{"id":24275,"date":"2025-11-05T13:07:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T18:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rbcwealthmanagement.com\/en-us\/?p=24275"},"modified":"2025-12-15T14:32:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T19:32:31","slug":"five-disruptors-to-the-us-economic-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbcwealthmanagement.com\/en-us\/insights\/five-disruptors-to-the-us-economic-cycle","title":{"rendered":"Five disruptors to the U.S.\u00a0economic cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By Frances Donald, Mike Reid and Carrie Freestone<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. economy seems in many ways an anomaly.<\/p>\n    <p>\n      Interest rates are, by many measures, in \u201crestrictive\u201d territory, and yet\n      the unemployment rate remains quite low. The U.S. is in the midst of a\n      historic trade shock with 100-year high tariffs, but inflation impacts\n      appear limited so far. The housing market, historically a solid leading\n      indicator, is experiencing very limited activity on par with the aftermath\n      of the global financial crisis, yet home prices and rents continue to\n      rise.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      The answer to the disconnects, in our view, lies in a series of medium- to\n      long-term disruptions that are distorting an economy\u2019s typical responses\n      and muting the standard \u201ceconomic cycle.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      At the heart of these disruptions are increasingly powerful structural\n      forces that are masking a very real cyclical slowdown underneath. These\n      disruptions make clarity on the U.S. outlook more difficult, but not\n      impossible. They necessitate a shift in the way we think about the\n      business cycle, cyclical versus structural trends, and even the way we absorb\n      monthly economic data.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      So, while our current U.S. economic outlook is best characterized as\n      &#8220;Stagflation Lite&#8221; (growth running too low for comfort coupled with\n      inflation rising somewhat too high for relief), we\u2019re increasingly of the\n      view that the most important economic stories lie beneath the surface of a\n      standard growth forecast like this.\n    <\/p>\n    <!-- EXHIBIT 1-->\n    <h3>Five dislocations to the U.S. economic cycle<\/h3>\n    <div class=\"row mb-4\">\n      <div class=\"col-lg-10 col-md-8 col-sm-8 col-xs-10 col-xxs-12\">\n        <img decoding=\"async\"\n          src=\"https:\/\/www.rbcwealthmanagement.com\/assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/global\/five-disruptors-us-economy-en-chart-1-in-page-corp.png\"\n          alt=\"Five dislocations to the U.S. economic cycle\"\n          class=\"img-fluid mb-1-half\"\n          aria-describedby=\"ex1desc\"\n        \/>\n        <p class=\"sr-only\" id=\"ex1desc\">\n          <!-- Place description here. -->\n        <\/p>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    <!-- SECTION -->\n    <h2>Tariff head fakes: A cycle disrupted from inflation to growth<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      U.S. tariff policy is creating a significant cyclical disruption, but also\n      likely a structural one that is complicating our ability to read the\n      economy.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      Cyclically, imports and inventories surged in Q1 and Q2 on tariff\n      front-running, creating large swings in headline gross domestic product,\n      and an \u201cair pocket\u201d between the implementation of tariffs, and its impact\n      on both inflation and jobs. As we covered here, we expect tariffs to push\n      prices higher into 2026, and also weigh on job growth\u2014a &#8220;Stagflation\n      Lite&#8221;-type impact. Yet the difficulty in reading the size of the inventory\n      overhang in sectors, coupled with atypical accounting by importers, means\n      economists need to reduce convictions in timelines around impact and\n      visibility into 2025 and 2026 forecasts. Our experience with the 2020\n      pandemic also tells us that inventory disruptions can take years to\n      normalize. If that seems extreme, consider that goods inflation in the\n      U.S. has only now normalized, five years after the inventory shock of\n      2020.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      At the same time, we believe it\u2019s reasonable to assume that structural\n      adjustments in response to a reordering of trade are also happening.\n      Shifting supply chain strategies takes considerable time, but we may be in\n      the early innings of a tanker-sized economic transition. Effectively, that\n      means the manufacturing economy alongside business investment will\n      continue to operate with business-cycle dynamics, but, at the same time,\n      it will be spending and absorbing costs associated with a long-term goal.\n      Disaggregating the two becomes critical, otherwise there\u2019s the risk of\n      misinterpreting all activity as cyclical.\n    <\/p>\n    <h3>Why it matters<\/h3>\n    <ul class=\"list-spaced\">\n      <li>\n        Headline GDP and inflation aren\u2019t likely to give us a clean read for\n        several quarters, and possibly longer. An increased focus on final\n        domestic purchases is critical for a better pulse on the domestic U.S.