Podcast Summary:

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show — "It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind America’s Economy"
Guest: John Carney (Breitbart)
Host: Ryan Graduski (filling in)
Date: November 17, 2025
Episode Focus: Unpacking the reality behind America’s economy—what’s driving affordability anxieties, which numbers actually matter, and how political and economic narratives intertwine.

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the core anxieties surrounding America's affordability crisis, dissecting recent economic data with guest John Carney from Breitbart News. The discussion explores inflation, wage growth (or lack thereof), tariff impacts, youth unemployment, sector-specific price changes, and how both voters and businesses are responding to the "new normal" in the U.S. economy. Insights are grounded in data, mixed with personal experience and a dose of political commentary.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. State of Affordability & the “New Normal”

• Widespread Anxiety: Americans across income brackets feel they’re barely getting by or just getting by; there’s little optimism about a return to pre-2020 prices.
• Inflation vs. Deflation: Yearly inflation is down from its peak, but prices haven’t fallen. Stagnation at a higher cost is the new baseline.
• Political Expectations: Many voters hoped a Trump return would “magically” reset prices to pre-COVID levels—a view Graduski calls unrealistic.
• Quote:
  • “Inflation is down year to year from the height of when Biden was presidency. But prices overall have not fallen... We are in a new normal, whether we like it or not.” — Ryan Graduski (12:00)

2. Quirks and Contradictions in Price Increases

• Some Prices Are Down or Stagnant: Items like home appliances, smartphones, gasoline, computer software, and furniture are flat or cheaper than in previous years (24:00).
• Sharp Increases in Essentials:
  • Car insurance up 55% (since 2022)
  • Home insurance up 13%, medical equipment up 13%, dental services up 18%
  • Pet food up 20%, tools/hardware up 12%, airline fees up 22%, overall food up 18%
• Root Causes:
  • Tariffs get overblamed; “[Tariffs] are not responsible for your home insurance or your car insurance. It’s an easy out, especially from media that looks to blame Donald Trump for everything.” — Graduski (16:50)
  • Deficit spending impacts overall inflation: “42% of all inflation is related to deficit spending... every time the government is posting a trillion-dollar deficit, you are losing purchasing power.” — Graduski (17:30 to 18:00)
• Car Insurance Specifics: Repairs are pricier due to technology; hybrids and EVs are harder to fix, making older methods obsolete. (25:32, Carney)

3. Corporate Profits vs. Consumer Experience

• Stocks Up, People Down: Although 85% of S&P 500 companies beat Q3 profit estimates and the market is steady, consumer sentiment is negative due to living costs.
• “The sky isn’t falling... But anyone telling you to hide your money in a shoebox is probably overstating the situation.” — Graduski (16:00)

4. Credit, Wages, and Class Difficulties

• Delinquency Rates:
  • Student loans: up to 14% (historic norms ~8.5%)
  • Credit cards: 7.1% (slight uptick)
  • Mortgages and home equity loans remain below historical averages.
• Paycheck-to-Paycheck Reality: 25% of families still rely on paycheck-to-paycheck existence (down from 29% in 2023).
• Wage Growth Gaps:
  • Under Trump 1.0, lower-income workers saw fastest wage increases. That momentum is gone, hitting middle- and lower-class workers hardest.
  • “That lower class quadrant is who’s feeling inflation the worst… those workers, not seeing any strong wage growth, are turning politically.” — Graduski (29:59)

5. Youth Unemployment & College Graduates

• Youth Under Pressure: Recent college grad unemployment is 9.3%—higher than at the Great Recession’s peak. For ages 16–24, it’s 10.5% (32:43).
• Surprising STEM Difficulties: Even STEM grads, historically considered safe, now face unemployment.
• Ripple Effects: This “anxiety” trickles upstream—parents and even grandparents co-signing loans get nervous.
• Quotes:
  • “It’s not just the people having trouble getting jobs—it’s their parents, and even the parents of kids still in high school who are anxious about their children’s prospects.” — Carney (37:43)

6. Tariffs, Energy, and Structural Inflation

• Tariffs:
  • Most items predicted to spike due to tariffs (cars, furniture, appliances) did not.
  • Apparel is up, but not dramatically; shoes are down.
• Energy, Electricity & Food:
  • Higher electricity costs drive up food prices (especially refrigerated or frozen goods).
  • “We did a really bad job preparing to use more electricity… and some activists oppose all expanded energy, thinking higher prices mean less usage, which is a flawed logic.” — Carney (28:46)
• Fed & Monetary Policy:
  • The Fed is unlikely to cut rates unless job losses spike significantly; Fed policies remain tight partly out of political and (Carney argues) mistaken inflation reasoning (32:43).
  • “They have a theory that is wrong, which is that tariffs are going to cause inflation. They look and say, ‘tariffs didn’t cause it YET... so it’s coming.’” — Carney (35:25)

