Prominent area consultant plays down threats to economy: ‘Consumers are doing fine’

Jeremy Aguero at a Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance event in August 2024. (Photo: LVGEA)

Economic indicators may be pointing toward a downturn, but Nevada’s go-to consultant predicts no “nuclear winter” is coming for Las Vegas and its vaunted tourism industry.

“Overall, the United States is both resilient and resourceful, and so is the State of Nevada, and so is Southern Nevada,” Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis told attendees at a Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance event Thursday. “Economic cycles are going to happen. This one is inevitably going to happen.”

Aguero is Nevada’s most high-profile consultant and has been contracted to help create many of the largest economic development projects — and public subsidy packages — in the state’s history, including Allegiant Stadium for the Raiders and the planned Las Vegas Strip baseball stadium for the Athletics. Aguero also worked on the failed 2021 Blockchains LLC initiative to allow private companies to effectively establish their own local governments in Nevada.

His comments Thursday come as Southern Nevada reports six consecutive months of declining visitation and the latest U.S. job report shows a softening of the labor market.

“We’ve been in a period of economic uncertainty for some period of time as we’ve introduced $5.3 trillion worth of stimulus into our economy,” Aguero said, referring to the half dozen fiscal pandemic-aid packages passed since 2020. “Now we’re shocked and stunned that money is not around and it’s a little more difficult on folks.”

He downplayed the Trump administration’s aggressive tariff policy, saying “the risk is certainly there” but adding that tariffs, the vast majority of which went into effect Thursday, have had “almost no particular effect on consumers today.”

Aguero acknowledged “some softness” in the economy and said people “absolutely” have concerns, but “generally speaking, our economy is moving forward.”

He pointed to U.S. gross domestic product, which is at the highest level it’s ever been.

Aguero also noted that employment overall in the U.S. is up.

And he referenced the most recent jobs report, which showed such sluggish job growth in the country over the last three months that President Donald Trump fired the person running the agency that created the report.

“You would have thought the world was somehow going to end,” Aguero said. “I assure you; it is not. Because we are employing more people in the United States than at any point in our history.”

Nevada has one of the highest unemployment rates among states but is “one of a handful of states that has seen a material reduction in its unemployment rate,” Aguero noted.

But wage growth, he said, has outpaced inflation.

“We are increasingly concerned about prices that are rising,” he added. “I would suggest that this has as much to do with perception as it does reality.”

That still presents “a big problem” for the state, he said.

“Consumers feel worse about what is happening in the world today than they did at the peak of the pandemic,” Aguero said. “Consumers are doing fine. They’re scared to death in terms of what comes next.”

Data shows that consumers are concerned and pulling back on discretionary spending. It also shows that consumer debt is up, particularly among those making lower incomes.

Aguero also addressed recent data showing declines in visitor volume, gaming revenue and average daily room rates.

“This has been the expectation for a long time, that there would be at least some of that,” he said. “What we’ve seen is the beginning of that.”

But he praised the state’s tourism sector as being the best in the industry. He predicted it will, as it has in the past, adapt to visitor demographic changes and consumer trends and concerns.

Aguero said that over the past three decades there have been numerous times, including after 9/11 and the Great Recession, when “everybody wants to believe that what we have in front of us is never going to be sustained.”

“We’re going to have some challenges,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it.”