\n        economy.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        As inventory recalibration creates volatility in the manufacturing\n        cycle, we can expect further disconnects from manufacturing and services\n        activity, reducing the value of manufacturing as a leading economic\n        indicator\u2014similar to the aftermath of the pandemic.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        There will be ongoing sectoral divides between trade-exposed sectors and\n        the rest in the short and medium terms. Headline growth data is unlikely\n        to be representative of the economy in its entirety. We believe\n        bottom-up economic analysis will grow in importance.\n      <\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n   <div class=\"well text-center medium p-1 mb-4\">\n      <p>\n        Read more about our view on how tariffs are likely to impact the\n        U.S. economy: <br>\n        <a href=\"\" title=\"Read Transmission framework: How tariffs will flow through the\n          U.S. economy\">\n          Transmission framework: How tariffs will flow through the\n          U.S. economy\n        <\/a>\n      <\/p>\n    <\/div>\n    <!-- SECTION -->\n    <h2>Two Americas: The emergence of the K-shape economy<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      It\u2019s always been true that high-income households contribute a\n      disproportionate share of consumption compared to low- and middle-income\n      groups. But, historically, all consumers mostly followed the same economic\n      cycle, and improving economic data generally referred to better conditions\n      for most.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      Over the last several years, however, low- and middle-income Americans\u2019\n      economic circumstances have sharply diverged from their high-income\n      counterparts. The root of the divergence is high-income households have\n      benefited from higher interest rate environments (higher returns on\n      savings), and wealth benefits from surging stock and housing markets.\n      Lower- and middle-income households largely missed out on wealth gains and\n      have also felt larger inflationary burdens as rent and food price\n      increases are disproportionately painful for this group.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      The result is a growing divide in sentiment aligned with circumstance\n      between Americans. And with it, a need to read economic data\u2014and the\n      cycle\u2014differently. Notably, soft data (survey data) has seen much less\n      value as a forecasting tool. It effectively oversamples low- and\n      middle-income households over high-income households, who are\n      disproportionate spenders. At the same time, aggregate economic data is\n      also likely overstating the economic circumstances of many Americans. For\n      companies that serve low- and middle-income Americans, this is a critical\n      distinction.\n    <\/p>\n    <h3>Why it matters<\/h3>\n    <ul class=\"list-spaced\">\n      <li>\n        Expect the divergence between soft and hard data to persist as sentiment\n        reflects all income levels while actual spending is skewed toward\n        higher-income consumers. This reduces the value of surveys, particularly\n        confidence data, as a leading indicator of the real economy.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        Headline data will show the average \u201cconsumer,\u201d but we should avoid\n        generalizing, as it increasingly misses the economic reality for much of\n        the population.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        When forecasting aggregate consumer behavior, there is a growing need to\n        focus on high-income households driving spending, while leaving\n        equal-weighted patterns for policy or company-level analyses.\n      <\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n    <!-- SECTION -->\n    <h2>America needs workers: A shifting new labor market<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      Assessing the labor market and its signals about the underlying economy\n      will increasingly be a precision exercise in isolating the demand for\n      workers against the supply.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      Massive and accelerating retirements, coupled with a low immigration\n      policy, are likely to continue to weigh on labor force participation\n      rates, and limit the availability of workers. This tension in the demand\n      versus supply of labor is already visible in 2025 jobs data. Job growth\n      has slowed from an average 168,000 per month in 2024 to 74,000 per month\n      in 2025, and yet the unemployment rate has remained extraordinarily tight\n      by historical standards. The core of the story is a simple, but powerful\n      one: The U.S. economy needs to create fewer jobs for fewer workers.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      There are several important implications. Three, in particular, stand out:\n    <\/p>\n    <ol class=\"list-spaced\">\n      <li\n        >For the past five decades, accelerating job growth has signaled the U.S.