7. Media Narratives, Political Uncertainty, and Business Response

• Media Coverage: Economic reporting drives—and sometimes amplifies—anxiety independently of actual data (43:51).
• Business Hiring:
  • Many companies overhired after the pandemic, are cautious on new hires until clarity emerges on economic trends—true especially amid tariff and AI anxieties.
  • “Companies don’t like to change their mind every day; they make year-ahead projections and are still digesting pandemic-era hiring.” — Carney (44:52)
• AI & Future of Work:
  • Artificial intelligence is a wild card for employment, but history suggests new tech eventually creates new job categories.
  • “Technological innovation doesn’t lead to long-term unemployment; outsourcing does. But maybe it’ll be different this time.” — Carney (41:15)
• “Bubble” Talk:
  • AI industry may be in a hype bubble, but, as Carney says:
  • “Bubbles can last a long time. Just because it’s a bubble doesn’t mean it’s not real.” (39:27)

8. Recession “Where?”: The State-by-State Mystery

• Confusion over ‘State Recessions’:
  • Moody’s claims 22 states are in recession, but many have growing GDP and no job losses.
  • Carney clarifies “recession” is a fluid term; it may refer to a modest rise in unemployment, but generally “true” recession is when all sectors/regions stagnate simultaneously.
  • “When people say a sector or a state is in a recession...what a recession really is, is almost everything all at once doing badly.” — Carney (48:18)

Notable Quotes

• “No, the economy is not in dire straits. It's doing okay right now... a lot of unhappiness is Biden-flation hangover unhappiness.”
  — John Carney (23:03)

• “If you're not training the next level of senior people, because all their junior jobs are being done with AI, you're going to run into a business problem in the future.”
  — John Carney (43:03)

• “I don't see that inflation explains home insurance increases… it just doesn't explain a lot of other things.”
  — Ryan Graduski (36:28)

• “Bubbles can last a long time… just because something’s a bubble doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
  — John Carney (39:27)

• “Technological innovation actually doesn’t lead to long-term unemployment, which is very different from when you outsource jobs to another country...”
  — John Carney (41:15)

Key Timestamps

• 03:13 — Correction on Jewish voting swings and donor data
• 12:00–18:00 — Affordability crisis: numbers, deficits, and what’s driving inflation
• 22:40–24:39 — Kicking off with John Carney: “True state of the economy?”
• 25:32–29:59 — Dissecting price hikes: insurance, appliances, tariffs, energy
• 29:59–32:43 — Wage growth, class impact, and political shifts
• 32:43–33:45 — Youth/college grad unemployment and ripple effects
• 35:21–36:28 — The Fed: Will they cut rates and why/why not?
• 37:43–43:51 — AI’s impact, hiring freezes, and business adaptation
• 44:52–48:16 — Recession definitions: National, sectoral, and state-by-state
• 50:59–52:47 — Where to find John Carney’s work and how economic journalism should operate

Memorable Moments

• Carney’s analogy about going out to dinner and being shocked by normal menu prices, underscoring how the psychological hangover of price increases lingers even as inflation softens. (23:40)
• Discussion of AI mattresses and the tendency of new tech bubbles to last longer than skeptics expect. (39:09)
• The segment on youth unemployment’s emotional effect on parents, highlighting the psychological, not just financial, reach of economic malaise. (37:43)
• “Recession” confusion—calling out how economic labels can be misleading or driven as much by narrative as by numbers. (47:27–48:18)

Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode challenges prevailing narratives about the economy driven by both partisan media and surface-level statistics. Listeners heard that while the U.S. economy isn’t in free fall, significant segments of the working and middle class are struggling to adjust to a new baseline for prices, wages, and expectations. Young people and their families, in particular, are feeling squeezed. The panelists urge listeners to look beyond political blame games, consider deeper structural issues—like deficit spending and technological transitions—and recognize that, for many, belief in a “return to normal” is likely misplaced.

For further reading and daily economic analysis:

• Breitbart Business Digest
• John Carney (@carney) on X