Evelyn Reynolds

Young people are pointing out on social media various cultural and social trends they see in everyday life as signs of a forthcoming recession.
While these observations are meant as jokes, they underscore the anxiety young people feel when it comes to the economy.

Christina Locopo | CNBC

For economists, harbingers of a recession can include a slowdown in consumer spending and rising unemployment.
For the chronically online, indicators can range from the perceived fall of fake eyelashes to more commercials for online colleges. Or, maybe, it’s a skin care company selling eggs.

And for Sydney Brams, a Miami-based influencer and realtor, it’s a decline in prices on clothing resale platform Depop.
“I was literally running to my parents and my boyfriend, and I’m like, ‘Look at this. Look, something is very wrong,'” Brams told CNBC after seeing some Depop sellers “come back to Earth,” as she described it. “I feel like Chicken Little.”
Making a joke of so-called recession indicators in everyday life has gained traction in recent weeks as the stock market pullback and weak economic data raised anxiety around the health of the economy. This trend also underscores the uniquely sharp sense of financial dissatisfaction among America’s young adults.

Read more CNBC analysis on culture and the economy

Many of today’s young adults experienced childhood during the Great Recession and came of age as the pandemic threw everything from in-person work to global supply chains out of orbit. Now, they’re concerned about what’s been deemed a white-collar job market slowdown and President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariff policies — the latter of which has battered financial markets in recent weeks.
To be clear, when they share their favorite recession indicators, they’re kidding — but they don’t see the future path of the U.S. economy as a laughing matter.

“It’s gallows humor,” said James Cohen, a digital culture expert and assistant professor of media studies at Queens College in New York. “This is very much a coping mechanism.”
These omens can be found across popular social media platforms such as X, TikTok and Instagram. Some users see cultural preludes to a recession in, say, Lady Gaga releasing her latest album or the quality of the new season of HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Others chalk up social trends such as learning to play the harmonica or wearing more brown clothing as forewarnings of a financial downturn on the horizon.

Social media users Sydney Michelle (@sydneybmichelle), left; Celeste in DC (@celesteiacevedo), and Sulisa (@ssclosefriendstory) share their personal “recession indicators” on TikTok.
Courtesy: Sydney Michelle | Celeste in DC | Sulisa | via TikTok

Just last week, several social media users saw a slam-dunk opportunity to employ variations of the joke when DoorDash announced a partnership with Klarna for users to finance food delivery orders. A spokesperson for Klarna acknowledged to NBC News that people needing to pay for meals on credit is “a bad indicator for society.”
Some content creators have made the humor an entry point to share budget-friendly alternatives for everyday luxuries that may have to go if wallets are stretched.
“We are heading into a recession. You need to learn how to do your nails at home,” TikTok user Celeste in DC (@celesteiacevedo) said in a video explaining how to use press-on nail kits as opposed to splurging at a salon.

Declining confidence

These jokes don’t exist in a vacuum. Closely followed data illustrates how this trend reflects a growing malaise among young people when it comes to the economy.
At the start of 2024, 18-to-34-year-olds had the highest consumer sentiment reading of any age group tracked by the University of Michigan. The index of this group’s attitude toward the economy has since declined more than 6%, despite the other age cohorts’ ticking higher.

This switch is particularly notable given that young people have historically had stronger readings than their older counterparts, according to Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers at Michigan.
A typically cheerier outlook can be explained by younger people being less likely to have additional financial responsibilities, such as children, Hsu said. But she added that this age bracket is likely grappling with rising housing costs and debt right now, while also feeling uncertainty tied to economic policy under the new White House.
“I have a suspicion that young people are starting to feel like — or have been feeling like — many markers of the American dream are much more difficult to reach now,” Hsu said.
Young people are also less likely to have assets such as property or investments that can buoy financial spirits when the economy flashes warning signs, according to Camelia Kuhnen, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina.
The potential for a recession, which is broadly defined as at least two consecutive quarters of the national economy contracting, has been on the minds of both Wall Street and Main Street. A Deutsche Bank survey conducted March 17-20 found the average global market strategist saw a nearly 43% chance of a recession over the next 12 months.
An index of consumer expectations for the future released Tuesday by the Conference Board slid to its lowest level in 12 years, falling well below the threshold that signals a recession ahead. Meanwhile, Google searches during a period in March for the word “recession” hit highs not seen since 2022.
This onslaught of news comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on March 16 that there were “no guarantees” the U.S. would avoid a recession. Bessent said a “detox” period is needed for the national economy, which he and other Trump administration officials have argued is too reliant on government spending.

