'Something we’ve never seen before': Finance reporter dissects Trump’s 'uncharted' economy

The U.S. economy has entered "uncharted" territory under President Donald Trump, with Semafor's finance reporter, Liz Hoffman, explaining in a new video that "nonexistent" job growth has left things in a state "we've never seen before."

Semafor on Monday shared a video featuring Hoffman to X, in which she broke down why the economy under Trump has become something like a "lifestyle" company, in business terms, meaning that it is doing enough for its leaders to get by, but is not showing any meaningful growth that suggests a healthy long-term future.

"If America were a company, it would be what's called a 'lifestyle business,'" Hoffman said. "This is kind of a very specific sort of corporate dig that you hear a lot out of venture capital, but it's a company that isn't really growing. That is, makes enough money to sustain its owners, but isn't really building for a massively ambitious future."

She continued: "The U.S. economy is still growing, but the population isn't. That growth rate is starting to slow down, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell just last week said that flatlining job growth — you've seen these bad monthly job reports one after the other — is actually exactly what the economy needs, given that we have nonexistent growth in the labor force. Which, as he notes, is something we have never seen before."

In February, the latest jobs report found that the U.S. labor force had lost around 92,000 jobs, a sharp negative contrast to the expectation, which was that it would add 50,000. The Washington Post called that report “a striking loss signaling a warning flag for the economy," while NBC News called it "grim." Experts warned that such job numbers signaled that the U.S. economy was headed for a recession and the much-dreaded "stagflation," characterized by stagnant overall growth, weak job creation, and high inflation.

"The traditional engine of the U.S. economy was, in large part, more people, more output," Hoffman explained. "And better investment, more technology underpining that, but there was a human growth element to that. And because of changes to immigration policy and a birthrate that has been declining since the 1990s... the cohort that is now aging into the workforce is going to be smaller."

Hoffman noted that there is hope, albeit "uncertain," that AI will allow a smaller workforce to be more productive, but without that, things are looking bleak.

"The longstanding dynamics that have propelled the U.S. economy, certainly since the end of World War II, just don't seem to be working right now," Hoffman concluded.

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