“People at the top are doing fine, people in the middle and lower income brackets are struggling a bit, to say the least.”

Donald Trump’s allies this week hyped up newly released data showing that the US economy grew by more than 4% in the third quarter of 2025, but economists and journalists who dove into the report’s finer details found some troubling signs.

Ron Insana, a finance reporter and a former hedge fund manager, told MS Now‘s Stephanie Ruhle on Tuesday night that there is a “split economy” in which growth is being driven primarily by spending from the top 20% of income earners, whom he noted accounted for 63% of all spending in the economy.

On the other side, Insana pointed to retail sales data that painted a very different picture for those on the lower end of the income scale. “When you look at lower income individuals, nearly half of them are using ‘buy-now-pay-later’ for their holiday shopping,” he said. “So we have this real split… People at the top are doing fine, people in the middle and lower income brackets are struggling a bit, to say the least.”

  • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    It’s a good thing we elected the billionaire party to ensure we didn’t impede on their luxury lifestyle! They almost had to sell a yacht lol could you imagine?

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      10 hours ago

      They’re both the billionaire party; one is the KKK billionaire party while the other is the rainbow billionaire party.

      • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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        8 hours ago

        Perhaps, but only one has installed 15+ of them directly to oversee government agencies and actively campaigns to give themselves more.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      we elected the billionaire party

      Hasn’t been anything resembling a free and fair election in this country since at least Bush v Gore.

      You’re fooling yourself if you think “we got what we voted for” when Congress has approval ratings in the single digits