Georgia state economist Robert Buschman always delivers an economic forecast to legislators before they debate funding bills, but the outlook he delivered this week with fresh numbers from President Donald Trump's economy was not pretty.
“Georgia’s top economist projected slow job growth and persistent inflation in the year ahead as many Georgia families struggle to make ends meet,” reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), adding that Buschman said surveys show consumers and CEOs to be “pessimistic about the economy.”
Buschman noted household debt in the state rising and that job growth “stalled in Georgia … last year,” with the state gaining just 3,200 nonfarm jobs in 2025 through November.
Buschman also said Trump’s tariffs have raised prices for businesses and consumers and they threaten to “undermine Georgia’s trade-dependent economy.” Mortgage rates similarly, remain high, which limits the sale of homes. And inflation, he said, has crept back up to 2.7 percent.
“Not surprisingly, Buschman noted that consumers and businesses are feeling the pinch,” reports AJC. “He said business bankruptcies are at record highs, and a recent survey of CEOs found 64 percent expect a slowing economy with higher inflation — or ‘stagflation.’”
Additionally, Buschman told Georgia legislators that he “expects slow job growth and inflation to persist.”
“Throw in the risk to Georgia trade, uncertainty about the employment impact of artificial intelligence and ‘political instability’ in the United States and across the world, and Buschman’s forecast was not a rosy one,” AJC reported.
“Anything that pushes inflation higher again is likely to make matters worse for the average consumer,” Buschman said.
Georgia is the state that Trump lost to former President Joe Biden in an unexpected upset in 2020, and if Trump’s economy does not improve it may again prove to be the GOP's downfall in this fall's midterm elections.
