Where Does the Economy Stand?

The million-dollar question under scrutiny during the 2025 South County Economic Summit was: What is the current state of the U.S. economy? On Monday, May 12, community members gathered at The Granada Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara to hear up-to-date analysis and commentary on the region’s ongoing and unprecedented economic changes, with most of the conversations centered around the effects and impacts of President Trump’s rollout and reversals of tariffs.

UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry Yang opened the evening by thanking Peter Rupert, Director of the UCSB Economic Forecast Project and professor of economics, for his longstanding commitment to the project, which has been a hub of innovation and insight into economic and business trends for the past 44 years. Following Chancellor Yang’s remarks, the event featured presentations from four speakers: George Alessandria, a professor of economics at the University of Rochester; Jim Bullard, a professor of economics at Purdue University; and Lee Ohanian, a professor of economics at UCLA. The evening concluded with closing thoughts from Peter Rupert.

With most conversations centered around tariffs, the audience was engaged. Alessandria looked at the economy holistically, reminding the audience that while uncertainty may be in the future, the country has faced moments of economic worry before. He noted that if the goal of tariffs is to grow capital, they simply won’t work. But, he acknowledged that tariffs could have positive effects if the government could link them to tax reform.

Another focal point of the evening that Bullard and Rupert touched on was that when the second Trump administration came to office, the economy was in good shape, but now it’s reacting to unprecedented tariff plans that have not been seen since the 19th century and are the main cause for uncertainty.

Rupert said that, unfortunately for Santa Barbara residents, this means local businesses and households can’t really plan for the future. “Supply chains may need to be altered if tariffs are permanent. But the uncertainty will prevent that in the short run,” Rupert said.

In Rupert’s lecture, he told the crowd honestly that “tariffs make us poor.” He reminded the crowd that the U.S. is a productive nation and to not make our own recessions because of worry.

While most of the talk attempted to answer questions about trade and tariffs, Lee Ohanian centered his talk around homelessness and housing in California. He proposed three ideas for affordable housing: reduce building costs, facilitate building where land is more affordable, and lever efficiency of modern technologies for building. As for homelessness, the State of California has seen a 60 percent increase since 2016, Lee said. Psychatric help needs to be improved, he emphasized, as does education for youth to better the chances of remaining housed.