\n        economy is improving, and weaker or negative job growth has been a signal\n        of a coming slowdown or recession. In our view, this will be decreasingly\n        true.\n      <\/li>\n      <li\n        >The aging of the population (and workforce) also means shifting needs for\n        certain skills, particularly with respect to health care. It\u2019s not\n        surprising to us that over half of the job gains in the first eight months\n        of 2025 were health care positions. This isn\u2019t a reflection of cyclical\n        demand and a booming economy, but of a structural dynamic\u2014meaning the\n        total number of jobs and their composition are being impacted by this\n        demographic tidal wave. These jobs, coupled with growing government\n        positions, are also less likely to be impacted by the standard business\n        cycle, reducing the cyclicality of the job market further.\n      <\/li>\n      <li\n        >An unemployment rate that stays structurally low (with some cyclical\n        variation), also reduces the labor market as a transmission mechanism for\n        weak business activity. For example, large spikes in unemployment are less\n        likely, and the share of the population that is impacted by labor market\n        weakness is smaller.\n      <\/li>\n    <\/ol>\n    <h3>Why it matters<\/h3>\n    <ul class=\"list-spaced\">\n      <li>\n        The unemployment rate is likely to become a less valuable cyclical\n        indicator, and headline job growth needs to be partitioned out into\n        cyclical versus acyclical job sectors to get a true read on the domestic\n        private economy.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        Labor market tightness is likely to put a floor under wage growth\n        decelerations, and this adds further challenges to bringing down\n        services inflation.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        As retirees take up a greater share of the population, incomes are\n        becoming less sensitive to labor market developments. About 20 percent of all\n        income in the U.S. is now transfers from governments, untied to the\n        economic cycle. Similarly, consumption activity is likely to become\n        cyclically tied to the economic cycle.\n      <\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n    <div class=\"well text-center p-1 medium mb-4\">\n      <p class=\"no-marg-bottom\">\n        Read more about our views on the U.S. labor market: <br> \n        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/economics\/u-s-analysis\/us-featured-analysis\/america-needs-workers-not-jobs\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Read America needs workers, not jobs\">America needs workers, not jobs <\/a>\n      <\/p>\n    <\/div>\n    <!-- SECTION -->\n    <h2>\n      Forever big government: The cost of a constant floor under the economy\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      By almost every measure, U.S. federal government spending is running at or\n      near all-time highs.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      Naturally, this has ushered in concerns about the sustainability of\n      government spending and Washington\u2019s ability to pay for growing debts.\n      These are important concerns, but they aren\u2019t the only considerations. As\n      the size of government grows and spending at these historic levels\n      persists, big government also creates structural disruptions to our\n      readings of the economic cycle.\n    <\/p>\n    <ol class=\"list-spaced\">\n      <li\n        >Big government is likely muting the economic cycle on both the downside\n        and upside. Instead of the traditional \u201ccounter-cyclical\u201d government\n        spending, the post-COVID period hasn\u2019t just been characterized by the\n        magnitude of spend, but also its pro-cyclical nature. Like guardrails on\n        an economy, the sheer magnitude of government spending limits how weak the\n        economy can become in aggregate. At the same time, since public sector\n        spending tends to be less efficient with lower productivity, a growing\n        government may be putting a ceiling on growth over the medium run as well.\n      <\/li>\n      <li\n        >Fiscal policy is increasingly influencing the direction and composition\n        of the economy, and that\u2019s particularly true relative to monetary policy.\n        This is most clear in the shape of the yield curve\u2014the front end falling\n        on the back of expected rate cuts, but the long end of the curve at the\n        mercy of fiscal sustainability. Problematically, this will add further\n        pressure to costs as interest expenses continue to climb, in our opinion.\n      <\/li>\n      <li\n        >The attention might be predominantly on government spending, but the\n        requirements of government are also rising as the population ages, putting\n        additional pressures on social security, Medicare expenses and the labor\n        market. Health care and social assistance and public sector jobs now make\n        up one-in-three jobs in the U.S.\n      <\/li>\n    <\/ol>\n    <h3>Why it matters<\/h3>\n    <ul class=\"list-spaced\">\n      <li>\n        Big government is muting the economic cycle, reducing the odds of\n        technical recessions in headline figures, but also potentially limiting\n        the upside of the economy as well.