Q Breakfast Offers Glimpse of the Economic Future

Economics may be known as the dismal science, but University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith did his best to put if not a happy face on the future, at least a rational one. Speaking at the latest Volusia County Economic Development “Q” Breakfast, Snaith, who serves as director of UCF’s Institute for Economic Forecasting, said the past year and a half has been a difficult time for making economic predictions.

“This has been a challenging time for forecasting,” he said, citing tariff issues, ongoing inflation and the current situation in the Middle East. He put a fine point on it by quoting baseball Hall of Famer and well-known philosopher Yogi Berra: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

While appreciating the laugh from the full house in the Dennis McGree Room at Daytona Beach International Airport, Snaith said there is “a lot going on” in what he termed the “economic crosscurrents” that make economic forecasting especially difficult.

From the geopolitical situation, the U.S. national debt, consumer and labor markets and the impact of artificial intelligence, Snaith said the economy is being impacted from all sides.

On the national debt – which just hit the $40 trillion mark – Snaith said the U.S. debt to gross domestic product ratio is getting to the point where it is going to start to hurt.

“To fix it, there’s going to be some need for legislation,” he said. “I had some hope for DOGE (the so-called Department of Government Efficiency that garnered headlines in early 2025) but it really didn’t deliver as I had hoped.”

Snaith spent some time talking about the impact of AI and said it reminds him of the economic uncertainty created by the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s.

“Creative destruction has, and will be, part of our economy,” he said. “(AI) will have an impact, but to what extent remains to be seen.”

Snaith also touched on the role of the Federal Reserve Board, emphasizing the importance of central bank independence.

“If the central bank is dependent on the central government, bad things happen,” he said. “The Fed has to be independent.”

As for the forecast ahead, Snaith was cautiously optimistic.

“The unemployment rate will continue to drift up,” he said. “That high job growth we saw rocketing out of the lockdowns is gone. I do expect inflation to ease.”

Here in Florida, Snaith said the situation looks better.

“We have been outperforming the national economy for many years coming out of Covid,” he said. And in Volusia County the prospects are even brighter.

“We’re expecting continued growth here,” Snaith said. “This is the end cap of the I-4 Corridor” making the area the “breadbasket of the economy” with better job growth than the state as a whole.