Donald and Juan’s Wretched Economy, in Five Charts

(Economic recession graph from TuftsDaily.com, via Advantus Media Inc.)

Dear Readers, you may be getting weary of these periodic looks at what we fear is the pending disaster of the Trump-Ciscomani economy. The first named has made bad times happen; the latter has tagged along like a good little puppy. We’re a little tired, too, to be honest, but still—

From the Wall Street Journal: “In the first quarter of this year, the percentage of credit-card balances that were at least 90 days delinquent rose to 13.12%, according to data released in May by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That’s the highest level in 15 years, and the most since the period following the 2008 financial crisis.” 

            This observation dovetails with another bad piece of information—the average household savings rate is plummeting. Per economist Jared Bernstein: “Savings as a share of disposable income has been sliding down to historically low levels, hitting 2.6% in April. That means households don’t have much of a buffer should things go south.”

            And the average consumer senses imminent danger. The University of Michigan’s monthly consumer survey asks folks about their view of current conditions. Get a load of that nosedive on the far right.

And what drives (pun intended) the average consumer the craziest? The price of gas, of course. And our graph buddy, Gasbuddy.com, continues to tell the sad Tucson story:

            Hey, look, the average price here has dropped a little! Look again, it’s still more than a buck fifty per gallon more than before Trump bombed Iran. He didn’t know, apparently, although foreign policy experts knew, that the Iranian government could retaliate by closing the vital Strait of Hormuz and bring shipboard transportation of oil dead in the water (for real, not a turn of phrase).

            If we didn’t think too many charts would drive you all crazy, we could post many, many, of them showing Trump’s rating with American voters lower than any tanker could sink in the Strait. We’ll settle for one, hot off the press from the YouGov pollsters.

            A lot of dots and lines there but follow the dark red one doing a complete nosedive. That’s Donald’s current rating (his disapproval number is 24 percent below his approval, a new Trumpian record!

            Juan Ciscomani, of course, could address these issues as his own man, with his own solutions. But he was recently interviewed by local TV station KOLD, and all he had was Trumpian blather.

Ciscomani said more work needs to be done in Congress to help southern Arizonans save money. He pointed to backing the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” last year, which he says can help provide relief for many [actually, it’s kicking low-income Arizonans off food assistance now, and will probably do the same to Medicaid patients soon].

He said, “The bill that we passed last year lets people keep more of their money. When you talk about not taxing tips, not taxing overtime, social security for our seniors as well, all these things are very important.”

All these things have been buried in the inflation, gas prices, medical insurance increases, and the general economic insecurity caused by the Iran War, Trump’s ill-begotten tariffs, and the loss to the American workforce through the administration’s rabid deportations.

The OBBB gave a few dollars here and there to the average American, but now, it’s almost as if it never happened.”