‘The vibes are off’

Though the recession humor has had a yearslong history online, it’s gained momentum in recent weeks as the state of the economy has become a more common talking point, according to Cohen, the Queens College professor. While a recession indicator entry was added to the digital culture encyclopedia Know Your Meme only this month, the jokes have tracked back to at least 2019.
“Especially with Gen Z, there’s a lot of jokes with never being in a stable economic environment,” said Max Rosenzweig, a 24-year-old user experience researcher whose personal recession indicator was the number of people he’s seen wearing berets. “It’s funny, but it’s like, we’re making light of something that is scary.”
Cohen said he heard from Gen Z students that this type of humor helped them realize others are experiencing the same uncertainty. These students may not feel control over the country’s economic standing, he said, but they can at least find community and levity in a precarious moment.
Cohen sees the recent surge of this humor as a sort of “barometer” for what he calls the vibes around the economy. His conclusion: “The vibes are off.”
Brams sees a similar story playing out in South Florida and on social media. “I’m not going to lie, it just feels really grim,” the 26-year-old said.
But, “it’s not anything that me or my friend or my boyfriend or my parents can really do anything about,” she said. “There’s no choice but to just stay in your lane, try to keep your job, try to find joy where you can and just stay afloat.” More

Amid rising trade tensions and tariff impositions, “on a relative basis, in the short term, Europe will be less affected than the U.S.,” Santander’s Ana Botín told CNBC.
Botín is not alone in her warning regarding tariffs’ negative impact on the U.S., with many analysts also saying the duties could ultimately cause higher inflation and strain the wallets of U.S. consumers.
Botín said recent unpredictability has clouded clarity over the European Central Bank’s next monetary policy steps. “There’s a case to be made for … rates coming down, but probably not as fast,” she said.

The White House’s protectionist policies could hit the U.S. harder than Europe in the short term, Banco Santander’s executive chair told CNBC on Thursday, as tariffs take a toll on domestic consumers.
“Tariffs [are] a tax. It’s a tax on the consumer.” Ana Botín said in an interview with CNBC’s Karen Tso in Brussels on the sidelines of the 2025 IIF European Summit. “Ultimately, the economy will pay a price. There will be less growth and there will be more inflation, other things equal.”

President Donald Trump has imposed — and at times suspended or revoked — a slew of tariffs on imports into the U.S. since his second administration began in January. He is seeking to promote domestic manufacturing and reduce trade deficits between the world’s largest economy and its commercial partners.
Botín is not alone in her warning regarding tariffs’ negative impact on the U.S., with many analysts also saying the duties could ultimately cause higher inflation and strain the wallets of U.S. consumers.
“On a relative basis, in the short term, Europe will be less affected than the U.S.,” Botín said Thursday.

Germany slams Trump’s 25% auto tariffs as bad news for U.S., EU and global trade

The imposition of blanket and country-specific duties — which include Wednesday’s news of a 25% tariff on all car imports into the U.S., effective from April 2 — have led to a number of retaliatory measures, including from the U.S.’ historical transatlantic ally, the European Union.
The bloc has also taken steps to bolster its autonomy through a package of proposals that could critically relax previously ironclad fiscal rules and mobilize nearly 800 billion euros ($863.8 billion) toward the region’s higher defense expenditures.

“European banks today are ready to lend more and support the economy more. We are strong. We have the capital,” Botín said. She also called for more “flexibility” in EU regulations that currently determine the “buffers” European lenders must hold on top of minimum capital requirements to bolster their resilience in the event of financial shocks.
The latest EU plans — and Germany’s steps to overhaul its long-standing debt policy to accommodate bolstered security spending — have boosted German and European defense stocks in recent weeks.
However, Germany is heavily reliant on its beleaguered auto sector — leaving the world’s third-largest exporter vulnerable to stark shifts in trade patterns and potentially exposed to recessionary risks as a result of U.S. tariffs, German central bank Governor Joachim Nagel warned earlier this month.

