WACO, Texas (KXXV) — With President-elect Donald Trump’s recent win for the White House on many people’s mind right now — neighbors across the country wonder how this second term in office could impact the U.S. economy?
It’s a question 25 New's Bobby Poitevint took to some local experts.
“Presidents certainly matter and who’s in congress certainly matter but bigger forces tend to drive over all economic performance and have for centuries" said Ray Perryman with Waco's economic analysis firm, the Perryman Group.
He says while a president’s agenda or policies could make a difference — it’s likely nothing the average family might notice at the pump or in the grocery store.
Chris Meza with Carbajal Realty, Inc. said Trump’s background in real estate could help home buyers and home builders from loosening home builder regulations — thus passing those lower costs off to the home buyer along with helping influence lower interests rates for families looking to buy a home.
"Those two positive impacts will most likely lower home pricing in monthly mortgages for the home buyer here in the Waco market," Meza said.
Meza attributes data from Bankrate.com and said — interest rates were 2.65% in 2021 when President Biden took office following President Trump's term.
Under the current administration — interest rates were as high as 7.79% around this time last year in October 2023.
Both Meza and Perryman point to history as ways to gauge the future of our economy under presidential terms.
"The impact of a president and this is probably a bit surprising — we’ve looked at it — a number of other analyst have looked at it," Perryman said.
"Over a long sweep of history — the economy has performed a little bit better in democratic administrations than republican administrations even when you control for other factors but it’s a very very small amount."
“Historically in President Trump’s first term, interest rates were dramatically lower" Meza said.
"If you take a couple of very consequential presidents from my life time one from each party, Lyndon Johnson — some of the legislation he passed had a profound effect on things going forward," Perryman said.
"Ronald Reagan and some of the legislation he passed had a profound effect on things going forward but they don’t translate into a lot in to the day to day lives of people in the way that you’d think they would in terms of driving overall economic growth in this very big economic engine that is the U.S. economy.”
While the future of our economy remains under certain under President-elect Trump’s second term — we’ll continue to know more leading up to and following his anticipated inauguration on January 20.
