U.S. Had Almost No Job Growth In 2025

NYT - Voters Say Housing Prices Are Too High. Trump Wants Them Higher

CNN - Trump Promised A Blue-Collar Jobs Boom. The Opposite Is Happening

WSJ - Health Insurance Is Now More Expensive Than the Mortgage for These Americans

Forbes-Electricity Bills Got More Expensive In 2025-Despite Trump's Promise To Reduce Utility Costs

NPR- American Farmers Are Hurting. Trump's Trade War Is Making It Worse.

President Trump says he's proud of his economy. But the reality is Americans are facing higher costs and lost jobs one year into his second term. Trump promised a manufacturing boom, but the data tells a different story: over 75,000 lost manufacturing jobs since Trump launched his trade war. While the manufacturing sector has shrunk every month since "Liberation Day," farmers are struggling to stay afloat with lost markets and rising costs from the trade war. And the crushing impacts of Trump's tariff tax means his repeated promises to "make America affordable again" have fallen flat. Groceries, electric bills, and housing costs are up, and health care costs are through the roof thanks to Republicans' own policies. No matter how Trump tries to spin it, the true State of the Union is an affordability and economic crisis of his own making.

Trump promised "jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country."

NBC News-U.S. Had Almost No Job Growth In 2025. "The U.S. economy experienced almost zero job growth in 2025, according to revised federal data."… "Preliminary data had indicated that the U.S. economy added 584,000 jobs last year. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised that number after it received additional state data, and found that the labor market had added 181,000 jobs in all of 2025. This is far fewer than the 1.46 million jobs that were added in 2024." [NBC News, 2/11/26]

New Republic-Trump Tanked Job Growth To Almost Nothing In 2025. "It's official: The jobless boom of Donald Trump's first year back in office was even worse than we originally thought. A jobs report published Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics contained significant downward revisions for the already weak job growth numbers in 2025. Last year, the labor market added only 181,000 jobs total." [New Republic, 2/11/26]

Politico-Job Openings Plummet In Warning Sign For Trump's Economy. "President Donald Trump's economy is booming. But if you're looking for a job, good luck. The Labor Department reported on Thursday that job openings in December unexpectedly dropped to their lowest level since mid-2020, during the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic. It's a sign that companies have cooled on hiring despite an economic expansion that the White House has framed as the dawn of a new Golden Age." [Politico, 2/5/26]

New Republic-Trump Just Gave Us the Worst January Since the Great Recession. "Donald Trump's economy has led to the worst January in job cuts since the Great Recession in 2009. U.S.-based employers laid off 108,435 employees last month, three times as many as in December and twice as many as January 2025, according to a monthly report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a firm that helps executives transition to new jobs. The country hasn't had a January this bad in seven years, the report said." [New Republic, 2/5/26]

WSJ-U.S. Manufacturing Is in Retreat and Trump's Tariffs Aren't Helping. "The manufacturing boom President Trump promised would usher in a golden age for America is going in reverse. After years of economic interventions by the Trump and Biden administrations, fewer Americans work in manufacturing than any point since the pandemic ended. Manufacturers shed workers in each of the eight months after Trump unveiled 'Liberation Day' tariffs, according to federal figures, extending a contraction that has seen more than 200,000 roles disappear since 2023." [WSJ, 2/2/26]

WSJ- U.S. Has Lost Manufacturing Jobs Every Month Since 'Liberation Day'. "American manufacturers shed about 8,000 jobs in December, according to the Labor Department, marking the eighth straight month of losses since President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs in April. The recent declines have extended a slow-but-steady contraction in which about 200,000 U.S. manufacturing roles have disappeared since 2023." [WSJ, 1/9/26]

CNN-Trump Promised A Blue-Collar Jobs Boom. The Opposite Is Happening. "President Donald Trump promised voters in 2024 that if they returned him to the White House, his policies would deliver a blue-collar jobs boom." … "And yet as his first calendar year in office winds down, that blue-collar jobs boom has yet to arrive. If anything, industries that rely on manual labor are cutting jobs, not adding them, a trend that economists blame at least in part on the president's historic and volatile tariff policy." [CNN, 12/17/25]

Reuters-US Factory Headcount Falling Despite Trump's Promised Manufacturing Boom. "U.S. manufacturing jobs in December continued an eight-month skid that began last spring after President Donald Trump rolled out aggressive import taxes that he pledged would lead to a resurgence of blue-collar jobs by reshuffling world trade to favor U.S. workers." … "The pace of job creation in the first year of Trump's second term has fallen more than two-thirds from what it was in the final year under President Joe Biden, to an estimated 49,000 per month in 2025 versus 168,000 per month the prior year." [Reuters, 1/9/26]

