It’s fascinating to throw stones into a lake, watch ripples interact and spread, and speculate about when the water will become calm again. But when rocks and boulders of policy uncertainty hit the economic waters, predicting the outcome of the resulting ripples and waves requires more than speculation.

America’s waters are still trembling from past policy boulders, but in some ways the lake has seemed on the verge of becoming calm again following COVID and major Biden and Trump administration initiatives. Now, we must watch how new, spreading waves interact with receding ripples.

Let’s assess what we can at this point.

With the dawn of the decade and COVID, massive policy boulders fell. There were huge transfers from the national-deficit purse to individual and business bank accounts and a shutdown of the economy. The results were more like tidal waves than ripples.

The waters were still troubled in 2025 when Donald Trump returned with “golden-age” promises. In rapid fire, more boulders hit the water: DOGE cuts, government layoffs, deported immigrants and massive “Liberation Day” worldwide tariff announcements.

To get a handle on all this, there are two kinds of economic indicators to consider: soft and hard.

Soft indicators reflect what people think about the economy: Are they optimistic or pessimistic? Favoring long-run investments or sitting on their hands and waiting for fewer ripples? Hard indicators provide the data: Has GDP growth accelerated? Industrial production? Employment or business startups?

The Conference Board’s Consumer........

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