Nir Kaissar, Columnist

Millions of Americans Are Becoming Economically Invisible

Broad swaths of the workforce may no longer have the spending power to meaningfully affect the statistics.

September 25, 2025 at 12:53 PM UTC

Nir Kaissar is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering markets. He is the founder of Unison Advisors, an asset management firm.

Many people are puzzled about the disconnect between how well the US economy is doing and how badly Americans feel about it.

Unemployment is low, inflation has been largely tamed and the economy appears to be growing robustly. Yet consumers have the blues. According to a widely followed sentiment survey, they are nearly as pessimistic today as they were during the 2008 financial crisis and the great stagflation of the early 1980s.