‘This Is the Crash Legacy Media and Economists Swore Was Coming’: Economist St Onge [WATCH]

Economist Peter St. Onge said the U.S. economy is experiencing one of its strongest growth periods in decades, citing rapid GDP expansion, rising wages, low unemployment, falling inflation, and a surge in productivity that he said rivals the Reagan era.

St. Onge pointed to new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta showing economic growth accelerating well beyond expectations.

“The Atlanta Fed just announced GDP growth is a blistering five and a half percent, meaning we are currently growing faster than China,” St. Onge said.

“Even as legacy media keeps pimping the Trump depression.”

According to St. Onge, several key economic indicators reflect broad-based strength across the economy.

He said unemployment has fallen to 4.4 percent, while wages have risen nearly 4 percent over the past year.

“Unemployment is down to 4.4% wages are up nearly 4% on the year,” he said.

“Even inflation is down below 2% as the economy grows even faster than Congress can spend it.”

This Could Be the Most Important Video Gun Owners Watch All Year

St. Onge also cited data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas showing layoffs at their lowest level since 2022, contradicting claims that artificial intelligence is destroying jobs.

“Challenger Grace says layoffs are at the lowest since 2022 so much for the AI job demolition,” he said, adding that “services, which make up 80% of American jobs, are actually accelerating.”

While GDP growth often dominates economic headlines, St. Onge said productivity growth is the most important measure of long-term prosperity.

“Then the big one, productivity growth,” he said.

“This is the most important number for economists, because it’s literally how you get rich.”

St. Onge said productivity growth is currently running at levels rarely seen since Ronald Reagan took office.

“It’s currently running higher than 90% of the time since Reagan took office,” he said.

He explained that productivity measures how efficiently an economy produces goods and services, which directly impacts wages and living standards.

“So productivity measures how much you produce for how much you put in,” St. Onge said.

“It’s the gold standard for prosperity.”

St. Onge criticized GDP as a flawed measure, arguing it can be inflated by government spending and other activities that do not reflect real wealth creation.

“GDP includes a lot of weird stuff,” he said.

“For example, GDP counts welfare for illegals or Somali daycares as wealth generating. It counts riots as wealth, since you got to rebuild, counts wars.”

He contrasted that with productivity, which he said directly determines future living standards.

“Productivity, in contrast, is actual wealth, and so the tightest link to wages,” St. Onge said.

“Most important, it’s productivity that predicts future living standards.”

St. Onge argued that this distinction explains why economic conditions felt weak for many Americans during the Biden-Harris administration despite respectable GDP growth.

“There’s a big reason why the Biden economy looks so good on paper, but was so bad in reality,” he said.

He said that while GDP grew by about 3 percent annually during Biden’s term, productivity growth lagged far behind.

“So over his four years, Biden’s GDP growth was a healthy 3%,” St. Onge said.

“Productivity growth was crawling at just half that as GDP ballooned with trillions of deficit spending.”

By contrast, St. Onge said President Donald Trump has driven a dramatic increase in productivity.

“Trump has now almost tripled Biden’s productivity,” he said.

At the current pace, St. Onge said wages could rise dramatically over time.

“At Trump’s current productivity rate,” he said, “it takes just 14 years to double wages.”

St. Onge said he previously predicted strong economic growth heading into 2026 and said current data suggests conditions may be even better than expected.

“Last year I predicted strong growth for 2026,” he said. “So far, it’s even better than I expected.”

He added that additional gains could come from foreign investment and monetary policy shifts.

“That’s before we get the millions of jobs coming in from a now inflationary fed and a flood of incoming foreign investment to get inside Trump’s big, beautiful tariff umbrella,” St. Onge said.

St. Onge said the remaining challenge for the economy is affordability, particularly in housing, healthcare, and food.

“Trump is throwing the executive order kitchen sink at housing, mortgages, healthcare and food,” he said.

However, he said lasting improvements will require action from Congress.

“But there’s only so much you can do when Congress controls inflationary deficit spending and inflationary regulations like permits blocking energy,” St. Onge said.

He concluded by saying stronger legislative action could solidify economic gains.

“If Congress finally grows a pair, Americans will start feeling pretty good about the economy,” St. Onge said.

WATCH:

GDP hits 5.5%.

Meaning the American economy is now growing faster than China.

– Productivity growth tripled
– Wages are growing 3.8%
– Layoffs are the lowest since 2022
– Inflation is just 1.7% per Truflation

This is the crash legacy media and economists swore was coming. pic.twitter.com/VSs011nyAy

— Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@profstonge) January 16, 2026