Natasha Sarin appeared on The New York Times Opinion section's video series on Oct. 23, in a conversation titled Is This Economy Trump's Fault? She and Catherine Rampell, economics editor of the Bulwark, examined the extent to which the current administration bears responsibility for voter frustration with affordability and economic conditions.
The discussion ranged across consumer sentiment, inflation, the labor market and the structural forces driving discontent. Sarin pointed to problems that have deepened under recent policy choices, tariffs that function as a middle-class tax increase, health care costs rising at the fastest rate since the early 2000s, and immigration restrictions that constrain labor supply and housing construction, but she also noted that many of the affordability pressures voters feel reflect longer-term trends: rising inequality, an aging population, unsustainable debt trajectories.
She argued that while the stock market has been buoyed by AI investment, with roughly two-thirds of S&P 500 gains since 2024 coming from AI and AI-adjacent stocks, according to a JPMorgan analysis, those gains have not yet translated into the kind of widespread economic relief that would shift public sentiment. Consumer confidence remains near historic lows, worse than during the financial crisis, even as unemployment stays in the low 4 percent range.
Why it matters
The conversation arrives two weeks before midterm elections in which cost-of-living concerns are the top issue for voters. Sarin's framing underscores a challenge for policymakers: the policies that would meaningfully address affordability, expanding housing supply, reforming health insurance markets, stabilizing the fiscal outlook, require years to deliver results, while voters expect immediate relief. That impatience, she suggested, creates what she and Rampell called an "affordability doom loop," in which politicians compete to offer quick fixes that may worsen the underlying problems.
About the speaker
Natasha Sarin is a professor of law at Yale Law School with a secondary appointment at the Yale School of Management, and the president and co-founder of the Budget Lab at Yale, a nonpartisan research center that has become a leading source on tariff data. She previously served at the U.S. Treasury Department as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy and as counselor to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Her research centers on public finance and financial regulation, and she is a contributing columnist at The New York Times.
Natasha Sarin is exclusively represented by Stellant Group for speaking engagements including keynotes, fireside chats and panel discussions with leadership teams thinking through tariffs, fiscal sustainability, AI's regulatory and labor-market implications, and the structural forces shaping affordability. For our consulting or advisory offerings, please reach out for a custom proposal.
