Economy picks up steam in time for party primaries to sort out midterms  

The American economy is showing resilience in the face of geopolitical headwinds, with fresh data pointing to accelerating growth, solid job creation and consumer spending that continues to defy the doomsayers.

The strengthening economic picture could help President Donald Trump recover trust on the economy over the Democrats at a time when party primaries are sorting out the midterm strategies of candidates.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday that the economy added 172,000 jobs in May, well above market expectations, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%.

Perhaps more telling, March and April payrolls were revised upward.

“With these revisions, employment in March and April combined is 93,000 higher than previously reported,” said the BLS.

Missouri added 12,000 jobs in April and posted an unemployment rate of 3.8%, half a point below the national average, with labor force participation running nearly two points above the national rate, according to the latest BLS update.

Kansas is similarly tight, holding at 3.9% unemployment with a labor force participation rate of 67.4%, well above the national average of 61.8%.

Both Kansas and Missouri retain economies with stronger ties to manufacturing, agriculture and food production than many coastal states, giving them a different economic profile from regions dominated by volatile technology, finance or real estate sectors.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow model is tracking second-quarter real GDP growth at 3.0% annualized.

That continues the economy’s sharp rebound from the fourth quarter of 2025 and first quarter of 2026, when the economy was weighed down by a Supreme Court decision scuttling Trump tariffs, which accelerated imports, a deflator of GDP.

“The contributors to the increase in real GDP in the first quarter were exports, investment, consumer spending, and government spending,” said the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). “Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.”

Consumer spending, the engine of roughly 70% of GDP, has remained robust.

BEA data show personal consumption expenditures rose 1.0% in March and 0.5% in April, back-to-back months that signal households are still opening their wallets despite elevated gasoline prices due to the Iran conflict.

The war in the Middle East has pushed gas prices to $4.22 per gallon nationally, but that pressure appears to be temporary.

When gas prices normalize, the savings rate, the only dull spot in the consumer economy, will recover alongside it.

“History suggests that oil price spikes from geopolitical shocks and temporary supply disruptions can be short-lived,” Goldman Sachs said in a March update.

Goldman Sachs said oil prices routinely overshoot their fundamental fair value during periods of geopolitical uncertainty, driven by fear of sustained supply disruptions rather than actual supply changes.

That dynamic played out in mid-2022 and was repeated when Brent crude rose from around $65 in early June 2025 to the low $80s following the Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Goldman Sachs said.

“Prices quickly retraced when the market gained confidence that actual oil supply was unlikely to be disrupted,” the report said.

Nationally, average hourly earnings rose 3.4% over the past year, the BLS said, keeping workers ahead of core inflation of 3.3%.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index came in at 93.1 in May, essentially flat from April’s upwardly revised reading.

Underneath the flat headline, the forward-looking Expectations Index actually ticked up.

“This was somewhat offset by modest improvements in consumers’ expectations for business conditions and the labor market six months from now,” said the Conference Board.

Republicans remained the most optimistic group in the survey, reflecting confidence in the direction of economic policy, “while Independents were the only group that saw confidence tick up on a month-over-month basis.”

In another encouraging sign, credit card debt is down from its late 2024 peak, and consumer spending is growing, not contracting.

Republicans are hoping confidence in the economy generated this summer will buoy them going into the fall.

It was just three months ago that The New York Times was featuring Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner as a simple oyster farmer from Maine to make the economic case against Trump.

“We all know at this point that these economic indicators are always lagging behind what people are actually experiencing,” Platner told the Times. “Down here in the real world, everybody knows in their bones that this thing is not working for them and that the economy is not improving.”

Although Platner is the Democratic frontrunner in tomorrow’s primary, he’s now being featured in New York Times exposés for Nazi tattoos and alleged abusive relationships.

The GOP is hoping for a similar contrast on the economy as the indicators continue to point upward.