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        Governments are far less cyclical, or even counter-cyclical in nature.\n        As government jobs become a larger share of the workforce over time,\n        economic weakness is less likely to bleed into broader labor and income\n        statistics.\n      <\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n    <!-- SECTION -->\n    <h2>A housing market held hostage: The lost growth engine<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      The U.S. housing market is in a deep freeze, held hostage by the double\n      whammy of 30-year mortgage rates floating around two-decade highs, and the\n      \u201clock-in\u201d effect of mortgage holders carrying historically low\n      pandemic-era mortgage rates.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      The bulk of housing data looks clearly recessionary. For the past three\n      years, the volume of existing home sales has been trending around levels\n      not seen since the global financial crisis, consumer confidence in buying\n      a home is at a record low, along with housing affordability for first-time\n      homebuyers. Historically, this would have been a three-alarm bell for the\n      U.S. economy as housing has historically led the economic cycle. But the\n      sector has dragged on total growth for nine of the past 14 quarters\n      without pulling the broader economy down with it. Meanwhile, in\n      contradiction, home prices are still up.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      Part of housing\u2019s disconnect lies in the sector\u2019s decreased interest rate\n      sensitivity\u2014another consequence of an aging population. High interest\n      rates are another barrier in a structural shortage of housing supply.\n      Together, these forces imply a housing economy that is now desynchronized\n      from the business cycle as a whole. It disrupts our standard approach to\n      the sector, and its implications for the broad economy.\n    <\/p>\n    <h3>Why it matters<\/h3>\n    <ul class=\"list-spaced mb-5\">\n      <li>\n        Housing is, at least for now, a lost growth engine for the U.S. economy,\n        limiting upside to growth and providing reduced value as a cyclical\n        indicator.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        Monetary policy has become a less helpful tool at stimulating the\n        housing market as most mortgage holders are still benefiting from\n        pandemic-level interest rates. These mortgage holders were unaffected by\n        rising rates, and will similarly be less sensitive to falling rates\n        absent a return to the zero lower bound.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        The economy may become more sensitive to rental markets and rents in\n        general as home ownership levels decline.\n      <\/li>\n      <li>\n        As retirees move into retirement communities and other assisted living\n        facilities, the demographic shift may put downward pressure on prices.\n        But we think this will be a more regional theme, not cyclical.\n      <\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n    <!-- SECTION -->\n    <h2 class=\"h5\">About the authors<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <strong>Frances Donald <\/strong>is the Chief Economist at RBC and oversees\n      a team of leading professionals who deliver economic analyses and insights\n      to inform RBC clients around the globe. Frances is a key expert on\n      economic issues and is highly sought after by clients, government leaders,\n      policymakers and media in the U.S. and Canada.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>Mike Reid<\/strong> is a Senior U.S. Economist at RBC. He is\n      responsible for generating RBC\u2019s U.S. economic outlook, providing\n      commentary on macro indicators, and producing written analysis around the\n      economic backdrop.\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>Carrie Freestone<\/strong> is an economist and a member of the\n      macroeconomic analysis group. She is responsible for examining key\n      economic trends including consumer spending, labor markets, GDP and\n      inflation.\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re increasingly of the view that a series of disruptions are masking a very real cyclical U.S. economic slowdown underneath the surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":24273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rbcwm_post_date":"2025-11-05T09:17:09","editor_notices":[],"rbc_url_alias":"","rbcwm_featured_desktop_image_position":"","rbcwm_featured_mobile_image_position":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[835,844,662,712,667,836],"rbcwm_content_owner":[609],"rbcwm_need":[],"rbcwm_segment":[],"rbcwm_solution":[],"rbcwm_topic":[468],"rbcwm_channel":[],"rbcwm_format":[],"class_list":["post-24275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","tag-employment","tag-labor","tag-labor-market","tag-tariffs","tag-u-s-economy","tag-unemployment","rbcwm_content_owner-pag","rbcwm_topic-global-insights"],"acf":{"rbcwm_subtitle":"We\u2019re increasingly of the view that a series of disruptions are 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