The state of the US economy, in 9 charts

President Donald Trump on Tuesday will address Congress for the first time in his second term, and he’ll do so with an economy that is mostly chugging along.

However, recent data has contained some warning signals that momentum could be slipping at a time when the Trump administration is conducting sweeping — and potentially economy-shifting — policy changes.

Here’s a look at how some key economic indicators are faring:

The mighty US consumer, shored up by a strong labor market, helped drive steady economic growth throughout 2024. The US entered 2025 on solid enough footing that economists say it could weather some volatility.

Through the fourth quarter of 2024, real gross domestic product (GDP) — the broadest measure of economic output — grew 2.3%.

Still, some bumpy times could be coming sooner than later, according to a closely watched predictor of real GDP growth.

Last week, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s real-time GDP forecast projected the economy could contract by 2.8%. The negative swing doesn’t necessarily signal a recession: It largely reflects a sharper-than-expected pullback in post-holiday consumer spending and a larger inflow of imported goods in advance of tariffs.

It remains to be seen how much further consumers could pull back. Recent sentiment surveys have shown Americans have grown increasingly sour about economic prospects.

Inflation has cooled dramatically since hitting a 40-year high in the summer of 2022; however, the path back to normal has been slow and bumpy. In January, two key inflation gauges (the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index) ran hot, driven higher by fast-rising food and energy prices.

Concern also have heightened in recent weeks about how Trump administration policies, specifically the implementation of steep import tariffs, could raise prices for consumers and businesses as well as reaccelerate inflation.

Still, as it stands now, the underlying data and the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge do provide some silver linings and show that the current path still leads to disinflation. The latest Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rose at an annual rate of 2.5%, half of a percentage point above the Fed’s 2% target rate.

But while prices may not be rising as fast as they did in recent years, the cumulative effect of high inflation has weighed heavily on Americans, especially those who have little wiggle room in their monthly budgets.

Fed up with high prices, many voters brought their frustrations to the ballot box in November in hopes that a change of administration would bring some relief.

That hasn’t happened yet (the recent, and global, inflation event had complex causes, and price stabilization is not expected overnight — no matter who’s the president), and the poster child for stubbornly high prices has become the humble egg.

Egg prices have spiked in recent years because of a nasty and deadly bout of avian flu (and long-established practices to contain the spread).

The Trump administration last week laid out a five-pronged plan to try to combat bird flu and lower egg prices. While some producers expressed concern that the efforts don’t go far enough, Department of Agriculture officials acknowledged that it could take time to lower prices.

Stocks had a blockbuster 2023 and 2024. Heading into 2025, Wall Street expected the good times for markets to keep going this year — just not on the massive scale investors have enjoyed lately.

US stocks surged last year as strong economic growth, cooling inflation, a series of Federal Reserve rate cuts and enthusiasm for President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory boosted investor optimism. Tech and AI stocks were the stars of 2024, and they were largely expected to lead growth again in 2025.

Two months into the year, and things have gotten a bit choppy. All three major US indexes closed out February in the red, signaling rising unease on Wall Street.

While the broader market remains near an all-time high, uncertainty has swelled around factors such as artificial intelligence-related spending as well as broader economic and geopolitical volatility.

America’s once-in-a-generation housing slump deepened last year, and heading into 2025, it appeared that residential real estate would land in another standoff.

That outlook was somewhat dour in part because inventory remains low and mortgage rates are expected to stay above 6% for at least the next two years. Americans who locked in ultra-low mortgage rates during the pandemic have little incentive to move into new homes and take on higher borrowing costs.

Additionally, homebuilders have sounded the alarm on how Trump’s tariff and immigration policies could have a negative effect on housing costs and supply.

Still, real estate is local, and with spring just weeks away, there’s renewed optimism in certain US markets that the scales could tip back toward homebuyers.

The Federal Reserve’s efforts to bring down decades-high inflation with a heavy-handed dose of fast-escalating interest rates were highly expected to blunt demand and result in result in higher unemployment — and potentially a recession.

However, the US labor market and broader economy proved resilient, keeping the unemployment rate at historically low levels. For perspective, January’s 4% unemployment rate is below what was seen during practically every month in the 1970s, ’80s and ‘90s.

While the overall rate remains historically low, the dynamics for people without a job haven’t been the friendliest in recent months. Hiring has softened and labor market churn has slowed, resulting in people staying unemployed for longer.

While the unemployment rate is expected to remain at 4% when the February jobs report is released this Friday, economists anticipate it could potentially move higher in the months ahead.

One particular pressure point could be from the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers. However, the relative size of those job cuts as well as the timing could lessen their impact on the overall economy.

The pace of job growth has slowed during the past year. That’s been expected: The blockbuster pandemic recovery couldn’t continue forever; plus, the Federal Reserve’s inflation-busting high interest rates were designed to curb demand.

The US economy kicked off 2025 by adding 143,000 jobs in January. The monthly gain was lower than expected; however, economists noted it was likely influenced by significant data adjustments that happen at the start of every year as well as frigid weather and devastating wildfires in Los Angeles.

Job gains are expected to rebound somewhat when the February report is released Friday; however, there’s less certainty as to what may come in the months ahead from the federal job cuts as well as other stated policies on fronts such as immigration, tax reform, and trade.

Sales of existing homes in the US fell last year to the lowest level in almost three decades, as sky-high home prices and elevated mortgage rates squeezed home buyers.

Home prices, meanwhile, continue to escalate. In January, the median price was $446,300, Census Bureau data shows.

Fast-rising housing prices have certainly played their part in keeping overall inflation above the Fed’s target. Shelter inflation, which is an amorphous and lagging measure of the average cost of housing in the US, rose to 4.4% year-over-year in January, outpacing overall inflation of 3%.

The impact of rising home prices has been felt across most of the country: A recent report from the National Association of Realtors found that 89% of metro areas saw an increase in the cost of a single-family home in the fourth quarter of 2024.

That’s partly due to elevated mortgage rates and chronic underbuilding and potentially worsened by extreme weather events such as wildfires and floods as well as policies that threaten to hike costs of critical homebuilding materials.

It’s getting to the point where a new car could cost someone $50,000.

In January, Americans paid a whopping $48,100 on average for a new car, jumping about $10,000 from pre-pandemic times. That means new car prices have risen much faster than most goods and services.

Vehicle prices soared in 2021 amid fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and its jumbling of global supply chains. In their case, the semiconductor chip shortage (a result of manufacturers reassigning capacity to consumer tech because the auto factories shuttered amid the pandemic and lower demand) led to limited production of enough cars to meet the sharp rebound in consumer demand.

The costlier cars — new and used — have come with heftier monthly payments, which have become harder and harder for people to afford.

Unfortunately, it could get worse: Tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports could quickly send car prices soaring, even for those assembled in the United States.

The cost of producing cars throughout North America will rise between $3,500 and $12,000, according to analysis of both public and private data by the Anderson Economic Group, a Michigan-based think tank.

CNN’s Samantha Delouya, John Towfighi, Chris Isidore and Bryan Mena contributed reporting.