Botín — whose bank is the fifth-largest auto lender in the U.S. and has been pushing to expand its operations transatlantic while shuttering some physical branches in the U.K. — painted an optimistic picture of the state of the European economy, however.
“As of today, we believe the U.S. will slow down more than Europe, other things equal, because Germany is one third of the economy of the euro zone. That’s huge. So that’s going to give a boost,” she said, while also acknowledging that recent unpredictability has clouded clarity over the European Central Bank’s next monetary policy steps.
The central bank is broadly expected to proceed with a 25-basis-point interest rate cut during its next meeting on April 17. It also eased monetary policy in early March and signaled at the time that its monetary policy had become “meaningfully less restrictive.”
“The fundamentals of the economy are strong, but the uncertainty and volatility [are] at historic levels. So it’s a really hard decision. So there is no doubt that tariffs are a tax on consumer[s], it means slower growth, it means higher inflation,” Botín said.
“How much slower growth and how much higher inflation, we don’t know. But when you don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few months, you’re going to wait to buy a car, you’re going to wait to buy a fridge. If you’re a company … you’re going to wait to see where the tariffs hit harder. So this is going to mean a slowdown in activity. That’ll point toward lower rates. Inflation will point the other direction.”
Botín added that, as a result, “there’s a case to be made for … rates coming down, but probably not as fast.”
Speaking to CNBC’s Tso earlier in the day, ECB policymaker Pierre Wunsch also indicated that the U.S. tariff war had encumbered the bank’s decision-making.
“If we forget tariffs …. we were going in the right direction. Then the question was more a question of fine tuning of the pace of cuts and where we land,” he said. “I was like, you know, inflation might be the boring part of [20]25, and [20]25 is not a boring year. But if you add tariffs to the equation, it’s becoming more complicated.” More

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies are complicating the path ahead for European Central Bank interest rates, Pierre Wunsch, member of the ECB’s Governing Council, told CNBC.
His comments come after Trump announced 25% tariffs on all cars “not made in the United States,” and threatened to place “far larger” tariffs on the European Union and Canada if they were to work together to resist duties from the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies are making the path ahead for European Central Bank interest rates “more complicated,” according to Pierre Wunsch, member of the ECB’s Governing Council.
“We were going in the right direction. And I was actually quite relaxed,” he told CNBC’s Karen Tso on Thursday on the sidelines of the IIF Europe Summit in Brussels.

“If we forget tariffs …. we were going in the right direction. Then the question was more a question of fine tuning of the pace of cuts and where we land,” Wunsch said. “I was like, you know, inflation might be the boring part of [20]25, and [20]25 is not a boring year. But if you add tariffs to the equation, it’s becoming more complicated,” he said.
Wunsch, who is also the Governor of the National Bank of Belgium, said tariffs would be “bad for growth” and “probably” inflationary, but noted that the exact impact remains uncertain and will depend any potential retaliation and on how exchange rates react to duties.
His comments come a day after Trump announced 25% tariffs on all cars “not made in the United States,” effective as of April 2. In a post on Truth Social, Trump on Thursday also threatened to place “far larger” tariffs on the European Union and Canada if they were to work together to resist duties from the U.S.
These are just the latest developments in Trump’s trade policy turmoil, which has seen a slew of tariffs announced — and at times postponed, amended or abolished, as negotiations and counter measures have also come into play.
April 2 is set to be a key date for a wide range of duties to come into effect, although recent comments from Trump and his administration have signaled that adjustments could be made and the duties could be more lenient than originally indicated.

Interest rate decisions ahead

The ECB will make its next interest rate decision on April 17 soon after the tariffs are scheduled to come into effect. Markets were last pricing in a roughly 79% chance of a 25-basis-point interest rate cut from the ECB next month, according to LSEG data.
By then, Wunsch said the central bank could have a rough idea of the impact of tariffs, which could influence the ECB’s decision making. However, he said he “wouldn’t put too much focus on April,” as trade policy would have a medium-term impact.
The central banker on Thursday left the door open for all possible actions from the ECB regarding interest rates — further cuts, a hike, or a pause.
“I think the likelihood is still limited that we would have to hike, but there might be a case for a pause,” he said.
“If tariffs have an inflationary impact and a negative impact on growth, it’s going to be a difficult equation, and we might have to consider a pause. I’m not pleading for one, but I think it should be part of the discussion,” he said.

Fiscal vs. tariff policy

Policymaker Wunsch on Thursday also flagged that recent shifts around fiscal policy in Europe could dampen the impact of tariffs.
Germany earlier this month adjusted its constitution in what has been described as a fiscal U-turn, making changes to its long standing debt policies to enable higher defense spending and creating a 500 billion euro ($539 billion) infrastructure special fund.
The European Commission meanwhile has also made moves towards a major defense expenditures package, pledging to mobilize as much as 800 billion euros to boost security spending.
While it was still unclear what exactly would come of the EU-wide plans, “what’s going to take place in Germany is … significant,” according to Wunsch.
The country’s measures “could, to some extent, and even maybe to a large extent, over the medium term, compensate for the tariffs in the U.S.,” he said.
If the impacts of tariffs and fiscal expansion balance out, the remaining impact from tariffs could then be around driving inflation higher, Wunsch noted, saying this was a reason to look not just at April but to take a longer term view over the next one or two years.
“The risk might be on the upside on the inflation front,” he said. More