‘Waiting and seeing.’ Georgians putting off purchases amid wild economic swings

The things that have given investors the jitters are also rattling many consumers unnerved by headlines and their shrinking retirement account balances.

Orsolits said she has talked to other Delta retirees about it, “and you know, right now what most of us are doing is we’re just kind of waiting and seeing.”

President Donald Trump entered office with near record low unemployment and a booming stock market, though inflation remained stubbornly high. But since he took office Jan. 20, the S&P 500 is down about 7% and gauges of business and consumer confidence have wilted.

Businesses, unsure of the rules of the road and whipsawed by on-again, off-again tariffs and other Washington policies, are tightening too.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Adrian Cronje, CEO of Balentine, a Buckhead-based independent investment advisory, said clients, many of whom are leaders of large companies, are holding off on large capital expenditures and hiring.

“People are really reluctant to make big decisions, especially ones that pay off over long periods of time,” Cronje said.

But he said while the stock market undulations are unnerving, it’s not a time for consumers or businesses to panic.

Cronje said recent jobs data and other signs point to economic cooling. Right now, Wall Street is nearing correction territory, but Cronje said he isn’t yet seeing a full-on recession.

“We are experiencing a correction that is typical as investors digest new information and factor in a wider range of potential outcomes for the future economy and corporate profitability,” he said. “Do not succumb to the emotion of the moment as jarring as it may seem to be.”

Corporate earnings reports, for instance, are still good.

“The risk is we could talk ourselves into a recession,” he said.

‘Uncertainty is high’

The U.S. saw about 2.8% economic growth in 2024. Though inflation was higher than the Federal Reserve’s target, the fundamentals of the economy remained strong as Trump returned to the White House.

But since then, many warning lights are flashing.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow indicator isn’t an official forecast, but it is a sort of “nowcast” of the pace of economic growth. On Feb. 19, about a month after Trump was sworn in, it had the U.S. economy growing in the first quarter at an annualized rate of 2.3%. That gauge is now at -2.4% as of March 6.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Goldman Sachs recently put the chance of recession at 20% over the next year.

But Harvard economist Larry Summers posted on X this week: “We’ve got a real uncertainty problem, it’s going to be hard to fix.”

“We’re looking at a slowdown relative to what was forecast, almost for sure, and a serious, near 50% prospect of recession,” Summers wrote.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses said Tuesday that its Small Business Optimism Index fell 2.1 points in February, while its Uncertainty Index rose 4 points, to the second-highest reading it has recorded.

“Uncertainty is high and rising on Main Street,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg in a written statement.

In February, the U.S. gained 151,000 jobs — growth, but not particularly robust. In Georgia, the state saw a decline of more than 28,000 jobs in January, the state Department of Labor said Thursday. Losses were felt in transportation and logistics, hospitality and food services and sectors like information technology.

The unemployment rate, however, remained flat at 3.6%, the same as the department’s revised figure for December and better than the national average.

Inflation was a major reason Trump won the White House. The Consumer Price Index for urban consumers is up about 23% in the past five years.

Inflation in the U.S. has continued to improve with prices growing at an annualized rate in February of 2.8%, but still higher than the Fed’s 2% target. But tariffs from the Trump administration on foreign trade partners are inflationary, and price increases caused by the import taxes could soon course through the economy, hitting consumers.

Ellijay resident Laurel Graves told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she is buying discounted meat, items on sale and fewer impulse purchases while grocery shopping.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

While inflation cooled last month, many consumers are still facing high prices for some essentials including eggs. The monthly national average price for a dozen large eggs reached a record high in January, and the average hit $8.15 a dozen on March 4, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation citing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

Graves wrote in an email to the AJC that she has canceled a planned trip to Montana because of “government and economic instability” and is looking for a part-time nanny job to pay for home improvements.

Some of Georgia’s biggest companies have seen the weight of tariffs and economic uncertainty weigh on their stock prices.

Delta stock has declined nearly one-third since Jan. 21, the first trading day after Trump took office, and the company this week slashed its earnings forecast, citing a drop in “consumer and corporate confidence.”

“Some of the things I had planned to do in 2026 and 2027 as far as traveling, I’ve put on hold because I just didn’t think it was a good idea to be planning anything,” said Orsolits, the former Delta flight attendant.

Orsolits said she had been planning a trip to Florence for next January and was starting to look at airfares.

“It’s like no, you know, we can’t do that right now,” she said.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Another trip to Normandy that she had planned for next year is also now on hold.

“It’s a little nerve wracking now,” Orsolits said. “All of us now are afraid that we’re going to go into a recession.”

Still, when she and her husband were talking about the economy this week, “I said, I’m just glad we’re retired and we’re not having to deal with some of this stuff that people that are working right now are,” including the risk of losing a job.

More than 172,000 job cuts were announced in February, more than three times the total in the previous month, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a company that tracks and analyzes job cuts and other workforce trends.

The total number of job cuts nationally in January and February was the highest total for the year-to-date since 2009.

Trump’s efforts to slash federal spending, led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, have contributed to uncertainty.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

“With the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) actions, as well as canceled Government contracts, fear of trade wars, and bankruptcies, job cuts soared in February,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in a written statement.

The steepest increase in job cuts has been in the Northeast.

The South, on the other hand, has seen far fewer job cuts, particularly Georgia, which had a fraction of the job cuts in February that it did the previous year, according to the Challenger, Gray & Christmas data.

But given the state of the economy, Orsolits still has concerns.

She and her husband have a trip to Egypt planned this April, which is already paid for.

But she said she’s not sure they would still be going if she hadn’t already put all the money down.

‘This too shall pass’

Patrick Fisk, a retired financial adviser in Woodstock who also worked as a Delta flight attendant, said “uncertainty causes fear. And finance is a very emotional thing.”

“But I think it’s just a temporary situation that we’re in right now,” he said. “If you’re young, this is just another, just a blip in the map of your long-term investment portfolio.”

“We’ve gone through this many times over the last 10, 20, 30 years,” he said. Those who are close to retirement or just retired may want to have “maybe a little bit more in cash and fixed income for the short term.”

“Oftentimes it’s really best to do nothing and just take a deep breath and know that this too shall pass,” he said. “Right now, where there’s a lot of uncertainty, let’s ride out the storm to see what happens.”