WaPo-Trump's Promised Manufacturing Boom Is A Bust So Far. "Introducing the highest U.S. tariffs since the Great Depression, President Donald Trump made a clear promise in the spring: 'Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country.' They haven't. Manufacturing employment has declined every month since Trump declared 'Liberation Day' in April, saying his widespread tariffs would begin to rebalance global trade in favor of American workers. U.S. factories employ 12.7 million people today, 72,000 fewer than when Trump made his Rose Garden announcement. The trade measures that the president said would spur manufacturing have instead hampered it, according to most mainstream economists. [WaPo, 1/15/26]

Trump promised "to quickly defeat inflation and make America affordable again."

NYT- As Trump Touts Economic Gains, Many Workers Still Feel the Pinch. "For millions of Americans, affordability has become a defining issue as the soaring cost of big-ticket necessities such as housing, education, health care and child care take a toll on household budgets. Though unemployment is lower and inflation has slowed - data points that President Trump will likely cite in his State of the Union address on Tuesday - recent economic gains have largely benefited the wealthy. In interviews, some working Americans said the improved economy does not reflect their real-world struggles to pay bills or plan for the future. They have a hard time making sense of Mr. Trump's claims that he has defeated inflation, and the rising stock market has no bearing on their income." [NYT, 2/23/26]

ABC News-Trump's Tariffs Cost American Households $1,000 Last Year: Research Group. "President Donald Trump's tariffs cost the average American household $1,000 last year, according to new research from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. The cost is set to go even higher this year to $1,300 per household, assuming the existing tariffs stay in place, the research said. The research called Trump's tariffs 'the largest U.S. tax increase as a percent of GDP since 1993.'"[ABC News, 2/9/26]

NYT- Voters Say Housing Prices Are Too High. Trump Wants Them Higher. "President Trump has promised to address the housing affordability crisis, a top concern for voters. At a cabinet meeting last week he did so directly, but not in the way frustrated home buyers might have expected. 'I don't want to drive housing prices down,' he said. 'I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes.'" [NYT, 2/4/26]

Reuters- US Consumer Inflation Increases Steadily, But Households Paying More For Food And Rents. "U.S. consumer prices increased in December, lifted by higher costs for rents and food as some of the distortions related to the government shutdown that had artificially lowered inflation in November unwound, cementing expectations the Federal Reserve would leave interest rates unchanged this month." … "Nonetheless, expensive food, with prices increasing by the most in more than three years, and rents underscored the affordability crisis facing President Donald Trump, partly blamed by economists on the White House's policies, including sweeping import tariffs." [Reuters, 1/13/26]

NYT-Despite Trump's Claims, Grocery Prices Are Rising. "Days away from the first anniversary of President Trump's second term in office, grocery prices are still rising, undercutting his administration's rhetoric about how it is making life more affordable for average Americans. The price of beef has risen 16.4 percent over the last year. The price of coffee is up a whopping 19.8 percent. The price of lettuce is up 7.3 percent and frozen fish 8.6 percent." [NYT, 1/14/26]

CBS News-Chew On This: U.S. Food Prices Are Up 19% Since 2022. "Although inflation has cooled markedly since U.S. prices surged during the pandemic, high food costs continue to give consumers a stomachache. Food prices, which outpaced overall inflation for much of last year, rose in December at an annual rate of 3.1%. That remains significantly above the 2.7% for all goods, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data. On a monthly basis, food prices rose 0.7% last month - the largest jump since September 2022." [CBS News, 1/15/26]

Axios-Grocery Prices See Biggest Spike Since 2022 In December. "Grocery prices rose at the fastest pace in three years, keeping pressure on household budgets even as overall inflation held steady in December. Why it matters: The jump in costs highlights the challenge for the White House in the lead-up to midterm elections. Broad inflation relief is little consolation for Americans if they aren't seeing it reflected in grocery bills. By the numbers: Grocery prices (or "food at home," as the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls it) rose by 0.7% in December, the largest monthly gain since the peak inflation period in August 2022."[Axios, 1/13/26]

NBC News-The Rising Cost Of Basic Necessities Could Widen The Gap Between The Well-Off And Everyone Else. "The price of household necessities rose in December over the previous month, even as inflation overall held steady. The result is that price pressures were unevenly distributed across income groups, with lower-income people particularly affected." … "Grocery prices rose broadly in December, with five major food categories posting increases, while dining out also became more expensive." [NBC News, 1/14/26]

Trump promised prices on electricity will "fall dramatically."

