U.S. Budget and Economy

As the transcript at https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2026-10-04/segment/01 shows, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett continues to cherry-pick data and cite uncommon sources on the Sunday news shows to defend Trump's economic record. Jake Tapper began an October 4 interview by playing a clip of Trump and citing some recent economic data: So, you just heard the president say -- quote -- "It was just announced that we have the best economic numbers of any president in the history of our country." So, let's break down the economic numbers. Growth is a modest 2.2 percent. Unemployment is relatively low, but ticking up a bit at 4.2 percent. Hiring is weak, only 29,000 jobs added at September. July and August were revised down. Inflation is at 3.4 percent. Prices rose 0.4 percent in August. Wage growth is at a five-year low, hourly wages down 0.3 percent over the past year. So, assessing it here, it's a growing economy, but hiring is slow, wages ar...