It's Almost 2026. How’s the Economy?

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Business News, Daily News, News

4.2 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did the U.S. economy do in 2025? With unemployment ticking up, tariffs shaking up global trade and the stock market booming, it has been hard to make sense of it all. Ryan Knutson talks with three WSJ economics reporters–Justin Lahart, Rachel Wolfe and Jeanne Whalen– about the state of the economy as we wrap up the year, and about what to expect in 2026. Further Listening: - The Era of AI Layoffs Has Begun - Is the Economy Getting Better or Worse? The Fed Says It's Hard to Tell Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's almost the end of the year, which gets a nerd like me thinking,
0:09.0	how did the economy do this year?
0:12.0	Fortunately, I know some people who know things.
0:15.0	We have a Wall Street Journal Economic Dream Team here, so could each of you introduce yourselves? Sure. I'm Gene Waylon. I'm an
0:24.6	economics reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Chicago. I'm Justin Layhart. I'm an economics reporter
0:30.6	in New York. I'm Rachel Wolfe, an economics reporter focused on consumers and based in New Orleans.
0:37.5	And if you could summarize the state of the economy right now in a single word, what would it be?
0:44.3	Uncertain.
0:45.8	Meh.
0:46.8	Meh.
0:48.1	All right, Rachel.
0:49.3	Top uncertain and meh.
0:51.8	Asymmetrical.
0:55.1	Based on those answers, uncertain, meh, and asymmetrical, I'm starting to get the impression
1:01.8	that you guys think it's not such a great economy right now.
1:05.8	It really depends where you're sitting.
1:07.7	For older people, for people with more savings who own their homes,
1:12.9	it's a great time. The value of their homes has gone way up. The value of their 401Ks has
1:18.0	really soared incredibly over the last few years. But people on the lower end of the scale,
1:25.4	things for them are looking worse. So that's the old, what economists sometimes
1:29.5	called the K-shaped economy. So it really depends where you're sitting. And young people in particular
1:35.4	having separate time in the job market, and you know that they've been priced out of homeownership.
	...

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