Forbes-Electricity Bills Got More Expensive In 2025-Despite Trump's Promise To Reduce Utility Costs. "The cost of electricity rose by more than 6% in 2025-over double the rate of inflation-and economists anticipate Americans spending more on electricity bills over the next decade after the expansion of energy-intensive data centers by the AI industry and the Trump administration's rollback of clean energy tax credits." … "President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would lower utility bills and promised during his 2024 presidential campaign he was "going to get your energy prices down by 50%." [Forbes, 2/13/26]

The Guardian-How Trump's Promise To Slash Energy Bills In Half Has Failed Across The US. "Donald Trump has comprehensively failed to meet a key election promise to slash Americans' energy bills in half within the first year of his presidency, with power prices instead surging across the US. The average household electricity bill in the US was 6.7% more expensive in 2025 compared with the previous year, according to a Guardian analysis of data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Department of Energy's statistical arm. The increases meant that, on average, US households paid nearly $116 more across 2025 than they did in 2024." [The Guardian, 1/17/26]

ABC News-Energy Bills In US Have Increased 13% Since Trump Took Office, New Report Finds. "The amount of money Americans are paying for their energy bills has increased since President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, according to a new report." [ABC News, 12/15/25]

Politico-Electricity Costs Keep Climbing, Despite Trump's Promises. "On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump vowed to cut energy costs in half. So far, that's not coming true. And estimates say that his policies could only make things worse. This week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected that retail electricity prices are expected to continue a rapid rise this year, with the average price increasing 13 percent from 2022 to 2025." [Politico, 5/16/25]

Trump promised "better health care for less money."

Bloomberg-Americans Turn to TikTok Tips, Mexico to Escape ACA Premium Pain. "Sharp increases in monthly health care bills hit the wallets of more than 20 million Americans this month. Priced out of their regular coverage, some of them are forgoing insurance entirely, or taking drastic steps to get the care they need. Maddie Bannister, 33, is newly uninsured after her Obamacare bills spiked. Instead, she's decided that if she, her husband and two kids need a doctor, they'll drive two hours from their home in San Clemente, California, and see one in Mexico." [Bloomberg, 2/6/26]

Business Insider-She's 60 And Just Lost ACA Subsidies. Now Her Health Insurance Costs $903 A Month - And She's Avoiding The Doctor. "CJ Richey is avoiding the doctor. Like many Americans, she saw her monthly health insurance premium spike this year - in her case, from $265 to $903. The addiction recovery counselor in Colorado said that being self-employed means she sets her own schedule, and the job gives her a strong sense of purpose, but it comes with a trade-off: She doesn't have a company-sponsored healthcare plan." [Business Insider, 2/6/26]

MS Now- We Don't Have A Corporate Job': Expiration Of ACA Subsidies Put These Farmers' Lives In Limbo. "America's farmers have been hit especially hard with the Jan. 1 expiration of the tax credits that made the Affordable Care Act's health insurance plans more affordable. Senate negotiations this month over reviving the subsidies have fizzled out, and local farmers - most of whom don't have access to employer-sponsored health care plans - are being forced to find other ways to make a living. 'We don't have a corporate job,' Liz Krug, the owner of Endless Roots Farm in Waverly, Pennsylvania, told MS NOW. 'Both my husband and I work full time on the farm. This is how we make our income, and the ACA tax credits made that possible.'" [MS Now, 2/11/26]

WSJ-Health Insurance Is Now More Expensive Than the Mortgage for These Americans. "Millions of Americans are starting to see their monthly health-insurance bills rise, a new pressure point for a nation still frustrated with the high cost of living. Many of those facing the most substantial dollar increases are middle-income Americans who buy health insurance through the marketplaces set up by the government's Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare." … "Lenny and Mandee Wilson, who are 47 years old and live in Charleston, W.Va., paid 255 a month last year for a low-end ACA plan. Late last year, they learned their bill would be going up to 2,155 a month, a sum nearly triple their monthly mortgage payment of about $760." [WSJ, 1/26/26]

CBS News-Retired Georgia Couple Hit With $39,000 Health Insurance Bill After ACA Subsidies End. "Barbara Brockway and Matt Padula always imagined retirement as a time to relax and enjoy each other's company after more than three decades together."… "But this year, things changed. The enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act have expired, causing their insurance premiums to skyrocket. 'It's like the rug yanked out from under our feet the last couple of months,' Padula says. In 2025, the couple paid about $1,600 a month. Now, their monthly premium has doubled to $3,200 - totaling nearly $39,000 a year for insurance alone." [CBS News, 1/14/26]

