In Light of Possible Recession, Dallasites Worry About Inflation More Than Most

Today might not be the best day to check in on your 401k, especially if you are one of the many Dallas residents feeling a bit jaded about our country’s economic outlook.

The stock market took a tumble Monday afternoon thanks to a weekend Fox News interview with President Donald Trump. In the interview, the business-minded president declined to assuage fears of an imminent economic recession. Instead of saying a recession is not on the way, Trump admitted the economy is going through “a period of transition.”

“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump said.

Dallas residents, though, are more than willing to predict such a thing. A recent survey released by Northwestern Mutual found that 50% of Dallasites believe the United States will enter a recession in 2025, and 55% believe that inflation will increase in the next year. That is more pessimistic than national polling shows; around 51% of Americans are preparing for higher prices.

Only 19% of Dallas respondents believe inflation will get better — an interesting result when you consider nearly 38% of Dallas County voters cast their ballots for the candidate who pledged to bring down prices “on day one” in the White House. Some of those local voters seem to have lost faith in that promise.

Obviously, we’d never want to project too much doom and gloom over a topic like the economy. Still, communications out of Washington aren’t doing much to ease the worries Dallasites have reported. Jerome J. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said last week that Trump’s plans regarding tariffs and reciprocal tariffs could disrupt the Fed’s plan to soothe inflation.

The survey's findings are similar to other national research organizations that have recorded a growing feeling that the American dream is slipping away from younger generations. In Dallas and nationally, concerns among millennials and Gen-Zers surrounding the viability of homeownership were cited as a leading cause of this disillusionment.

“Just over half of U.S. adults believe the American Dream is alive and well, and less than half believe it is attainable for most Americans,” the study states.

More than half of Dallas residents surveyed say their household income is growing slower than the inflation rate, and 83% say they are paying higher prices for basic groceries than a year ago. Those locals surveyed said inflation, taxes and housing costs are their three biggest barriers to feeling financially secure.

That shouldn’t be a surprise for local officials, especially after Dallas was just bumped out of the Milken Institute’s Top 10 economies across the country precisely because of our housing affordability issue. We’ve also published headlines about Dallas’ unaffordability for minimum wage workers and the growing number of Dallas renters at risk of eviction.

The point is that housing affordability is a capital P Problem in D-Town, and many new studies and surveys seem to confirm this.