US Consumers Show Resilience Despite Tariff Challenges

While tariffs could lead to price hikes in the short term, economist Thomas Weinandy believes strong employment levels may help consumers manage increased costs effectively.

Despite a lot of uncertainty in the U.S. economy, research economist Thomas Weinandy said that the U.S. economy is still performing well as President Donald Trump reaches his 100th day in office.

"Consumers, they're starting to become more cautious and they're changing their behavior in a way that's prioritizing their own affordability," he said. "But at the end of the day, they're still buying different essentials. They're still getting what they need. They're just changing their habits about how they're doing so."

Weinandy stated that good employment levels are giving consumers the ability to spend and that tariffs generally cause prices to increase, in addition to disrupting the supply chain.

"One lesson that I learned from the pandemic is that supply chains, they are sensitive to specific items changing," he said. "But in the long term, they are rather resilient. So, you know, toilet paper shortages, that was a rather short-lived phenomenon. Tariffs, they might cause some kind of short-term shortages, but I think long-term, we're still going to be able to purchase the everyday things that we need."

Weinandy said that President Trump's goal with tariffs is to raise hiring in the U.S. manufacturing industry, which has lost about 5 million jobs since the start of the century.

"There's some early signs that employment growth could be slowing down," Weinandy said. "But so far, it's still been positive. That means that I think households are going to be able to absorb some of these short-term costs and some of the uncertainty that's happening right now."