MS Now- 'Crushing' Health Care Choice: College For One Child Or Insulin For Another. "Teresa Acosta had been anxiously bracing for her health insurance bill. She was expecting to pay twice as much, maybe more, because of expiring subsidies. But she was floored by what her January statement reflected: a whopping 620% increase on her monthly premium. "I had heard a lot of people saying, 'Oh, it's gonna double or triple premiums,'" said Acosta, a single mother of three. "No. Mine increased seven times over." Acosta, 49, got her January notice just days before Christmas, leaving her with $74 in her bank account." [MS Now, 1/15/26]

Reuters-Most Obamacare Enrollment Closes Leaving Americans With Higher Bills Or Less Health Insurance. "Millions of Americans are facing higher healthcare costs in 2026 as open enrollment for most federally subsidized Obamacare plans closes on Thursday and Congress remains divided on whether and how it should reinstate generous COVID-era tax credits. In 2025, about 24 million people were enrolled in the plans, created by President Barack Obama's signature Affordable Care Act. Of them, about 22 million received subsidies." [Reuters, 1/15/26]

Trump promised his trade war would "be great for the American farmer."

The Hill-Farmers Squeezed By Trump Tariffs Press Lawmakers For Action. "Bipartisan farming advocates are concerned the industry could 'collapse' in the near future, with the combination of a downturn cycle and the policies of the Trump administration putting the sector in a precarious position. Former leaders in the industry warned House and Senate lawmakers, in a letter this week, that Congress needs to step up 'if we are to avoid a widespread collapse of American agriculture and our rural communities.' While some experts are skeptical about such dire predictions, they say the policies of the administration, particularly tariffs, are not helping the rising costs of production and weak crop prices farmers have experienced in the past few years." [The Hill, 2/6/26]

NPR- American Farmers Are Hurting. Trump's Trade War Is Making It Worse. "This is a bitter harvest season for many American farmers." … "Brady Holst is one of the farmers being hit. He raises soybeans, corn and wheat in western Illinois. Holst typically sends part of his harvest down the Mississippi River and on to overseas markets like China. But thanks to the trade war, China isn't buying any U.S. soybeans this fall. That boycott is putting more downward pressure on already low crop prices." [NPR, 10/16/25]

The Guardian- US Farmers Caught In Trump-China Trade War - Who'll Buy The Soybeans? "At the Purfeerst farm in southern Minnesota, the soybean harvest just wrapped up for the season. The silver grain bins are full of about 100,000 bushels of soybeans, which grab about $10 a piece. This year, though, the fate of the soybeans, and the people whose livelihoods depend on selling them, is up in the air: America's soybean farmers are stuck in the middle of a trade war between the US and China, the biggest purchaser of soybean exports, used to feed China's pigs." [The Guardian, 10/10/25]

NPR-'We're not doing well': U.S.-China trade war taking a toll on American soybean farms. "We're not doing well at all as an industry. We have zero sales on the books of this new crop to the Chinese, who are our biggest export customer historically." [NPR, 10/9/25]

Ohio Capital Journal- Ohio Family Farmers Describe Life Under Trump Tariffs: 'We're In A Hell Of A Mess Here.' "'We're in a hell of a mess here,' said Ohio farmer Chris Gibbs as he worked on his combine at the start of harvest season. 'A severe cash flow mess,' he sighed. 'A working capital mess.'" … "Some growers have called the fallout from his chaotic trade war, and the reciprocal tariffs it provoked, a 'farmageddon' that could ruin what made rural America great. " [Ohio Capital Journal, 9/30/25]

The Guardian-Trump Vowed To Help US Farmers. These Four Say His Policies Are 'Wreaking Havoc'. "Donald Trump may have won the votes of the US's most farming-dependent counties by an average of 78% in the 2024 election. But the moves made by his administration in the past few months - imposing steep tariffs, immigration policies that target the migrant labor farmers rely on, and canceling a wide range of USDA programs - have left many farmers reeling."… "Other farmers across the country are reporting that the Trump administration's policies have destroyed their markets by ending programs that help farmers sell their produce to local schools and food banks; implementing draconian immigration policies that destabilize the farm labor pool; and generally creating volatility that makes it hard for farmers to plan ahead." [The Guardian, 5/23/25]

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