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Contracted economist warns tariffs and lower consumer sentiment cloud Santa Fe revenue outlook
Summary
Dr. Riley White told the Santa Fe Finance Committee on April 24 that new federal tariffs, falling consumer sentiment and weaker GDP readings raise downside risk for locally important gross receipts tax (GRT) revenues, though tourism and high‑income consumer spending have so far buffered the city.
Dr. Riley White, a tenured professor at the University of New Mexico who serves as the city’s contracted economist, told the Finance Committee on April 24 that rising tariffs and falling consumer confidence have raised the odds of a U.S. slowdown and can weigh on Santa Fe’s revenue outlook.
"We never really recovered our pre‑COVID certainty," White said, explaining that consumer sentiment — a key predictor of spending — has trended downward since 2020 even as overall spending remained elevated in recent years.
White told members the Federal Reserve’s real‑time GDP models showed a sharp pullback in early 2025, driven largely by companies front‑loading imports ahead of newly announced tariffs. Federal Reserve indicators cited by White tracked…
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