Unemployment surges as Trump's Florida paradise crumbles

MAGA Republicans often hail Florida as a symbol of their movement's success, praising Ron DeSantis' two terms as governor and arguing that President Donald Trump chose wisely when he made Mar-a-Lago his primary residence. The Sunshine State is associated with a who's-who of MAGA, including Trump, DeSantis, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, ex-U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, among many others.

But Florida, according to Bloomberg, is now facing higher-than-average unemployment.

"While the U.S. unemployment rate has been little changed over the past year, joblessness in Florida has surged," according to Bloomberg News reporter Augusta Saraiva. "It's climbed more than a percentage point to 4.8 percent — faster than nearly any other state — and is now among the highest nationwide. Job growth has slowed to a crawl amid a pullback in key industries like real estate, retail and tourism, all of which are highly sensitive to interest rates and consumer demand."

Saraiva continues, "That marks a reversal from Florida's run as a magnet for workers and retirees coming out of the pandemic, when its economy was one of the hottest in the U.S. It also raises questions about the viability of the state's growth model as a rising cost of living starts to send would-be Floridians elsewhere."

Interviewees offered some reasons why unemployment is rising in Florida.

Howard Frank, a public policy expert at Florida International University, told Bloomberg News, "We're highly dependent on tourism and retail. If people aren't going out to eat, if people aren't going to Disney, if people are cutting back on discretionary expenses, well, Florida will be hit quite hard."

Jesse Wheeler, who studies macroeconomics at Revelio Labs, told Bloomberg News,

"By the way its economy is set up, Florida just tends to be more cyclical than the U.S. economy as a whole. It shares the trends of the U.S., but it tends to exacerbate them."

Saraiva notes that Florida's "lack of job opportunities" is "likely to become front-and-center ahead of this year's midterm elections."

"The tide has turned amid worsening affordability problems, a surge in immigration enforcement and a slowdown in tourism," the Bloomberg News journalist reports. "Net domestic migration to Florida totaled just 22,517 people in the year through July 1, 2025, according to Census Bureau figures — less than a tenth of the peak recorded in 2022. And Visit Florida, the state's official tourism bureau, says the number of visitors fell 1 percent in the first quarter of 2026 from a year earlier."

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