“U.S. and Florida Economic Outlook” Jackie Benson, vice president and economist with Wells Fargo’s Corporate and Investment Bank, assesses the U.S. and Florida economies for the rest of 2025 into 2026, before a July 17, 2025 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://ecf.memberclicks.net/2025-july-jackie-benson) Ms. Benson began her discussion at the national level and particularly looked at tariffs.  She said that the real GDP – the sum of all goods and services produced in the economy domestically – contracted by a half-point in the first quarter of 2025.“What we saw is businesses rush to get ahead of the incoming tariffs that were to be applied on April 2,” she said.  “And that import spike drove down the headline GDP number.  Imports are not counted in GDP.  So, the act of buying a foreign good in itself is not a drag on the economy, but the act of buying a foreign good instead of a domestically purchased good, does reduce the overall level of economic activity.”She said that tariff concern also affected consumer spending.“Consumer spending grew at a very slow pace, only half a percentage point in the first quarter, and that's largely driven by those tariff threats increasing economic concern among consumers and causing them to be a little bit more cautious.”She told the Club that current policy tariff rates are at 16%, compared to just 3% in 2024.  She says the rate changes cause uncertainty.“Tariffs are a one-time increase in prices,” she said.  “It's not an ongoing push in inflation rates, so theoretically, it should be a temporary shock.”Nevertheless, the economic consensus is that tariffs are a drag on the economy, “although that’s changing a little bit.  We've seen it play out in history before.  It depends on the magnitude of the tariff rate.  It depends on the uncertainty they cause.  But generally speaking, any added cost, whether taxes or tariffs, are going to slow economic activity.”She pointed out that the U.S. economy added 140,000 jobs in June 2025.  They were primarily in the fields of government and health care with health care being the larger share.  Sectors such as finance, real estate, and technology all lost jobs.She predicted Federal Reserve interest rate cuts of 25-basis points each in September, October, and November of 2025. Ms. Benson moved on to Florida and pointed out that the state’s economy is very resilient.  It has generally outpaced the nation since 1998.  “Florida was only one of a handful of states to post positive GDP growth,” in 2024 into first quarter of 2025 she said, noting the state economy grew at 1.4% in that period compared to a national contraction of 0.5%.The Florida labor market has grown 1.5% over the past 12-months and the state is adding jobs at a rate almost equal to the pre-pandemic rate.“Florida has recently seen an acceleration in information technology payrolls,” she said.  “Also, in professional and business services, and that includes some technology and professional consulting, scientific research, things like that...  (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://ecf.memberclicks.net/2025-july-jackie-benson)