- JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that the economic stimulus from the pandemic has run its course, leaving consumers with depleted savings and raising concerns that inflation could rise while employment falls, posing a challenge for the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate.
For months, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has been nervous that the two sides of the Federal Open Market Committee’s dual mandate will end up in opposition.
Now, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has suggested he’s right: The Wall Street veteran sees inflation going up and employment rates coming down, a headache indeed for the FOMC chairman.
Dimon suggested the upset has been brewing for some time, as opposed to being symptomatic of recent volatility in economic and foreign policy.
What is driving the billionaire banker’s fears is that the pumps used to boost the economy during the pandemic have finally run dry, and consumers are at last likely to pay the price.
Thus far, Wall Street giants have been pleasantly surprised by the robust health of consumers, which prevented the economy from free-falling into a hard landing and recession.
But it seems the economy hasn’t escaped without any significant scars, with Dimon telling Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Financials conference this week the mood is “okay,” explaining: “So the consumer had money, wages are pretty good, unemployment is pretty good, they’re spending it … All the extra money from COVID is kinda gone, so the lower-end folks … have normalized.
“At the upper end, the consumer is still traveling and spending some money, their jobs are there. Their home prices are way up, their stock prices are way up, it’s looking pretty good.”
But Dimon also noted that sentiment has fluctuated since Trump took office. Per the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment barometer, for example, the index dropped from 71.7 in January 2025 to 52.2 by April, but has since stabilized.
The stock market has similarly fluctuated, wiping billions off the net worth of some of the world’s richest people before ballooning back up again. The S&P 500, for example, is up 2.6% for the year to date at the time of writing.
“The corporate side’s the same thing,” continued Dimon, per a recording obtained by Fortune. “Sentiments dropped, sentiments are coming back up, but business is still okay.
“But the buts are real—I’m not trying to be negative. We spent $10 trillion … Well, of course consumers have more money, we gave it to them. Of course businesses are doing better, consumers spent the $10 trillion—that goes right through P&Ls in every industry out there.
“And then we had QE [quantitative easing] … and the real reversal is just starting.”
Dimon’s $10 trillion figure is understood to refer to the global spending governments committed to boosting their economies during the pandemic.
He added: “Then you have all these really complex, moving tectonic plates around trade, economics, geopolitics, and future factors, which I think are inflationary: military, restructuring of trade, ongoing fiscal deficits, so it’s okay, but whenever you say ‘consumer sentiment’ remember neither consumers nor businesses ever pick the inflection points, they never have.
“If you’re looking for that inflection point … they’re not going to tell you that, you’re going to see real numbers, and I think there’s a chance real numbers will deteriorate. Employment will come down a little bit, inflation will go up a little bit—hopefully, it’s just a little bit.”
Worry about the ‘big ones’
Dimon added he wouldn’t worry about smaller fluctuations in metrics such as inflation and the employment rate, but would be more focused on wider issues (as he calls them, the “big ones”) like geopolitics, trading partnerships, and the militarization of the world.
This will be no surprise to those who have avidly read Dimon’s shareholder letters over the past few years.
In his most recent letter, for example, he cautioned the White House against pushing key allies too far away: “Keeping our alliances together, both militarily and economically, is essential. The opposite is precisely what our adversaries want.”
“This is going to be hard, but our country’s goal should be to help make European nations stronger and keep them close. If Europe’s economic weakness leads to fragmentation, the landscape will look a lot like the world before World War II.”
He added: “Economics is the longtime glue, and America First is fine, as long as it doesn’t end up being America alone.”
